NOTES
Average heights calculated from skeletal data have long been used by physical anthropologists but little used by other social scientists. For a study of England oriented towards medical historians, see Stephen Kunitz (1987).
Readers unfamiliar with the methodology of anthropometric history may want to consult the discussion and references in Steckel (1995).
For a contrary view of European industrialization see Komlos (2000).
The height estimates are from Floud, Wachter, and Gregory (1990) but there has been a lively exchange over the timing and extent of the height decline in Britain (Floud, Wachter, and Gregory 1993^, b; Komlos 1993^, b). Komlos agrees a decline occurred near mid-century, but places it at a lower level and within the context of his estimates of an overall decline after 1760.
Some seventeenth-century military records in France contain measurements of soldiers, which are useful for studying pre-industrial trends in heights. Komlos, Hau, and Bourguinat (2001) report an upward trend (with moderate fluctuations) in average height for birth cohorts of the late seventeenth to the mid-eighteenth centuries. Further search efforts might reveal additional pre-industrial height records for other countries.
For discussions of these issues see White (1991: 308—20) and Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994: chs 3—4).
The National Science Foundation recently funded an extensive project that will collect and analyse data from skeletons covering the last 10 millennia in Europe. The effort will obtain not just heights (from femur lengths) but also information on degenerative joint disease, dental decay, anaemia, and other skeletal indicators of chronic biological stress. A module in a larger project envisioned on a global history of health, I will work with three
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co-investigators and numerous collaborators in Europe in gathering and analysing skeletal data that will be matched with socio-economic and climate information (Steckel 2003).
8' This is not the first time that anthropometric historians have found surprising if not startling results. The very
small statures of slave children followed by remarkable catch-up growth, the American height decline during the mid-nineteenth century, and the very tall statures of the Equestrian Plains tribes in the United States are three additional examples.