A Study of the Nutritional and Health Status of Human Skeletons Excavated from the Onojo City in the Early Modern and Modern Period: The Harris Line

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  • 近世大野城市域出土人骨の栄養・健康状態に関する検討：ハリス線について

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In this study, I examined the frequency of Harris lines on tibia of human skeletal remains excavated from the Furuno, Haraguchi, and Mizuho sites, which are in the Onojo City, in the early modern and modern cemeteries. Harris lines are a type of stress marker used to reveal the health and nutritional status of ancient human bones and are defined as transverse lines that occur on the diaphysis or epiphysis of long bones. The results of the CT imaging (Nikon X-TH320) showed that the frequency of Harris lines was slightly higher on human skeletal remains excavated at the Haraguchi site than at the Furuno site, and that they appeared more frequently on human skeletal remains excavated at the Mizuho site than on the human skeletal remains excavated at these two sites. This difference may be related to the hierarchy of buried individuals. The buried individuals at the Furuno site are likely to be related to a family that served as a village headman, while those at the Haraguchi site were not as wealthy as the village headman, but were somewhat better off than the peasants, as they worked at a children’s school. Thus, the difference in the frequency of occurrence of the Harris line can be attributed to the hierarchical differences among the farmers. The degree of health and nutritional status in the early modern and modern periods varies even in rural areas along the same roads and may represent the effects of the impoverishment of the majority of the peasantry, excluding some peasants, due to the stratification of the peasantry.

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