Switching to Farming Made Human Joint Bones Lighter

"Sending more time sitting on our butts isn't just a problem for obesity and heart disease. The shift to a more sedentary lifestyle has probably been bad for our bones, too. A pair of papers published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggest that humans evolved lighter joint bones relatively recently in our evolutionary history as a response to changes in physical activity.
One study pinpoints the origin of these weaker bones at the beginning of the Holocene epoch roughly 12,000 years ago, when humans began adopting agriculture. “Modern human skeletons have shifted quite recently towards lighter—more fragile, if you like—bodies. It started when we adopted agriculture. Our diets changed. Our levels of activity changed,” says study co-authorHabiba Chirchir, , an anthropologist in the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program..."
Farming & human joint bones