Secular Change of Estimated Stature of Japanese in Kanto District from the Prehistoric Age to the Present Day

Abstract

This paper concerns with the secular change of the Japanese stature in the Kanto district from the prehistoric age to the Present day. Samples of the prehistoric Yayoi age were not studied due to the lack of suitable numbers of materials. The mean stature from the Jomon age to the Early Modern age were caluculated by the equation of estimation from the femur. The stature in the Present day was shown by the somatometrical data by many authors. The estimated stature of both sexes was calculated according to the equation of estimation by Fujii (1960) based on the maximum length of femur. The stature of the male was also estimated according to the equation of estimation from the femur maximum length of the Mongloid by TROTTER and GLESER (1958).The result on some metrial characteristics of femur are shown in Tables 1, 5, and 6 and Figs. 1 and 2. The results of the stature by FUJII's equation are shown in Table 2 and Fig. 3. The results of the stature by FujII's equation from the Edo age to the Early Modern age and mean stature of somatometrical data are shown in Table 3 and Figs. 4 and 5. And the results of the stature by TROTTER and GLESER's equation are shown in Table 4 and Fig. 6. The results are summarized as follows:(1) The people in the Kofun age was the tallest throughout the prehistoric and historic ages. The stature of the people in the Kanto distict may increase gradually from the Jomon age to the Kofun age as shown in Table land Fig. 7 along with the stature of the people in the West Japan.(2) The stature in the historic age decreased gradually from the Kofun age to the Early Modern age. The stature of the female in the historic age decreased gradually from the Kofun age to the Early Modern age. The stature of the female in the Kamakura was estimated to be very small as in Fig. 3. But this estimation was based on only five right femora. According to the left femora, the stature of the Kamakura female shows no deviation from the gradual decrease.(3) The estimated stature of the people in the Early Modern age were the lowest throughout all the ages. The stature by somatometrical data seems to show two stature series as in Figs. 4 and 5. The one series is the taller students and the other is the shorter workmen or common people. The samples of the Early Modern age was thought to be the workmen, and their estima-ted stature can be thought to link with the somatometrical stature of the Modern age.(4) The mean stature by the somatometrical data from the Modern age to the Present day shows a considerably rapid increase. The people in the Present day is taller than those in the Kofun age.