Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Body form variation of prehistoric Jomon

Geographic variation in body forms of prehistoric Jomon males in the Japanese archipelago: Its ecogeographic implications Hitoshi Fukase et al. Diversity of human body size and shape is often biogeographically interpreted in association with climatic conditions. According to Bergmann's and Allen's rules, populations in regions with a cold climate are expected to display an overall larger body and smaller/shorter extremities than those in warm/hot environments. In the present study, the skeletal limb size and proportions of prehistoric Jomon hunter-gatherers, who extensively inhabited subarctic to subtropical areas in the ancient Japanese archipelago, were examined to evaluate whether or not the inter-regional differences follow such ecogeographic patterns.