Short stature of African pygmies: the meaning of adolescent from the view point of human evolution

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25650151
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Physical anthropology
• Research Institution: Hokkaido University
• Principal Investigator: Yamauchi Taro 北海道大学, 大学院保健科学研究院, 教授 (70345049)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 狩猟採集民 / 成長 / 思春期スパート / 子ども期 / アフリカ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

We were able to add anthropometric data for infants and younger children of an African pygmy hunter-gatherer population to baseline data (N = 626), although it was difficult to conduct follow up measurements for the large sample due to their predominantly mobile lifestyle.
Detailed observations on childcare revealed that children, particularly elderly girls spent longer time providing childcare than adults except for the infants’ mothers. Time allocation surveys further revealed that the daily travel (walking) distance and radius for children increased with age. For adolescents, individual variations of these variables expanded, especially in boys. The children had unexpectedly large step counts that exceeded 20,000 steps per day on average.

Free Research Field

生態人類学