Stature and secular trend among Southern African Negroes and San (Bushmen)

Despite a wide belief that little information is available on the dimensions of Southern African peoples, data for adult mean stature are presented for no fewer than 123 samples of S.A. Negro (93) and Khoisanoid (30) peoples. Many are published here for the first time. These have made possible a search for signs of the secular trend towards increased adult stature. Two main techniques are the study of longitudinal data (where time-spaced studies on the same population are available) and of age-ranked, cross-sectional data (where the lack of declining stature with age connotes the absence of a secular trens). Most Southern African populations for which data are available show either the absence of the secular trend (previously recognized) or a frankly reversed secular trend (a new concept), in which adults show a decline in mean stature compared with earlier generations. Similar absence or reversal of the secular trend characterizes peoples in Malawi, Kenya, Uganda, Sudan, Senegal, Upper Volta and Ivory Coast, as well as some Asian and South American samples. In the main, developed areas show the secular trend, while less developed areas show an absence or reversal of the trend. To this generalization, the San are a striking exception. All the evidence, first adduced in 1962, points to the usual secular trend as occurring in the San, despite their lowly, undeveloped economic status. Although the data are imperfect, it is possible too, that Xhosa and Moçambique Maravi show evidence of a positive secular trend. "The adult form of mankind is the outcome of growth enhanced, dwarfed, warped, or mutilated by the adventures of life. I am not decrying heredity. But I do insist that new knowledge gained for anthropology through the study of growth brings hope and confidence where formerly was only the grim figure of destiny." (T. Wingate Todd, 1935).