Osteometric sorting of commingled human remains.

This paper describes the method of osteometric sorting. Osteometric sorting is the formal use of size and shape to sort bones from one another. The method relies heavily on measurement data and statistical models and is designed to maximize objectivity. The goal of this paper is to validate the use of osteometric sorting and to provide case examples of its utility. Selected regression models are also presented for use with osteometric sorting. We advocate this technique as one tool among many in the anthropologist's toolkit for sorting commingled skeletal remains.

[1]  F. James Rohlf,et al.  Biometry: The Principles and Practice of Statistics in Biological Research , 1969 .

[2]  J. Neter,et al.  Applied linear statistical models : regression, analysis of variance, and experimental designs , 1974 .

[3]  C. E. Snow.  The identification of the unknown war dead. , 1948, American journal of physical anthropology.

[4]  G. Gleser,et al.  Estimation of stature from long bones of American Whites and Negroes. , 1952, American journal of physical anthropology.

[5]  J. Byrd,et al.  Interobserver variation of selected postcranial skeletal measurements. , 2002, Journal of forensic sciences.

[6]  Richard J. Smith.  Logarithmic transformation bias in allometry , 1993 .

[7]  B. Adams.  The Use of the Lincoln/Petersen Index for Quantification and Interpretation of Commingled Human Remains , 1996 .

[8]  W. Jungers.  Aspects of size and scaling in primate biology with special reference to the locomotor skeleton , 1984 .

[9]  E. Giles,et al.  Confidence intervals for estimates based on linear regression in forensic anthropology. , 1988, Journal of forensic sciences.

[10]  W. Jungers,et al.  Stature estimation and calibration: Bayesian and maximum likelihood perspectives in physical anthropology. , 1998, American journal of physical anthropology.

[11]  R. L. Fountain,et al.  "Race" specificity and the femur/stature ratio. , 1996, American journal of physical anthropology.

[12]  S. Gould.  ALLOMETRY AND SIZE IN ONTOGENY AND PHYLOGENY , 1966, Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society.