Accurate identification of every skeleton (age, sex, health, female fecundity) i n a fully sampled cemetery provides data on adult longevity, infant and child death ratios, sex ratio, fertility and birth, death, and natural increase rates, population density, family structure and microevolutionary selection.

Skull base height increases significantly with better nutrition and health conditions, as seen in comparing 163 nineteenth to twentieth century dissecting-room skeletons (Terry Collection) with 237 modern American middle-class adults (forensic and willed skeletons). The increase parallels the change in pelvic inlet depth index, known to respond sensitively to nutrition, and in stature, and is over six times greater than the general skull size change. Skull base height (porion-basion) is easy to measure with depth gauge and sliding caliper, or by subtraction, and is in adult a sensitive indicator of childhood growth stress.

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