ABSTRACT

Fordisc 3 (FD3) is computer so„ware that automates metric estimation of sex, ancestry, and stature techniques described in Chapters 8, 11, and 12. It uses a technique known as linear discriminant function analysis to compare measurements from an unknown skeleton to reference samples in order to estimate the ancestry or sex to which the person would likely have belonged in life, and linear regression to estimate how tall the person would have been in life. Most of the statistical procedures Fordisc uses have been around for a long time; Fordisc simply makes them available in «exible form for analysis of a single case. We present a brief review of the historical background of these statistics and how they led to development of the so„ware.