Human Bodies in Extreme Environments

Abstract

Human habitation and adaptation to extreme environments have a deep history in anthropological research. Anthropologists’ understanding of these ecological pressures and how humans respond to them has grown substantially over the last 100+ years. This review covers long-standing knowledge on adaptation to classic extreme conditions of heat, cold, and high altitude, while also updating the areas in which recent research has broadened our understanding of human adaptation, acclimatization, and resilience. Unfortunately, the intersecting stresses of structural inequality and climate change have made these extremes more extreme, with drastic negative impacts on health and well-being. Future research will need to explore how extreme environments, structural inequality, and climate change are embodied as well as mitigated so that humans are better prepared to face a rapidly changing world.

The human biology of spaceflight

“…Missions to the moon and Mars will likely be too demanding, dangerous, and expensive for high‐volume research, and thus maximizing low‐earth orbit and terrestrial analogs will be essential. Analogous research frameworks to maximize data collection under constrained circumstances in extreme terrestrial settings are already used by human biologists (Leonard, this issue; Niclou et al, 2023; Ocobock, 2023). As this research in extreme settings has developed over decades, human biology work as we see it today has acquired an agile methodological toolkit developed for use in intensive field‐based research, biocultural perspectives, and a research infrastructure that relies on dialectic engagement and communication between researchers and resident communities.…”