Human body mass estimation: a comparison of "morphometric" and "mechanical" methods

Area of Science:

• Paleoanthropology
• Skeletal Biology
• Bioarchaeology

Background:

• Hominin body mass reconstruction historically used mechanical and morphometric methods.
• Previous studies showed general agreement between femoral head breadth (mechanical) and stature/bi-iliac breadth (morphometric) techniques.
• A systematic comparison across diverse modern human populations was lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To systematically compare body mass estimates derived from femoral head breadth (FH) and stature/bi-iliac breadth (STBIB) methods.
• To assess the reliability and consistency of these methods across a large, diverse modern human sample.
• To validate the application of these methods for reconstructing body mass from skeletal remains.

Main Methods:

• Collected skeletal measurements (femoral head breadth, bi-iliac breadth, long bone lengths) from 1,173 Holocene individuals.
• Estimated stature from long bone lengths.
• Calculated body mass using three FH formulae and one STBIB formula.
• Compared body mass estimates between the FH and STBIB methods.

Main Results:

• All methods produced similar body mass estimates.
• Correlations between FH and STBIB estimates ranged from 0.74 to 0.81.
• No systematic differences were observed based on body proportions.
• Minor variations in FH estimates were attributed to differences in original reference sample body-size ranges.

Conclusions:

• Both femoral head breadth and stature/bi-iliac breadth methods provide reliable and comparable body mass estimates.
• Either method can be confidently applied to hominin skeletal remains for body mass reconstruction.
• The findings support the use of these skeletal metrics in paleoanthropological studies.