5,000 years ago, people were much shorter than they are today. It’s estimated that the average European height then was about 5’5”. So the giant skeletons found in southeast China are somewhat shocking: These folks seem to have been nearly 6’ tall, with one reaching 6’3”.
Even today, the average height in the region is just 5’9”.The archeologists led by Fang Hui, head of Shandong University’s school of history and culture, have excavated and examined 205 graves and 20 sacrificial pits — also 104 houses — in Jiaojia village in Zhangqiu District, Jinan City, Shangdong Province.
Yang suggests the stature of the area’s inhabitants may have been a result of the stable food supply people of the Longshan Culture enjoyed. As Fang told China’s state-run news agency Xinhua, the area was “already agricultural at that time, people had diverse and rich food resources and thus their physique changed.” Still, today’s residents of Shandong clearly have far greater access to healthy foods, so this doesn’t explain the puzzle…
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