Anthropometric history and the measurement of wellbeing

It has often been recognised that the average height of a population is influencedby the economic, social and environmental conditions in which it finds itself, andthis insight has inspired a generation of historians to use anthropometric data toinvestigate the health and wellbeing of past populations. This paper reviews someof the main developments in the field, and assesses the extent to which heightremains a viable measure of historical wellbeing. It explores a number of differentissues, including the nature of human growth; the impact of variations in diet andexposure to disease; the role of ethnicity; the relationships between height, mortalityand labour productivity; and the “social value” of human stature. It concludes that,despite certain caveats, height has retained its capacity to act as a “mirror” of theconditions of past societies, and of the wellbeing of their members.