Published in Int. Journal of Anthropology – Vol. 30 – n.3-4 – 2015
Key words: children of Belarus, Chernobyl, anthropometric indices of head, face and body changes over time.
Within the framework of a large anthropometric research programme, head, face and body sizes of schoolchildren from Pinsk (the southern territory of Belarus) and Polotsk (the northern territory) were examined in the academic years of 1984/1985 (before the accident at the Chernobyl Atomic Electric Power Station in 1986) and 2002/2003; in Polotsk they were also examined in 2012/2013, in other words, 17 and 27 years after the event. Three specific age groups of both sexes were studied: 8-year-olds (after the first growth acceleration), 13-year-olds (after pubertal growth acceleration in girls and prepubertal growth in boys) and 17-year-olds (having reached their defini-tive body size). At the beginning of the 2000s, a poor acceleration of growth processes was observed in schoolchildren of both cities, combined with a tendency toward gracilization of the skeleton. Unfavorable ecological and socio-economic conditions from 1990 to 2003 negatively influenced the way children developed in prepubertal and pubertal periods. The improvement of socio-economic conditions in 2012 to 2013 was accompanied by improvements in the physical development of pupils, continuing growth acceleration, combined with gracilization of the skeleton.
A statistically significant reduction of the cephalic index (a process of debrachycephalisation) in combination with slight gracilization of the skeletal part of the face of schoolchildren in all age groups studied in the early 2000s continues to this day, both in the area of radiation control (Pinsk), and in an area that was conventionally clean, a more prosperous one in respect of ionizing radiation, in the northern territory of Belarus (Polotsk). The process of debrachycephalisation is clearly directed in time and is not determined by the gender or geographical location of the studied groups, it is part of microevolutional structural changes to the brain and skull, which may be an adaptive response of the forming body in modern populations due to increased pressure from a complex set of anthropogenic factors.
Department of Anthropology and Ecology, Institute of History, The National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, Belarus.