Manifestation of the Physical Characteristics of Japanese Aristrocrats in the Edo era of Japan

Abstract

The physical characteristics of 14 skeletons including 5 Tokugawa Shoguns and 9 wives, as well as 44 skeletons including 30 feudal lords (Daimyos) and 14 wives were studied. The Shogun''s faces were distinguished from those of the common people of the time by the following features: exceptionally high and narrow face with extremely narrow and prominent nose, high and roomy orbit, highly reduced upper and lower jaws. These features of the Shoguns tend to be more pronounced in the later generation, so that the 14th Shogun Iyemochi Tokugawa (1846-1866), the last one in the present study, shows the most pronounced features among the Shoguns studied. These characteristics are also shared by the daughter of the Emperor Ninkou (Princess Seikan-in) and the feudal lords, although the latter are not so pronounced as in the Shoguns. These characteristics are therefore regarded as the aristicratic features of the early modern Japanese. The Japanese aristocrats of the Edo era are, except for the Emperor''s family, believed to have been descended from the common people in the medieval Japan. Therefore, the physical characteristics of the Japanese aristocrats of the Edo era must have been derived from those of the common people most probably by two causative factors, hereditary and environmental, as follows. (1) The similarity between the facial types of the Shogun''s and Daimyo''s wives may indicate the presence of selection of similar facial types among the aristocrats for over 250 years. If, for many generations, women meeting requirements in facial traits are expected to be passed on to the offsprings, including feature Shoguns and Daimyos. (2) Poorly developed upper and lower jaws of Shoguns with the peculiarity of the teeth (absence of masticatory abrasion even in the old individuals) suggest the perculiar mode of life of the Shoguns, especially of dietary habit. The same factor may also be the case among the Daimyos and their wives. In conclusion, the Shoguns and the Daimyos can be regarded physical anthropologically as the percularity cultivated group of human being in the early modern Japan.