It is well known that the stature decreases with aging but the rate or onset age of this change have been rarely measured. The present paper describes the changes in physical characteristics with aging in cross-sectional measurements. Stature and the lengths of the trunk, headed neck, upper limb and lower limb were measured on 566 volunteers living in the Sagea Prefecture at the age of 50 to 94 year old (155 male and 411 female). The stature decreased with the age at the rate of −0.19 cm/year male, and −0.41 cm/year female. The female stature decreased a greater rate than the male stature. The male stature proposed non-age-related loss, while that for female decreased by aging precessed the rate of −0.29 cm/year, whereas the loss of stature for female was related with trunk length loss. The lengths of the lower limbs, the upper limbs and the head-neck did not decrease by aging.

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This article examines tooth eruption and wear patterns of 45 boar mandibles excavated from the Takeshi site in Chiba Prefecture. The analytical method adopted in this paper follows Niimi (1991). First, the utility of this method is tested using modern wild boar specimens that are older than 0 year. All of these modern specimens were collected in the winter. The results indicate that the method correctly classified the samples into five age groups. Next, the same method was used to classify samples from the Takeshi site into the five age groups. The results indicate that samples that are classified into the age group of 1.5 years old are most abundant, which were followed by those of the age group of 3.5 years old. The hunting or slaughter season was estimated to have been winter. These results help us understand characteristics of boar exploitation by the residents of the Takeshi site. The paper also argues for the need to adopt a more refined method to retrieve boar mandible specimens in the field.

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Geographical variation in permanent tooth size was examined using four Edo samples from Tohoku, Kanto, Kinki and Kyushu Districts in Japan. The result was that the Kinki people possessed the largest teeth, followed by the Kyushu people, Kanto people, and Tohoku people, in descending order. The Kinki people had a resemblance to the immigrant Yayoi people that were characterized by large tooth size, and the Tohoku people had a resemblance to the prehistoric Jomon people characterized by small tooth size. This result suggests the interesting relationship between the geographical variation in tooth size and the immigration from the Asian Continent to Japan.

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