Humans demonstrate species-wide bilateral asymmetry in long bone dimensions. Previous studies have documented greater right-biases in upper limb bone dimensionsdespecially in length and diaphyseal breadthdas well as more asymmetry in the upper limb when compared with the lower limb. Some studies have reported left-bias in lower limb bone dimensions, which, combined with the contralateral asymmetry in upper limbs, has been termed ''crossed symmetry.'' The examination of sexual dimorphism and population variation in asymmetry has been limited.This study re-examines these topics in a large, geographically and temporally diverse sample of 780 Holocene adult humans. Fourteen bilateral measures were taken, including maximum lengths, articular and peri-articular breadths, and diaphyseal breadths of the femur, tibia, humerus, and radius. Dimensions were converted into percentage directional (%DA) and absolute (%AA) asymmetries. Results reveal that average diaphyseal breadths in both the upper and lower limbs have the greatest absolute and directional asymmetry among all populations, with lower asymmetry evident in maximum lengths or articular dimensions. Upper limb bones demonstrate a systematic right-bias in all dimensions, while lower limb elements have biases closer to zero %DA, but with slight left-bias in diaphyseal breadths and femoral length. Crossed symmetry exists within individuals between similar dimensions of the upper and lower limbs. Females have more asymmetric and right-biased upper limb maximum lengths, while males have greater humeral diaphyseal and head breadth %DAs. The lower limb demonstrates little sexual dimorphism in asymmetry. Industrial groups exhibit relatively less asymmetry than pre-industrial humans and less dimorphism in asymmetry. A mixture of influences from both genetic and behavioral factors is implicated as the source of these patterns.

The "anatomical" method of Fully (1956 Ann. Legale Med. 35:266-273) for reconstructing stature, involving the addition of skeletal elements from the calcaneus to the skull, has been increasingly used in anthropological and forensic contexts, but has undergone little systematic testing on samples other than the original sample used to develop the technique. The original description by Fully of the method also does not provide completely explicit directions for taking all of the necessary measurements. This study tested the accuracy and applicability of his method, and clarified measurement procedures. The study sample consisted of 119 adult black and white males and females of known cadaveric statures from the Terry Collection. Cadaveric statures were adjusted to living statures, following the recommendations of Trotter and Gleser (1952 Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 10:469-514). We obtained the best results using maximum vertebral body heights (anterior to the pedicles) and measurement of the articulated talus and calcaneus height in anatomical position. Statures derived using the original Fully technique are strongly correlated with living statures in our sample (r = 0.96), but underestimate living stature by an average of about 2.4 cm. Anatomical considerations also suggest that the correction factors applied by Fully to convert summed skeletal height to living stature are too small. New formulae are derived to calculate living stature from skeletal height. There is no effect of sex or ancestry on stature prediction. Resulting stature estimates are accurate to within 4.5 cm in 95% of the individuals in our sample, with no directional bias.

In the past, body mass was reconstructed from hominin skeletal remains using both "mechanical" methods which rely on the support of body mass by weight-bearing skeletal elements, and "morphometric" methods which reconstruct body mass through direct assessment of body size and shape. A previous comparison of two such techniques, using femoral head breadth (mechanical) and stature and bi-iliac breadth (morphometric), indicated a good general correspondence between them (Ruff et al. [1997] Nature 387:173-176). However, the two techniques were never systematically compared across a large group of modern humans of diverse body form. This study incorporates skeletal measures taken from 1,173 Holocene adult individuals, representing diverse geographic origins, body sizes, and body shapes. Femoral head breadth, bi-iliac breadth (after pelvic rearticulation), and long bone lengths were measured on each individual. Statures were estimated from long bone lengths using appropriate reference samples. Body masses were calculated using three available femoral head breadth (FH) formulae and the stature/bi-iliac breadth (STBIB) formula, and compared. All methods yielded similar results. Correlations between FH estimates and STBIB estimates are 0.74-0.81. Slight differences in results between the three FH estimates can be attributed to sampling differences in the original reference samples, and in particular, the body-size ranges included in those samples. There is no evidence for systematic differences in results due to differences in body proportions. Since the STBIB method was validated on other samples, and the FH methods produced similar estimates, this argues that either may be applied to skeletal remains with some confidence.