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The examination of demographic patterns and their variables is essential for our understanding of the anthropological and cultural processes that shape modern societies. Greek Thrace plays an important role in such analyses due to the cultural and socioeconomic variability it presents. This study is based on vital registration data of the 20th century, derived by various populations that inhabit the Department of Rhodopi, which are defined by discrete socio-economic, cultural, and historic backgrounds. We analyze and present various aspects of the social lives observed in these populations: marriage patterns, mean age at marriage of the spouses, mean age of mothers at first and last child, reproductive span, the children ever born, as well as other parameters related to reproduction. Our analyses show that several changes in marriage patterns have been undertaken throughout time, indicating an ongoing fertility transition. In that way, this study contributes to our knowledge on the anthropological populations from this part of Greece in relation to their socio-economic environment and it proposes possible analogies and differences that affected the evolution of the embedded populations.

Stature is critical for our understanding of human morphology and evolution. This necessitates the development of accurate stature estimation methods. The aim of the present study is to generate population-specific equations for ancient Greece and to explore the diachronic stature trends over the last 10,000 years. In parallel, it introduces the Logarithmic Human Stature Index (LHSI) as a new tool for inter-population comparisons. We collected anthropometric data and reconstructed stature using the anatomical method from 77 males and 59 females from Greece (3rd c. BC–9th c. AD). We utilized this dataset to generate population-specific equations. We then applied the new formula to 775 individuals (10th millennium BC–9th c. AD) from Greece exploring stature secular trends. We tested the new equations to different populations of European origin (662 males and 498 females). Ordinary least square sets based on lower limbs provided the best estimations with the smaller errors. Male and female stature in ancient Greece in the last 10,000 years ranged from 159.7 to 170.6 cm and from 153.1 to 160.4 cm, respectively. We observed a decrease from the Mesolithic to the Neolithic period, a gradual increase from the Bronze Age to the Archaic/Classical periods, and a steady increase from the Roman period onwards. Stature secular trends in Greece are in accordance with historic, archaeological, and genomic data and similar to European patterns. LHSI is a valuable tool for anthropometric comparisons between reference series and thus can contribute to the choice of the optimal stature estimation formula.