Anthropological studies of human skeletal remains from Cook Islands, Polynesia —Prehistoric skulls from Pukapuka atoll—

Abstract

Anthropological surveys of the Pukapuka Atoll, the Northern Cook Islands, discovered several intements dated around 1500 B.P, from which twenty-five interred human remains were retrieved. This study describes several features revealed from analyses on the skulls of 6 males. 1) The craniometrical comparison of the skulls with the heads of modern Pukapukan males revealed a feature, that the prehistoric specimens were mesocranic, whereas the modern people showed brachycephalic. 2) The craniometrical comparison with prehistoric specimens from other islands in Oceania populations demonstrated that the prehistoric Pukapukan exhibited typical features of prehistoric Polynesians, that they are larger than the specimen from other regions in sagittal frontal arc, sagittal chord, bimaxillary breadth and mandibular ramus breadth. 3) The craniometrical comparisons with Japanese specimens in Jomon, Yayoi, Kamakura, Edo and modern periods revealed that prehistoric Pukapukan specimens were larger in sagittal frontal arc, sagittal frontal chord, bimaxillary breadth and mandibular ramus breadth than Japanese ones in any periods. 4) The odservation of teeth in excavated Pukapukan skulls revealed that their percent of carious teeth reached 7.4% in average. 5) The pricipal coordinate analysis of craniometrical features from thirteen groups including five islands in Polynesia, three islands in Micronesia, and Japanese groups from Jomon, Yayoi, Kamakura, Edo and Modern periods demonstrated that there were no homogeneity between prehistoric Polynesian and Japanese in the Jomon period.