Contribution of Quantitative Methods in Forensic Anthropology: A New Era

In the United States, the fi rst methods for estimating the biological profi le of unknown individuals in a forensic context were developed in the 19th century by Thomas Dwight (1843-1911). Dr. Dwight, a Harvard anatomist, used “inverse regression”1

to estimate stature, sex, and age from skeletal remains. While the fi eld of forensic anthropology would not become offi cially recognized in the United States by the forensic sciences as its own discipline until after 1972,2 the methods produced by Dwight set the stage for the early development of the fi eld and established its quantitative basis (İşcan 1989; Stewart 1979).