Anthropological Science

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Excavations at the Funadomari Site, located on Rebun Island, in northernmost Japan, have recovered 28 inhumation burials which date to the Late Jomon Period. The morphological characteristics of these skeletons, including metric and non-metric cranial traits, dental measurements, and limb bone measurements, are similar to other Jomon skeletal series from Honshu Island, Japan. However, analysis of cranial metric data reveals some peculiarities in the Funadomari specimens. Compared to the Honshu Jomon samples, the Funadomari skulls have slightly larger cranial vaults, lower facial skeletons, larger orbital openings, and wider mandibular rami. These distinctive cranial traits, as well as custom of tooth ablation of one of the upper lateral incisors in some individuals, are commonly found in the Jomon skeletal series from southwestern Hokkaido Island, suggesting that there has been both biological and cultural exchanges between the Jomon people of Rebun Island and those of southwestern Hokkaido Island.

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The metric and non-metric data on 32 human skulls excavated at the Ebishima (alias Kaitori) shell-mound in Iwate Prefecture, Japan, are provided for future anthropological analyses. The skeletal remains date back to the Late and/or Latest phases (ca. 2, 500 B.C. to ca. 300 B.C.) of the Jomon period. Preliminary comparisons of cranial measurements among five Jomon local populations indicate that, in both sexes, the Jomon people of the Tohoku district including the Ebishima sample tend to have narrower and higher skulls than those from the other districts. In the occurrence frequencies of non-metric cranial characters, the Ebishima sample is not significantly different from the Jomon population of eastern Honshu in 20 of the 21 non-metric characters examined. The presumably deliberate ablation of teeth is recognized in 80% of the adults from the Ebishima shell-mound.

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