Anthropometric history: an overview of a quarter centuryof research

摘要

The systematic study of human physical stature reaches back into the 18th cen-tury. However, until French historians began to explore the socio-economic correlates ofhuman height in the 1960s, the influence of the socio-economic environment primarily inter-ested scholars of sister disciplines such as anthropology, auxology, or even military history.The present review summarizes a number of theoretical issues and new approaches to theunderstanding of the impact of economic processes on the human organism. Human organ-isms are sensitive to economic fluctuations and physical stature is an important complemen-tary indicator, illuminating the extent to which a socio-economic or political system providesan environment – broadly conceived – propitious to the physical growth and longevity ofhuman organisms.