Harris's line is one of the stress markers which show an arrest of growth due to malnutrition or several diseases during childhood. The frequency of occurrence of this line was investigated in the limb bones of a total of 683 skeletons from the Jomon period to the Modern period in western Japan. By examining the limb bones of modern people, Harris's lines were found most frequently in the distal ends of femurs and the proximal ends of tibias. In the limb bones of subadults, the transverse line was observed at a frequency of as much as twice that in adults. While the frequency of the line's appearance was 30.8% in the Jomon people, the peoples after the Yayoi period showed significantly high frequency of about 50%. A tendency of the frequency of Harris's line to decrease during these periods was not observed. In the Yayoi period, however, significant regional differences in their frequency were found. While it was found at a frequency of 46.9% in the Yayoi people of the Fukuoka-Saga region, the Doigahama Yayoi people in Yamaguchi prefecture and Hirota Yayoi people in Tanegashima, Kagoshima prefecture, showed frequencies of only 20% and 7.4%, respectively, in their Harris's line. In the Kofun period, the transverse lines were found more frequently in the people who had undergone Yokoana-type burials than in the peoples who constructed mound-type burials or cist.

View full abstract