Selection and adaptation in human migration

Abstract

This article reviews the ways migration shapes human biology. This includes the physiological and genetic, but also socio-cultural aspects such as organization, behavior, and culture. Across disciplines I highlight the multiple levels of cultural and genetic selection whereby individuals and groups adapt to pressures along a migration timeline: the origin, transit, and destination. Generally, the evidence suggests that selective pressures and adaptations occur at the individual, family, and community levels. Consequently, across levels there are negotiations, interactions, and feedbacks that shape migration outcomes and the trajectory of evolutionary change. The rise and persistence of migration-relevant adaptations emerges as a central question, including the maintenance of cumulative culture adaptations, the persistence of “cultures of migration,” as well as the individual-level physiological and cognitive adaptations applied to successful transit and settlement in novel environments.