ABSTRACT
In the late nineteenth century, Paul Broca (1824-1880), a medical anthropologist better known for his work in neuroanatomy, introduced the osteometric board for taking accurate long bone measurements (Figure 12.1). One of Broca’s students, Paul Topinard (1830-1911) devised a series of ratios of long bone lengths to stature; Topinard’s ratios provided more accurate stature estimates than Or la’s rather simplistic tables (Topinard 1885). Étienne Rollet (1862-1937) followed Topinard’s work closely and published a doctoral thesis relating the average lengths of long bones from cadavers of the same length. Rollet’s data were quickly snatched up and reorganized by Topinard’s successor, Léonce Manouvrier (1850-1927). Manouvrier’s tables relate the average lengths of cadavers with the same long bone lengths. He also included a correction factor for dry bone measurements since Rollet’s data were derived from measurements taken on fresh bone (Manouvrier 1893). Nonetheless, not long a„er Manouvrier’s publication, the English biometric school released a statistical technique that would change the face of stature estimation permanently. In 1899, Karl Pearson (1857-1936) published a monograph detailing his regression theory, which used the correlation between long bone length and stature to derive a linear equation that would predict stature from long bone length (Pearson 1899). Although Pearson’s equations were intended primarily for evolutionary studies, his work had a profound in«uence on forensic anthropology. Paul Stevenson (1890-1971)
History 245 Stature Estimation Methods 246 Additional Considerations 248 References 250
was the rst to test Pearson’s equations, but the equations did not perform well because Stevenson tested them on a Chinese population, and Pearson’s equations were based on Rollet’s European data (Stevenson 1929). Likewise, the Chinese regression equations that Stevenson developed were not successful for estimating European stature. ‹is initial test called attention to human variation in long bone length and proportions and pointed to the need for population-speci c standards. During the 1950s, Trotter and Gleser (1952, 1958) published regression equations for the modern American population based on a living stature data from a large sample of males and females from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. ‹ese equations remained the most appropriate for forensic use in the United States until the release of Fordisc 2.0 (Jantz and Ousley 1996).
