Journal of the Anthropological Society of Nippon
Online ISSN : 1884-765X
Print ISSN : 0003-5505
ISSN-L : 0003-5505
Volume 99, Issue 4
Displaying 1-8 of 8 articles from this issue
  • Tsunehiko HANIHARA
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 399-409
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The dental features of 4 geographical samples from the Nansei Island chain were compared with those of East and Southeast Asian samples. The series from Amami-, Okinawa-, and Sakishima-Islands exhibit inter-regional difference in both metric and non-metric dental features, pointing to some clinal variation in the Nansei Island chain. The original morphology is supposed to be represented by Jomonese. This clinal variation may reflect the post-Yayoi biocultural microevolution and admixture with the sinodont populations from main-island Japan. The sundadont ancestors of Jomonese have likely arrived from Sundaland via the now-submerged East Asian continental shelf in and after the late Pleistocene. One of the main routes for peopling of the Japanese Archipelago might have been through the Nansei Island chain.
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  • Masashi SAKUMA, Joel D. IRISH, Donald H. MORRIS
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 411-417
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The expression of the Bushman Canine dental trait among the Chewa tribe of East-Central Africa is described and compared with that of other African populations. Dental hard stone casts were obtained from 82 males and 76 females, and the trait was scored using the Arizona State University dental plaque system. No significant sexual dimorphism in the occurrence of the trait was found according to the chi-square test. The frequency of the Bushman Canine in the Chewa is markedly lower than that in a sample of San (Bushman) from Botswana. This helps support the view that the San represent either an ancestral or perhaps a different stock of people in comparison to other sub-Saharan Africans. When comparing the Chewa with a Central Sotho sample from South Africa, it appears that a gradient of the trait's frequency exists with decreasing expression from south to north. This gradient is probably caused by admixture between San and other peoples (mainly Bantuspeakers) who may not have originally possessed the trait. These findings agree with the so-called "Bantu-expansion" model proposed by several workers.
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  • Naohiko INOUE, Reiko SAKASHITA, Tadashige NOZAKI
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 419-436
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Recently, the authors investigated skulls from the Yin-Shang period, a great collection of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, the Republic of China (Taiwan). Their roentgenographic cephalograms were taken of two hundred thirty eight well preserved skulls. In analyzing these x-ray pictures, however, a difficult problem occurred in judging the sex of each individual, because no method had been developed before for this purpose. In this study, therefore, it was attempted to develop a method for evaluating the sex of individuals through roentgenographic cephalometrics.
    As the first step of the study, 45 skulls of the recent Atayals, in which the sex of each individual was recorded, were used as materials for devising the method of analysis. Glabella and mastoid were adopted as objects of measurement, and nine measuring items were established as shown in Table 2 and Fig. 2. Using a discriminant function which was created from only three variables, namely MaHT, GMPN, and GMFH, from 41 individuals with no missing value, the total cases of 45 individuals were classified into two sexual groups with 93.30% correct.
    The second step of the study was to apply the newly designed method to six skeletal populations from the Yin-Shang period, of which individuals were classified into three groups of male, female, and sex uncertain, according to YOUNG (1985a). Using discriminant functions which were created from the data obtained from the male and female skulls, the uncertain individuals were divided into two groups of male and female, though the reliability of a few cases were less than 0.7.
    From these results, the items and the method of measurement seemed to work as favourably as the traditional method of sex determination by direct observation of skulls. Another merit of this method is easiness of measurement on a twodimensional plane in comparison with a direct measuring method on actual skulls. Putting all the findings together, the roentgenographic cephalometric method used in the present study is effective enough for sex discrimination.
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  • Naomi DOI
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 437-462
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    It is well known that the osteometric traits are determined by both genetic and environmental factors. Therefore, in the analysis of anthropological characters, we must take into account the differences in the contributions of genetic and of environmental factors. However, the lack of suitable skeletal series of individuals with known family relationships makes the study of heritability very difficult.
    The late Dr. Takeo KANASEKI (1897-1983), who proposed "hybridization theory" as to the origin of the Japanese by osteometrical analysis, realized the necessity of familial studies of skeletal morphology, and he willed that his dead body was offered as a material for these studies. According to his will, the skeletal remains of both Dr. Takeo KANASEKI and his father, Mr. Kisaburo KANASEKI, have been kept in the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Kyushu University.
    At first, I performed the morphological investigation and the intra-familial comparison on the skeletal measurements of the KANASEKIfamily. Then, to detect the factors influencing the shape of the human skeleton, I examined osteometric data of the KANASEKI-family and some other skeletal series using multivariate statistical analysis by the following procedures:
    1) In order to estimate the family resemblances in skeletal morphology, Q-mode correlation coefficients and standardized Euclidean distances were calculated for the skeletal measurements of the relatives from 4 pedigrees and of 230 pairs of unrelated individuals from the recent Japanese.
    2) Heritabilities in the skeletal measurements of 4 pedigrees were estimated according to FALCONER (1989) and SJφVOLD (1984).
    3) The measurements from 6 populations (cf. Table 2.) belonging to some different social ranks were analyzed by canonical discriminant analysis to detect the factors affecting the shape of human skeleton.
    The results obtained were as follows:
    1) There was a marvelous similarity between skeletal morphology of the KANASEKI-family in neurocranium, humerus, femur and tibia.
    2) Morphological similarities in the relatives were significantly strong even in the extremity bones.
    3) High heritabilities were estimated at the epiphyseal part of the extremity bones.
    4) Environmental factors affecting the shape of the human skeletons consisted of social rank and the period that the population belonged to. The former seemed to be related with mechanical stresses on the bone and the latter with living conditions such as nutrition and medical care.
    5) The influence by mechanical stress was remarkably recognized in such high mobility areas, as facial cranium, forearm and leg.
    6) The influence on bones by living condition was more remarkable in the lower extremity than in the upper one.
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  • Yukio DODO, Masahiko KIDA, Hajime ISHIDA, Hirofumi MATSUMURA
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 463-475
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Satsumon culture flourished throughout Hokkaido from about the 8th century to the 13th century A.D. before the emergence of the Ainu in recent times. Human skeletal remains of this period, however, have rarely been discovered.
    In 1966, the archaeological excavation team directed by Mr. S. Sawa of the Kushiro City Museum unearthed human skeletal remains from a grave pit of the Satsumon period at the Shimodanosawa site, Akkeshi-cho, eastern Hokkaido (Fig. 1). This skeletal material, consisting of the skull and parts of the post-cranial skeleton, was intensively examined for this study.
    The age and sex of these remains were judged from the morphological evidence to be an adult female.
    Although PENROSE's shape distance based on seven cranial measurements showed that the Shimodanosawa individual was slightly closer to the modern Tohoku Japanese than to the Hokkaido Ainu (Tables 1 and 3), the same distances based on 13 mesiodistal tooth-crown diameters showed that the Shimodanosawa was far closer to the Hokkaido Ainu than to the modern Japanese (Tables 2 and 4). Moreover, a likelihood ratio analysis of cranial nonmetric traits indicated that the Shimodanosawa remains were far more likely to have come from the Ainu population than from the modern Japanese population (Table 5). Noticeable, as to the nonmetric traits of the Shimodanosawa skull, was the occurrence of a well-defined third occipital condyle, which is known to be relatively frequent in the Ainu but extremely rare in the Japanese (Fig. 3). The shoveling of the upper central incisors was slight in the Shimodanosawa as it is in the Ainu and the Jomon.
    With regard to the post-cranial bones of the Shimodanosawa remains, such traits as the ponticulus posterior of the atlas, the narrow and deep intercondylar notch, as well as the pilastered shaft of the femur, and the transversely flattened shaft of the tibia are all believed to appear more frequently in the Ainu than in the Japanese population.
    Therefore, taking all the results obtained from this study into consideration, it can be concluded that the total morphological pattern of the Shimodanosawa skeletal remains is substantially not different from that of the Hokkaido Ainu of recent times.
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  • Nobuo SHIGEHARA, Masao SERISAWA, Hideo TAKAHASHI
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 477-482
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Few reports has been published on the anomaly of the ancient Japanese. We recently examined human skeletal remains of the middle Edo period. The skeletons were excavated from the Nakanouchi site, Ogawa Town, Tochigi Prefecture. One of the skeletons (young adult female) showed persistence of deciduous tooth. The skeleton showed slight alveolar prognathism. Bilateral upper third molars and the lower right third molar were missing congenitally. In the upper jaw, the right second permanent incisor was absent, and a permanent canine was found in its place. A deciduous canine remained in the place where a permanent canine should have erupted. The upper left second permanent incisor was peg-shaped and protruded lingually. In the present case, the persistence of deciduous canine is attributable to the lack of the permanent lateral incisor. Further studies on the congenital tooth anomalies of the ancient human skeletal remains may help to clarify the chronological changes of the masticatory apparatus.
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  • Naomi DOI
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 483-496
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Metric and non-metric data on the skeletons of the KANASEKI-family, the late Dr. T. KANASEKI and his father, Mr. K. KANASEKI, are presented. Photographs of bones are also shown in plates.
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  • Toshiki TAKEOKA
    1991 Volume 99 Issue 4 Pages 497-516
    Published: 1991
    Released on J-STAGE: February 26, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    Il y a environ 5.000.000 ans, l'homme a commencé à fabriquer des pierres taillées en tenant un percuteur dans la main droite et un support dans la main gauche.
    Ce travail a permis le développement de la latéralité, à savoir l'union d'un côté entre la main droite et le cerveau gauche, qui effectue les opérations de logique (analyse de l'objet, structuration des opérations successives nécessaires a sa fabrication), et de l'autre entre la main gauche et le cerveau droit qui effectue les opérations analogiques (formation des images, comparaisons de ces images entre elles), ainsi que l'échange d'informations entre les cerveaux droit et gauche.
    Le développement des mains et du cerveau, leur coordination, ont permis à leur tour le perfectionnement de la pierre taillee, grace &agrâve; celui du travail de fabrication.
    Disons que ces trois éléments: mains-cerveau-pierre taillée ont permis, par leur interaction, une accélération dans l'évolution de l'homme et font littéralement propulsé, selon une courbe en spirale, sur la scène de l'histoire.
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