stature estimation

adult stature (with age +sex) is vital part of biological profile provided by law enforcement when describing missing person, victim or assailant

best estimate of persons living height

offficial statutre (recorded by medical practitioners or military)

forensic stature - self reported, given by friends, relatives or from drivers license.

measurement of deceaced individual

incorrect technique (inter-observer error) e.g. measured with shoes or without

time of day for measurement (get shorter as day goes on due to compression of intervertebral discs and heel pads)

people generally tend to overestimate their height. 

• men - 1 cm
• woman 0.5 cm

• height changes over time
• -45+ lose height due to cartilage in joints wearing down
• -not finished growth when heing on drivers license recorded

• typical methods for cadaver measurement can add up to 5cm to stature estimate.
• --> gravity stretches the cadaver out.

should physiological lenth or maximum length of femur be used?

max length only takes into consideration of one condyle for example

must be aware of proper measuring techniques

should include or exclude medial malleoulus and intercondylar eminence?

i.e modern populations are considerably taller on avg then populations in past

bone collections might now be representative of todays population

there is a correlation between height and gdp

• best method to use if you can
• - orgiginally developed to identify french soldiers who died at mauthausen (concentration camp)
• - method based on 102 males
• -when tested , method found effective for femalesand other population groups.

measure all skeletal components that contribute to height

• 1. cranial height (max legnth between bregma and baison)
• 2.vertebral column height (starting from C2, C3-7, thoracics, lumbards and first sacrum)
• 3. leg length - femur -use physiological length (to both condyles), tibia (including medial malleolus but excluding ..
• 4.foot height, max height of talus + calcaneus

add up to obtain a skeletal heights then use 1 or 2 equations depending if age is known or not to get living stature

age factor important because you change height with age

add extra variables for more accuracy

account for missing soft tissue that we have.

good- not population specific as differences in body proportions intrinsically built into methodology

bad -more time consuming and skeleton must be very well preserved (must have all bits)

fully said estimate comes within 1 cm but Raxter found it was underestimated by 2.5 cm

revised +/- 4.5cm in 95% confidence

• measured height of anterior vertebral bodies from C2-L5
• IN mm

developed different regression formulae for males and females - but can be used for people of all geographic groups (sex dependent, geographically independent)

males - 38% contirbute to total height

female - 41% contribute to total height

Long bone length

based on observation that tall people= long arms and legs

Trotter and Gleser

From dead soldiers from the war (II) +korean war

in CM

• Controversy on how tibia was measures
• --> eventually decided not to include medial malleous UNLIKE FULLYS METHOD

Strong relationship between length of long bones and stature

assymmetry between left and right very minor, so doesnt matter which side used to calculate stature

strong corrrelation between length of individual bones

sex and ancestry matter to equations

leg bones give best indication

metacarpals and metatarsals can be used - but errors are much larger

• MEADOWS AND JANTZ
• -measured from bottom to tip (mm)

CM

BYERS

steele

we can use segments of a bone to find out what the completelength was

shrinkage starts at age 45 and increases over time

we must subtract a certain amount of length from a persons high depending on the persons age due to cartialage, joint and vertebral compressions.

bone looses fluids and shink

1.5% compared to bone in living individual

dont worry about it - they wont be dried out.