Fifteen thousand years of bioarchaeological data reveal life history trade-offs among Europe’s first farmers

= 60,197) to directly test: 1) whether the demographic expansion associated with early farming coincided with a decline in body size; 2) whether long-term patterns in demography, skeletal growth, and diet differ between southern and northern Europe in ways that reflect region-specific life history trade-offs. The results reveal 1) that a population "boom" among early farmers (~8,500 BP) coincided with reduced body size, consistent with a shift in life history strategies that prioritized reproduction over skeletal growth; 2) divergent trends in body size and diet between northern and southern Europe suggest region-specific adaptations, with a growth-reproduction trade-off more evident in the south. Framed within broader patterns of human health, physical activity, and genetic turnover, the work underscores how early farming in Europe is best understood as a complex process of trade-offs that can be elucidated through analysis of bioarchaeological data within a life history framework.