>>4183347Alpinism is not natural in Europe and a stress response.
"For example, the cephalic index in Poland increased from 73.5-74.0 in the eleventh-twelfth century to 83.0-84.0 in the twentieth century (Bielicki & Welon 1964). The steady improvement in the quality of life starting at the end of the nineteenth century, in connection with the Industrial Revolution, has led to a continuous trend of increasing stature (Baten & Blum 2012; Hatton 2013; Grasgruber & Hrazdira 2020), and changing cranial shape: European crania became larger, longer, and taller, although cranial breadth simultaneously decreased (Jellinghaus et al. 2018). The rapid change in cranial morphology among European immigrants in the USA can, therefore, be linked to a dramatic improvement in living conditions, which were much better than in Europe at the time (Komlos & Baur 2004)."
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-025-02207-5