Based on morphological data from bones and teeth, Yayoi people in northern Kyushu are thought to have been immigrants or their descendants. They or their ascendants are thought to have introduced agriculture, especially rice growing to Japan. During the middle period of the prehistoric shell midden culture on Okinawa island, equivalent to the latest Jomon and early Yayoi period, the subsistence of Okinawa islander is thought to have been hunting and gathering. In the present study, the dental morbid condition of the hunter-gatherers and the agriculturalists is compared. As reported in previous studies, the carious teeth ratio of the agriculturalists was found to be higher than that of the hunter-gatherers. Moreover, the missing teeth and tooth root caries, those are thought to have been caused by peripheral periodontal disease, abruptly increased in the elder agriculturalists in the samples studied. Therefore, peripheral periodontal disease is thought to have spread to agriculturalists in northern Kyushu during the Yayoi period.

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Craniometric ontogenetic data of crab-eating (Macaca fascicularis), rhesus (Macaca mulatta) and Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata) are examined by logarithmic principal component analysis. The males and females of each species are shown to follow a common growth trajectory, which varies among the species. The growth trajectory of M. fascicularis is distinctive, reflecting relatively larger facial length, facial height and palatal length, and narrower interorbital breadth. The morphological difference between M. mulatta and M. fuscata is weaker than that between either of them and M. fascicularis. Adult sexual dimorphism of the cranium is less pronounced in M. fuscata than in the other two species, of which M. fascicularis attains the adult level of dimorphism earlier than M. mulatta. These differences among the three closely related species suggest male-male competition is relaxed in M. fuscata and more intensive in M. fascicularis.

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A Physique index was devised for evaluation of fatness in Japanese macaques. Parameters for a function of the physique index were statistically obtained from body weight and trunk length of immature monkeys of Primate Research Institute, Kyoto University. Index-male is expressed as 1.01 ^*[Body weight (Kg)]^* [Anterior trunk length]^-2.3* 10⁷, and Index-female is 1.05^*[Body weight]^*[Anterior trunk length]^-2.3* 10⁷. The indices show an age change pattern common to the both sexes; an infants index which starts at 100 decreases with age during juvenile period till four years of age, and then rapidly increases to 120 in males and to 110 in females. The index of males keeps gradual increase, but that of females neither increases nor decreases. Application of physique index to various Japanese monkey groups living in different environments, shows that monkeys in the northern and heavy-snow falling area have a larger index (130-140), and those in the warmer area have a smaller index (ca. 90-100). The larger index means that they show adaptability for winter by means of preservation of energy. Influence of food control is so strong as to change the physique index widely.

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The purpose of this review is to evaluate the anthropometric data taken by the author and her colleagues in the early 1990s, in which the subjects comprise both students and members of the general population who were born mostly in and after 1965. Secular changes and socioeconomic differences in height and some other major measurement items at age 20 in Japan are examined, using statistical reports from nationwide research conducted between 1892 and 1994. Socioeconomic difference in height at age 20 has disappeared in those born in the mid-1960s. The earlier maturing trend has stopped at the same time; however, adult height is still increasing slowly in those born in the 1960s, due to the increasing preadolescent growth rate. Possible causes of the secular change and the disappearance of socioeconomic difference in height are discussed in relation to changes in environmental factors. Secular changes in height at reference age (9 for boys, 7 for girls), height at age two, and postneonatal mortality suggest that secular change in height at age 20 may stop around 2005 more probably in females than in males. The estimated height at age 20 in 2003 is close to the mean height of the present subjects; thus the anthropometric data will be useful as reference data in ergonomic applications for at least two decades, even if the secular change continues at the present rate

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