ABSTRACT
The foot is an anatomical region that may demonstrate a high degree of individuality. As recognized by Defoe (1719), the human foot is also distinctive from the foot of nonhumans. The divergent first ray in the ape foot, with accompanying opposing first digit position, is not present in humans (Kidd 1998), and suggestions have also been made that the individual foot is unique when compared to that of other humans (Robbins 1985, Kennedy 1996). To date, however, this belief has yet to be satisfactorily proved, although a significant study in Canada has attempted to illustrate this point statistically (Kennedy et al. 2003). In using the foot in identification, there are currently two main forms of approach — identification from the records kept by podiatrists on feet that they have examined and treated, and identification from marks left by feet on objects with which they have been in contact, especially on footwear and ground surfaces (e.g., stepping in soil, in blood on a hard surface, etc.).
