The sophisticated feature of human speech allows us to turn much information encoded by language in the brain into sounds and to communicate it with others rapidly and efficiently. Understandings of the speech evolution shed light on the evolution of the language with which we are endowed today, while the two faculties may have arisen independently in the human lineage. Human speech shows highly sophisticated activities of the supralaryngeal vocal tract (SVT) through voluntary regulation of the vocal apparatuses, which is usually regulated involuntarily in other mammals. Advances in our understandings on the speech physiology underlie any arguments about the distinctions between speech in humans and vocalization patterns in nonhuman primates. Paleoanthropologists have continued to debate the “origin” of language, evaluating distinct morphological features, which are presumed to underlie just human speech. Unfortunately, such continued efforts have no consensus on the age of the origin. On the other hand, recent advances in empirical studies on the development of the SVT anatomy and on its potentials of dynamic manipulation in nonhuman primates endorse the idea that many of the separate biological foundations of speech had evolved independently before the origin of human beings, under different selection pressures unrelated to speech. Although the efforts have contributed to our better understanding on the mosaic processes of the speech evolution, the information on the static anatomy and manipulation potentials needs to be integrated in kinematic or kinetic terms. Such integration promises to pave the way to reevaluate the unique nature of the speech physiology in the light of vocalization in nonhuman mammals. It could contribute greatly to exploring the long “evolutionary history” of speech and language in paleoanthropological terms.

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We investigated the mesiodistal crown diameters of the maxillary and mandibular anterior teeth in female orthodontic patients, and compared them with those of other populations reported in the literature. We divided the orthodontic patients into three groups: those with maxillary protrusion, crowding, and mandibular protrusion. Among these three groups, the largest tooth size was exhibited by the maxillary protrusion group, followed by the crowding group, and the mandibular protrusion group had the smallest tooth size. The size of the maxillary canine and the mandibular lateral incisor strongly influenced the orthodontic diagnosis among these three groups. The comparison of the average over all the six mesiodistal crown diameters showed that the orthodontic patients had the largest tooth crowns, the general population group came next, and the normal occlusion group had the smallest tooth size. The magnitude of variation of the tooth size of orthodontic patients was not different from those of the normal and the general groups.

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The purposes of this study are to estimate stature of the medieval Japanese skeletons from the Yuigahama-minami site, Kamakura; to choose the most suitable stature estimation equations for the medieval population by examining six sets of equations for males and three sets of equation for females; and to trace secular trends in Japanese stature. The materials used in this study are composed of humerus, radius, femur, and tibia of 59 males and 52 females from the Yuigahama-minami site. According to the method by Kouchi, the discrepancy between the estimated statures based on each of the four different long bones was used as the criterion to determine the most suitable equations for the medieval skeletons. As a result, Fujii’s equations and Trotter and Gleser’s equations for Mongoloids are the most suitable equations for males, and Fujii’s equations and Saso and Hanihara’s equations are the most suitable equations for females. The estimated statures of both sexes calculated by the Fujii’s equations from the maximum length of femur were then compared with other populations in Japan. The comparison indicated the significant differences between the Yuigahama-minami and the populations from the Yayoi and Kofun periods, and suggested the gradual decreasing trends in estimated stature from the Kofun period to the medieval period, and also to the Meiji era.

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The Yamoto tunnel burials in Miyagi Prefecture are ancient cemetery sites constructed from the middle 7th to the initial 9th century. In 2003, many tunnel burials were exposed by hill slope collapses caused by a large earthquake. Subsequent archaeological investigations revealed that numerous human skeletal remains were buried inside about 40 tunnels. These skeletons generally display lower faces, large frontal indices and little simotic indices. Results of Penrose’s shape distance analysis based on cranial and dental metrics and Fisher’s likelihood ratio test used for cranial non-metric traits showed that many individuals were similar to the North Kyushu/Yamaguchi Yayoi, protohistoric Kofun, and modern Japanese people. However, some materials from burial No. 64 resembled those of the prehistoric Jomon, Epi-Jomon, and Ainu of Hokkaido Island. In addition, Penrose’s shape distance analysis indicated that cranial feature of the Yamoto people were slightly different from that of people from contemporary and neighboring tunnel burials. Their average statures were estimated as about 160 cm for males and 150 cm for females, indicating that they had somewhat small stature among protohistoric people. These physical features of the Yamoto people suggest Emishi control based on the ritsuryo legal code and the relationship between natives and immigrants in the Sendai Plain of ancient Tohoku district.

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International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES or Union) is the oldest international organization in anthropological science since it was organized in 1948. It has a world congress once in 5 years and some inter-congresses between two world congresses. Specific activities consistent with the objectives of the Union are carried out within the framework of the study groups called Commissions. It might be well remembered that the world congress was held in Japan (Tokyo and Kyoto) in 1968 and the Inter-congress was also held in Tokyo in 2002.
There is a new wave of information exchange at the global level of anthropology. World Council of Anthropological Associations (WCAA) was organized in Brazil 2004. This organization is a network of national and international associations that aims to promote worldwide communication and cooperation in anthropology. Its primary objectives are: to promote the discipline of anthropology in an international context; to promote cooperation and the sharing of information among world anthropologists; to promote jointly organized events of scientific debate and cooperation in research activities and dissemination of anthropological knowledge. Some problems and information arised in these organizations were discussed in this articlre.

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In this paper, I introduce the present conditions and general trends in the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (AAPA), and trace the history of physical anthropology in the U.S. During the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the major theoretical and methodological focus of physical anthropology was based on the model of racial typologies. In 1951, Sherwood Washburn proposed the idea of “new physical anthropology,” and in response the field grew more scientific in its approach, focusing on process, theory, and hypothesis testing. Since that time, a biocultural approach, as well as bioarchaeological or feminist perspectives, have, slowly, been adopted in the study of skeletal biology. In addition, the field of physical anthropology has maintained the “four field” approach to study that has been present in anthropology since its earliest days, and that combines biological anthropology with archaeology, cultural anthropology, and linguistic anthropology. Recently, an increasing interest in the forensic applications of physical anthropology has been causing a shift away from Washburn’s “new physical anthropology” back to the traditional physical anthropology that existed before his innovations. In the midst of these contradictions, conflicts, reconsiderations, and arguments, the AAPA and biological anthropologists are currently grappling with new research themes and new activities that can contribute greatly to contemporary society in the 21st century.

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A symposium ‘Human Osteology: A British Perspective’ held on 1998 at University of Bournemouth made British osteo-anthropologists resolve to organize society in UK for biological anthropology named “the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO)” on September 1998. Conference of BABAO has been held once a year on September since 1999. Main topics in the conferences are about biological anthropology or osteoarchaeology and palaeopathology. In 2005 BABAO has 224 active members with 27 overseas representing 12% of the membership.

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The European Anthropological Association (EAA) was created in 1976. It is a scientific organization, which aims to promote research and teaching in anthropology in the different European countries and to promote exchanges of information, workshops, scientific congresses, and schools at the post graduate level. It attempts to bring together and generate synergy among people, institutions and organizations, which have shared interests in education in Anthropology. The EAA has more than 500 regular members from about 30 European and several non-European countries. A newsletter is distributed among all members two or three times a year. The EAA has also published a Biennial Book series since 1998. A congress of the EAA is arranged every two years in a different European host city. The first Intensive Course in Biological Anthropology Summer School was held at Charles University in Prague last summer. The EAA membership fee for regular member is not fixed; rather the fee has three levels based on the economic status of individual countries.

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The beginning of the French anthropology was marked when P. Broca founded its anthropological Society in 1859 (Société d’anthropologie de Paris). In his history of nearly one hundred and fifty years, the Society has held as many as eighteen hundred and thirty-two regular meetings while continuing to publish its bulletins (Bulletins et Mémoires de la Société d’anthropologie de Paris). In addition, the Society has played a leading role in the activities of the Francophone anthropologists in the world (GALF) since 1964. The Society suffered somewhat from diminution of its membership towards the end of the 20^th century, but the trend has since been reversed owing to some measures it has taken. I shall report on some of those measures and also on the structure of CNRS (Centre National de la recherche scientifique) focusing on how different it is from our Japanese educational and research system.

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