A highly ancient joke.

How tall were the ancient Han people? The average height is higher than today.

The height of modern westerners does not necessarily mean the height of Roman soldiers; Modern China people are small, but it doesn't mean that China people were small in Qin and Han Dynasties! In the era of cold weapons, there is not enough material security. Dare Tang say that the Han army can "one enemy and five" against the Huns?

For example, in the military system of the Qin Dynasty, when selecting cavalry, it was required that the height of the horse's head should not be lower than 1.75M and the height of the cavalry should not be lower than1.80m. Without a group with a higher average figure, it was impossible to select so many cavalry.

For another example, in the Qin and Han tombs excavated now, it is often found that the well-preserved bones still exceed 1.80M in the "height of the reduced corpse in 2000" (originally reported in quotation marks), so the height of the deceased before his death should be around 1.85M!

For example, in the Terracotta Warriors and Horses, the former soldiers were 1.80M, the generals were 1.90M, Zhang Fei was 1.85M at the end of the Han Dynasty, Guan Yu was 2. 10M (ordinary horses can't camel), and Cao Cao was a villain with a height of more than one meter. In this way, it is not surprising that even the average height of ordinary non-commissioned officers exceeds1.70m m.

In addition, according to the length of the femur of the deceased in the tombs of soldiers in the Western Han Dynasty, it can be roughly estimated that the average height of Han soldiers is above 1.70M, while in the census in the early days of liberation, the average height of adult males in Chinese mainland was only 1.65M! It was not until the early 1990s that the average height of adult males in Chinese mainland reached1.70m again. In the early days of liberation, you can join the army as long as you are 1.58 meters tall (have you heard the story of Lei Feng joining the army? ), and in 2003, men were required to be over 1.68M, which shows that the average height of residents can be greatly improved in decades.

I think/in my opinion,

1, height has a great relationship with living conditions. As long as there is enough meat and rice to feed people, even without modern luxury nutrition, ancient people can grow taller.

2. When the Han nationality is strong, the big man is valued, and the tall gene is a dominant gene, which is likely to be developed; However, in the past foreign invasion and slaughter, shorter people were considered by foreigners as less threatening and more likely to survive. Man-made factors lead to dwarf Han gene becoming dominant gene.

Therefore, the height of modern Han people is not necessarily higher than that of ancient Han people.