Is there any differences on a human body from the 1600’s and 2000’s?

Question

I wanna know if there are any differences from them. How have we adapted and stuff in 400 years.

In: Biology

Answer 1

From a genetic perspective, basically nothing has changed. Adaptations takes a lot longer than that to manifest. Especially among a large population. Anatomically modern humans have been around for over 100,000 years.

That said, on average people are taller and are more likely to be nearsighted.

Neither of these are genetic, though. Taller height is due to better nutrition and nearsightedness is thought to be because we spend so much time with screens from a young age.

So if you could magically take a few infant from the 1600s and raise them as a normal modern child they would likely be taller then they would have been and more of them would be nearsighted then they would have been.