Research Experience for Teachers

Donna Stewart
B.S., Ph.D. - Howard University

Eric Hollinger
Supervising Scientist
Department of Anthropology
Office of Repatriation

"As a high school teacher serving a disadvantaged population, I believe my experience will enable me to enhance my students’ science knowledge as well as improve their critical thinking skills."

Allometric Relationships Between Human Skeletal Elements:
Potential for Practical Applications

Commingled human skeletal remains (that have elements of 2 or more individuals), whether due to depositional processes or curatorial practices, pose significant problems for the physical anthropologist. In the repatriation process, the return of Native American remains to tribes, it is important to identify and group all of the bones from each individual set of skeletal remains. Other applications include forensic (criminal) cases and mass burials characteristic of ethnic cleansing. These cases can be particularly problematic, since it is important to confirm which bones belong to a single individual. Functional relationships are known to exist among parts of the body. For example, it is necessary for certain bones to be proportional to other bones to enable proper locomotion. Mathematical identification of proportional relationships provides an additional and non-invasive tool for reassociating mixed human skeletal elements. Using allometry, the proportional relationships between body parts, we may be able to predict the expected dimensions of specific bones in the human body. I measured maximum lengths of metatarsals and metacarpals from a sample of 95 individuals in the Terry Collection, an early 20th century anatomical skeletal collection of Black and White Americans from the St. Louis, Missouri area. Using a specially fitted sliding caliper with large flat surfaces, the bone length along the longitudinal axis from the most proximal to the most distal point was measured to the nearest 0.01 mm. The measurements were compared to each other and to long bone measurements from the same individuals using cluster analysis of the correlations among all bones. The overall relationships were consistent for all individuals as well as for males and females separately. The results indicate that many of the bones of the skeleton show high morphological integration and, therefore, could be used to group an individual’s bone together.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Teachers Award Number EEC-973148, Supplement #11.

Letter of Gratitude