In order tocalculate the height of a hominidit is not necessary to have it in front of you. Until now, scientists used to measure long bones like the femur – difficult to find intact – and, from there, made estimates. A team of researchers, including Spanish scientists, has shown that it is also possible to find out the size of one of our ancestors from foot bones.
As stated in the magazineForensic Science International, the newest thing about the job is thatis the first to use robust statistical methods for this type of estimates. The robust statistic is a part of the statistic that allows to obtain conclusions based on some data among which there could be some irregular one. With this technique, “the estimates are less sensitive to the possible presence of anomalous data in the observations of the bones used, something common if the excavation has found damaged or if a fragment is missing”, points out Alfonso García-Pérez, researcher at the Department of Statistics, Operations Research and Numerical Calculation of the UNED and co-author of the study.
The team of scientists, made up of researchers from the Joint Center for Research on Human Evolution and Behavior (UCM-ISCIII), the Complutense University of Madrid, the UNED, the University of Alcalá de Henares, the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES), Rovira i Virgilli University and Cambridge University (United Kingdom), analyzed a total of564 foot bones from 94 individuals. The skeletons belonged to 48 men and 46 women, Euro-Americans and African-Americans who were born between 1825 and 1910 and died between the ages of 17 and 50. The remains remained in the Museum of Natural History in Cleveland (United States). The data were divided into groups, by sex and race, “because in this way formulas are obtained that allow making better predictions for each one of them,” says García-Pérez.
The results suggest thatthe best bones to estimate height are the first and second metatarsals, talus, and calcaneus. In addition, the combination of a tarsal bone and a metatarsal bone significantly improves the accuracy of the estimated height.
The validity of the method has convinced paleontologists, and some have already started using it in their excavations. “The formulas of the study have been used to estimate the height of theHomo Antecessorfrom remains of this hominid found at level TD6 of Gran Dolina, in the Atapuerca site, ”confirms the UNED mathematician.
