A Constitutional-Anthropological Study of the Inhabitants of Takachiho District, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan

Abstract

The writer made a biometric investigation from the constitutional-anthropological point of view, measuring bodies, limbs, heads and faces, for the 515 adult inhabitants of Takachiho-machi, Usuki-gun, Miyazaki-ken, in January, 1957. The followings are the findings from the examination of the measures and indices and the comparative analysis with those of the inhabitants of other districts covering twenty-five items.
1. The average height of the inhabitants of Takachiho district is 159.74cm, which belongs to the “ short ” height group according to the Martin's classification and to the “ short medium ” height group for the Japanese adults.
2. The cephalic index is 82.41, 61.1% of them belong to the brachycephalic type.
3. The zygomatic arch width-mandibular angle width index is 77.60. Over half of them belong to the medium type.
The synthetical comparison by the average type index showed that they had the closest tribal affinity to the inhabitants of Aira district, then Murayama basin region, Hida and Northern Shinshu districts, and Tsushima island followed it, and they had the slight affinity to Ainos in Hokkaido, and the inhabitants of Ecchu, Sagami and Hitachi districts and Koga mountanius region. The comparisons by the index correlogram and other methods also revealed the similar results.