So, hunter-gatherers (supposedly) didn’t cook their foods, but agriculturalists did; but the agriculturalists were domesticating and eating the wild foods their ancestors had gathered. Sounds like cooking, not growing, is the culprit.
Also, smacks of Lysenkoism to reduce jaw size by easier chewing, yet teeth remain unchanged in size, type, and quantity; seems, if anything, the jaw musculature is what would be affected.
<300 skeletons from 3 separate areas, and covering a time span of 22,000 years also seems like a pretty small sample to make sweeping conclusions.
Lots of articles and “studies” cropping up that seem to attempt discrediting agriculture as a positive human achievement. That makes me very skeptical and wary of (Agenda 21 type) motives.
I agree.
What it looks like is (besides a too-small sample) is two populations merging after thousands of years of separation and isolation, or relatively short-term and recent inbreeding.