L W Konigsberg
Biographic Data
| ID | 1202 |
|---|---|
| NAME | L W Konigsberg |
| GIVEN NAMES | L W |
| FAMILY NAME | Konigsberg |
| SIGNATURE | KONIGSBERG L W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tennessee at Knoxville |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4052-1575 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 56 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 697 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 56 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 15 |
Using Multivariate Analysis within the Vertebral Column to Identify Individual Vertebrae
This article demonstrates the utility of a multivariate analysis of vertebrae in an applied context. The human vertebral column is a morphologically complex group of elements. Current methods rely on morphological characteristics to classify isolated vertebrae qualitatively. This research provides a bridge between morphological assumptions for vertebral designations and quantitative classification. These osteometric methods and statistical analys…
What Should Be Typical about the Way We Calculate Typicality
The probability of correct classification, and ultimately identification, lies at the heart of forensic anthropological analyses. To this end, practitioners rely on a variety of ways to assess the error or uncertainty of their estimates, including the use of statistically based analytical packages such as FORDISC. This article addresses typicality probabilities and specifically examines issues and assumptions with calculating F-statistic typicali…
Allometric scaling and growth
OBJECTIVES: Previously developed methods in subadult body mass estimation have not been tested in populations other than European-American or African-American. This study uses a contemporary Taiwanese sample to test these methods. Through evaluating their accuracy and bias, we addressed whether the allometric relationships between body mass and skeletal traits commonly used in subadult body mass estimation are conserved among different population…
Scaling of linear anthropometric dimensions in living humans
OBJECTIVES: Some previous studies suggest that humans do not conform to geometric similarity (isometry) in anthropometric dimensions of the upper and lower limbs. Researchers often rely on a single statistical approach to the study of scaling patterns, and it is unclear whether these methods produce similar results and are equally robust. This study used one bivariate and one multivariate method to examine how linear anthropometric dimensions sca…
Prior Probabilities and the Age Threshold Problem
Dental development has been used to assess whether an individual may be below or above an age that serves as a legal threshold. This study used development of the first and second mandibular molars from a large sample of individuals (N = 2,676) to examine the age threshold for minimum age of criminal responsibility. A bivariate ordered probit model was applied to dental scores following the Moorrees et al. (1963) system, with the addition of a cr…
Yearbook of Physical Anthropology Preface
This issue of the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology marks my second year serving as Editor-in-Chief (EIC) of the Yearbook. I would first like to offer my sincere thanks to the Associate Editors for the Yearbook, these being: Jane Buikstra, Darryl De Ruiter, Eduardo Fernández-Duque, Agustín Fuentes, Debbie Guatelli-Steinberg, Laura MacLatchy, Connie Mulligan, and John Relethford. Sadly, the Yearbook is losing two of these Associate Editors in the …
A different interpretation of dental development stages in Xujiayao 1 Middle to Late Pleistocene Homo
Multivariate ordinal probit analysis in the skeletal assessment of sex
Population Identifiability from Forensic Genetic Markers
The Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) loci comprise a standard microsatellite marker set widely used for distinguishing among individuals in forensic DNA identity testing for medicolegal casework in the United States and in other countries. In anthropological genetic research, CODIS markers have become an important tool for uses extending beyond case investigations to quantify ancestry proportions, reveals patterns of admixture, and trace populat…
Inferring Age at Death for Japanese and Thai Skeletal Samples under a Bayesian Framework of Analysis
A critical step in age-at-death estimation is to identify the age-at-death distribution to which the unknown skeletal remains most likely belong. Age estimation based on a frequentist approach assumes that the age distribution of the target population is same as that of the reference sample. In a Bayesian framework, researchers have greater flexibility, with the freedom to specify mortality information via a prior distribution and integrate it wi…
Typicality and Predictive Distributions in Discriminant Function Analysis
While discriminant function analysis is an inherently Bayesian method, researchers attempting to estimate ancestry in human skeletal samples often follow discriminant function analysis with the calculation of frequentist-based typicalities for assigning group membership. Such an approach is problematic because it fails to account for admixture and for variation in why individuals may be classified as outliers or nonmembers of particular groups. T…
Typicality and Predictive Distributions in Discriminant Function Analysis
While discriminant function analysis is an inherently Bayesian method, researchers attempting to estimate ancestry in human skeletal samples often follow discriminant function analysis with the calculation of frequentist-based typicalities for assigning group membership. Such an approach is problematic because it fails to account for admixture and for variation in why individuals may be classifijied as outliers or nonmembers of particular groups.…
Optimal trait scoring for age estimation
OBJECTIVES: Little attention has been paid to questions about the applicability of parametric models to age estimation data and the related problem of how to adjust trait scoring in light of potential deviations from particular parametric models. This article addresses this deficit. METHODS: A Lagrange multiplier goodness-of-fit test is applied to two datasets to address the question of whether or not attainment ages for stages are log-normally d…
Multivariate cumulative probit for age estimation using ordinal categorical data
While the assumption of conditional independence between traits greatly simplifies the use of parametric models in age estimation, this assumption is not a necessary step. Further, in the analysis discussed here there are considerable residual correlations between ectocranial suture closure scores even after 'regressing out' the effect of age
Bayes in biological anthropology
In this article, we both contend and illustrate that biological anthropologists, particularly in the Americas, often think like Bayesians but act like frequentists when it comes to analyzing a wide variety of data. In other words, while our research goals and perspectives are rooted in probabilistic thinking and rest on prior knowledge, we often proceed to use statistical hypothesis tests and confidence interval methods unrelated (or tenuously re…
Testing for size and allometric differences in fossil hominin body mass estimation
Body size reconstructions of fossil hominins allow us to infer many things about their evolution and lifestyle, including diet, metabolic requirements, locomotion, and brain/body size relationships. The importance of these implications compels anthropologists to attempt body mass estimation from fragmentary fossil hominin specimens. Most calculations require a known “calibration” sample usually composed of modern humans or other extant apes. Caut…
Quantitative Variation and Genetics
This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Continuous Variation from Discrete Inheritance Estimation of Quantitative Genetic Parameters Multivariate Quantitative Genetic Analysis Quantitative Genetic Models for Threshold Traits Complex Segregation Analysis (CSA) Linkage and Quantitative Trait LOCI (QTL) Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS) Are the Assumptions of the Quantitative Genetic Model Correct? Is there an “Average Heritability?…
Estimating the distribution of probable age‐at‐death from dental remains of immature human fossils
In two historic longitudinal growth studies, Moorrees et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 21 (1963) 99‐108; J Dent Res 42 (1963) 1490‐1502) presented the “mean attainment age” for stages of tooth development for 10 permanent tooth types and three deciduous tooth types. These findings were presented graphically to assess the rate of tooth formation in living children and to age immature skeletal remains. Despite being widely cited, these graphical data ar…
Multivariate Quantitative Genetics of Anthropometric Traits from the Boas Data
The use of multivariate quantitative trait information to address questions of population relationships and evolutionary issues has a long-standing history in human anthropometry. Previous analyses have usually rested on a number of explicit or implicit assumptions that allow phenotypic information to be used as a proxy for quantitative genetic information. One (usually implicit) assumption is that the additive genetic variance-covariance matrix …
Update to Konigsberg and Ousley's “Multivariate Quantitative Genetics of Anthropometric Traits from the Boas Data” (1995)
Our 1995 paper was entirely based on anthropometric data from American Indians that had been collected under Franz Boas's direction for 1893 World Colum- bian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. The original data sheets had been rediscov- ered by Richard Jantz and had been carefully entered into a computer database, which served as basis for a number of projects. Our 1995 publication was but one such project. Given 102- year lapse between Columbian …
A new method for estimating age‐at‐death from the first rib
A new method for estimating adult age‐at‐death from the first rib was developed as a modification of the Kunos et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 110 (1999) 303–323) method. Data were collected on three aspects of the first rib (costal face, rib head, and tubercle facet) for 470 known‐age males of Balkan ancestry collected as evidence during investigations conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ages‐at‐death r…
Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology
Forensic anthropology typically uses osteological and/or dental data either to estimate characteristics of unidentified individuals or to serve as evidence in cases where there is a putative identification. In the estimation context, the problem is to describe aspects of an individual that may lead to their eventual identification, whereas in the evidentiary context, the problem is to provide the relative support for the identification. In either…
Statistical basis for positive identification in forensic anthropology
The ancient inhabitants of Jebel Moya redux
This paper reexamines some of the methods and craniometric findings in the classic volume The Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya (Sudan) (1955) by Mukherjee, Rao & Trevor, in light of recent archaeological data and relative to a new dental morphological study. Archaeological evidence characterises these inhabitants as having been heavily influenced by outside sources; yet they managed to establish and maintain their own distinctive culture as seen…
Statistical basis for positive identification in forensic anthropology
Forensic scientists are often expected to present the likelihood of DNA identifications in US courts based on comparative population data, yet forensic anthropologists tend not to quantify the strength of an osteological identification. Because forensic anthropologists are trained first and foremost as physical anthropologists, they emphasize estimation problems at the expense of evidentiary problems, but this approach must be reexamined. In this…
Fertility and the Development of Agriculture in the Prehistoric Midwest
In this article we develop and apply a method for estimating fertility in paleodemographic study. The proportion D30+/D5+, generated from standard life table calculations, is used to estimate relative fertility rates for eight Woodland and Mississippian populations represented by skeletal series from west-central Illinois. The inferred pattern of fertility increase through time is then considered in the context of key variables that define diet, …
Paleodemography
Recent criticism of paleodemographic methods (Bocquet-Appel and Masset 1982) has centered on biases introduced by the nature of reference samples and the population-specificity of techniques for estimating age in skeletal remains. This paper examines five key arguments concerning this bias and alleged imprecision from the perspective of life table analysis. The results of our simulation and statistical analyses indicate that the criticism leveled…
Estimation of age structure in anthropological demography
The past decade has produced considerable debate over the feasibility of paleodemographic research, with much attention focusing on the question of reliability of age estimates. We show here that in cases where age is estimated rather than known, the traditional method of assigning individuals to age classes will produce biased estimates of age structure. We demonstrate the effect of this bias both mathematically and by computer simulation, and s…
Skeletal biological distance studies in American Physical Anthropology
Biological distance analysis, the dominant type of skeletal biological research during the 19th century, has become less visible in recent years. Although the proportion of American Journal of Physical Anthropology articles and published abstracts focusing on biodistance has remained fairly constant over the three decades between 1955 and 1985, the proportion of biodistance contributions relative to other skeletal biology studies has decreased. E…
Migration models of prehistoric postmarital residence
It has previously been suggested that residential practices can be inferred from within‐ or between‐group analysis of male and female skeletal morphology. Arguments have proceeded from intuitively derived hypotheses about the genetic consequences of drift and migration. In this paper, a formal basis is presented for these hypotheses using modified versions of Wright's island model and the migration matrix method. It is shown that the usual measur…
Estimating stature in fossil hominids
Effects of fronto‐occipital artificial cranial vault modification on the cranial base and face
Artificial reshaping of the cranial vault has been practiced by many human groups and provides a natural experiment in which the relationships of neurocranial, cranial base, and facial growth can be investigated. We test the hypothesis that fronto‐occipital artificial reshaping of the neurocranial vault results in specific changes in the cranial base and face. Fronto‐occipital reshaping results from the application of pads or a cradle board which…
Cranial deformation and nonmetric trait variation
Cranial deformation is known to influence many traditional craniometric variables, but its effects on nonmetric trait variation are not well characterized. In this study, we examine the effects of three types of deformation (annular, lambdoid flattening, and fronto‐occipital) on nonmetric traits, using a large sample of protohistoric and prehistoric crania. Our results indicate that a few traits are increased or decreased in relative frequency by…
Deconstructing death in paleodemography
In 1992 in this Journal (Konigsberg and Frankenberg [1992] Am. J. Phys. Anthropol. 89: 235–256), we wrote about the use of maximum likelihood methods for the “estimation of age structure in anthropological demography.” More specifically, we presented a particular method (the “iterated age‐length key”) from the fisheries literature and suggested that the method could be used in human and primate demography and paleodemography as well. In our paper…
Temporal aspects of biological distance
A number of previous studies have examined biological variability within individual human skeletal samples, using internal chronology as an explanatory source for variation. In this paper time series and matrix comparison methods are used to examine temporal serial correlation and trend of biological characteristics within a skeletal sample. These methods follow appropriately upon the assumption that the processes of genetic drift and migration l…
Paranthropus boisei
Of the presently recognised early hominid species, Paranthropus boisei is one of the better known from the fossil record and arguably the most distinctive; the latter interpretation rests on the numbers of apparently derived characters it incorporates. The species as traditionally diagnosed is distributed across approximately one million years and is presently confined to samples from East African sites. The hypodigm has been examined for evidenc…
Estimating the distribution of probable age‐at‐death from dental remains of immature human fossils
In two historic longitudinal growth studies, Moorrees et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 21 (1963) 99‐108; J Dent Res 42 (1963) 1490‐1502) presented the “mean attainment age” for stages of tooth development for 10 permanent tooth types and three deciduous tooth types. These findings were presented graphically to assess the rate of tooth formation in living children and to age immature skeletal remains. Despite being widely cited, these graphical data ar…
Statistical study of sexual dimorphism in the human fetal sciatic notch
Whether human fetal skeletal remains exhibit sexual dimorphism has been the subject of considerable debate. Most attention in this debate has focused on the greater sciatic notch of the ilium, since it is a gross morphological characteristic with known sex differences in the adult and is easily seen in fetal skeletal remains. Unfortunately, previous traditional morphometric analyses of the fetal sciatic notch have led to ambiguous results. The pu…
Bayes in biological anthropology
In this article, we both contend and illustrate that biological anthropologists, particularly in the Americas, often think like Bayesians but act like frequentists when it comes to analyzing a wide variety of data. In other words, while our research goals and perspectives are rooted in probabilistic thinking and rest on prior knowledge, we often proceed to use statistical hypothesis tests and confidence interval methods unrelated (or tenuously re…
Statistical basis for positive identification in forensic anthropology
Forensic scientists are often expected to present the likelihood of DNA identifications in US courts based on comparative population data, yet forensic anthropologists tend not to quantify the strength of an osteological identification. Because forensic anthropologists are trained first and foremost as physical anthropologists, they emphasize estimation problems at the expense of evidentiary problems, but this approach must be reexamined. In this…
Estimation of African ape body length from femur length
A new method for estimating age‐at‐death from the first rib
A new method for estimating adult age‐at‐death from the first rib was developed as a modification of the Kunos et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol 110 (1999) 303–323) method. Data were collected on three aspects of the first rib (costal face, rib head, and tubercle facet) for 470 known‐age males of Balkan ancestry collected as evidence during investigations conducted by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Ages‐at‐death r…
Testing for size and allometric differences in fossil hominin body mass estimation
Body size reconstructions of fossil hominins allow us to infer many things about their evolution and lifestyle, including diet, metabolic requirements, locomotion, and brain/body size relationships. The importance of these implications compels anthropologists to attempt body mass estimation from fragmentary fossil hominin specimens. Most calculations require a known “calibration” sample usually composed of modern humans or other extant apes. Caut…
Estimation and evidence in forensic anthropology
Forensic anthropology typically uses osteological and/or dental data either to estimate characteristics of unidentified individuals or to serve as evidence in cases where there is a putative identification. In the estimation context, the problem is to describe aspects of an individual that may lead to their eventual identification, whereas in the evidentiary context, the problem is to provide the relative support for the identification. In either…
The ancient inhabitants of Jebel Moya redux
This paper reexamines some of the methods and craniometric findings in the classic volume The Ancient Inhabitants of Jebel Moya (Sudan) (1955) by Mukherjee, Rao & Trevor, in light of recent archaeological data and relative to a new dental morphological study. Archaeological evidence characterises these inhabitants as having been heavily influenced by outside sources; yet they managed to establish and maintain their own distinctive culture as seen…
Estimation of the most likely number of individuals from commingled human skeletal remains
This study examines quantification techniques applicable to human skeletal remains, and in particular the Lincoln index (LI), the minimum number of individuals (MNI), and what we refer to as the most likely number of individuals (MLNI), which is a modification of the LI by Chapman ([1951] Univ. Calif. Publ. Stat. 1 :131–159). As part of the study, a test of pair‐matching between commingled homologous elements, e.g., right and left femora, was per…
Endocranial suture closure in rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta )
Endocasts from skulls of 330 rhesus monkeys ( Macaca mulatta ) of known age are scored for closure of nine bilateral and three unilateral sutures or segments of sutures. A variety of tests reveals a strong relationship between age and stages of suture closure, although increasingly broad confidence intervals prevent sutures from being very useful for precisely aging older macaques. The order in which endosutures begin to close, as well as that in…
Recognizing species diversity among large-bodied hominoids
A persistent problem in paleoanthropology is the recognition of intra- vs. inter-specific differences within fossil samples. Exacerbating this situation is the often fragmentary nature of the fossils themselves, thus precluding rote applications of many multivariate approaches designed for complete case analyses. In this paper we apply finite mixture analysis to samples of large-bodied hominoids to test this procedure's efficacy in clustering ind…
An historical note on the t ‐test for differences in sexual dimorphism between populations
Paleodemographic Correlates of Fertility
Corruccini et al. apply our method of fertility estimation to a Barbados slave population, find that it yields contradictory and erratic estimates of the crude birth rate (CBR), examine its theoretical basis, and conclude that a pessimistic view of paleodemography in general is warranted. We argue that the sample utilized by Corruccini et al. is not well suited for methodological testing. Misestimates of fertility more likely were caused by the p…
Paleodemography
Recent criticism of paleodemographic methods (Bocquet-Appel and Masset 1982) has centered on biases introduced by the nature of reference samples and the population-specificity of techniques for estimating age in skeletal remains. This paper examines five key arguments concerning this bias and alleged imprecision from the perspective of life table analysis. The results of our simulation and statistical analyses indicate that the criticism leveled…
Fertility and the Development of Agriculture in the Prehistoric Midwest
In this article we develop and apply a method for estimating fertility in paleodemographic study. The proportion D30+/D5+, generated from standard life table calculations, is used to estimate relative fertility rates for eight Woodland and Mississippian populations represented by skeletal series from west-central Illinois. The inferred pattern of fertility increase through time is then considered in the context of key variables that define diet, …
Migration models of prehistoric postmarital residence
It has previously been suggested that residential practices can be inferred from within‐ or between‐group analysis of male and female skeletal morphology. Arguments have proceeded from intuitively derived hypotheses about the genetic consequences of drift and migration. In this paper, a formal basis is presented for these hypotheses using modified versions of Wright's island model and the migration matrix method. It is shown that the usual measur…
Biological Anthropology
Paleodemographic Correlates of Fertility
Corruccini et al. apply our method of fertility estimation to a Barbados slave population, find that it yields contradictory and erratic estimates of the crude birth rate (CBR), examine its theoretical basis, and conclude that a pessimistic view of paleodemography in general is warranted. We argue that the sample utilized by Corruccini et al. is not well suited for methodological testing. Misestimates of fertility more likely were caused by the p…
Endocranial suture closure in rhesus macaques ( Macaca mulatta )
Endocasts from skulls of 330 rhesus monkeys ( Macaca mulatta ) of known age are scored for closure of nine bilateral and three unilateral sutures or segments of sutures. A variety of tests reveals a strong relationship between age and stages of suture closure, although increasingly broad confidence intervals prevent sutures from being very useful for precisely aging older macaques. The order in which endosutures begin to close, as well as that in…
Genetic differentiation between baboon subspecies
The use of common names which may encompass a number of subspecies or species is pervasive in the biomedical literature. Failure to identify the complete taxonomic classification of research subjects presents a source of error for scientists attempting to evaluate results or to repeat experiments. This paper examines the problem in a common animal model, the baboon. Analyses of the genetic distances among five baboon subspecies ( Papio hamadryas …
Temporal aspects of biological distance
A number of previous studies have examined biological variability within individual human skeletal samples, using internal chronology as an explanatory source for variation. In this paper time series and matrix comparison methods are used to examine temporal serial correlation and trend of biological characteristics within a skeletal sample. These methods follow appropriately upon the assumption that the processes of genetic drift and migration l…
Skeletal biological distance studies in American Physical Anthropology
Biological distance analysis, the dominant type of skeletal biological research during the 19th century, has become less visible in recent years. Although the proportion of American Journal of Physical Anthropology articles and published abstracts focusing on biodistance has remained fairly constant over the three decades between 1955 and 1985, the proportion of biodistance contributions relative to other skeletal biology studies has decreased. E…
External brain morphology in rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta)
An historical note on the t ‐test for differences in sexual dimorphism between populations
Uncertain paternity in primate quantitative genetic studies
Quantitative genetic studies in primates have generally been based on varying amounts of genealogical information. We consider the case where maternal relationships are known, but paternal relationships are only probabilistic (i.e., a limited number of males can be enumerated as equally likely sires for a given offspring). Using Henderson's [1988] average numerator relationship matrix method, we show for craniometric data from the Cayo Santiago m…
Effects of fronto‐occipital artificial cranial vault modification on the cranial base and face
Artificial reshaping of the cranial vault has been practiced by many human groups and provides a natural experiment in which the relationships of neurocranial, cranial base, and facial growth can be investigated. We test the hypothesis that fronto‐occipital artificial reshaping of the neurocranial vault results in specific changes in the cranial base and face. Fronto‐occipital reshaping results from the application of pads or a cradle board which…
Estimation of age structure in anthropological demography
The past decade has produced considerable debate over the feasibility of paleodemographic research, with much attention focusing on the question of reliability of age estimates. We show here that in cases where age is estimated rather than known, the traditional method of assigning individuals to age classes will produce biased estimates of age structure. We demonstrate the effect of this bias both mathematically and by computer simulation, and s…
Cranial deformation and nonmetric trait variation
Cranial deformation is known to influence many traditional craniometric variables, but its effects on nonmetric trait variation are not well characterized. In this study, we examine the effects of three types of deformation (annular, lambdoid flattening, and fronto‐occipital) on nonmetric traits, using a large sample of protohistoric and prehistoric crania. Our results indicate that a few traits are increased or decreased in relative frequency by…
Paleodemography
As Kim Hill 1 recently noted in Evolutionary Anthropology , humans are unique among the hominoids with regard to the length of their lives, as well as other elements in the individual life histories. The evolutionary details that modified a basic pongid life history into a hominid one remain obscure, but aspects of recent human demographic history are assailable. Study of the last 10,000 years or so is an important part of ongoing anthropological…
Paranthropus boisei
Of the presently recognised early hominid species, Paranthropus boisei is one of the better known from the fossil record and arguably the most distinctive; the latter interpretation rests on the numbers of apparently derived characters it incorporates. The species as traditionally diagnosed is distributed across approximately one million years and is presently confined to samples from East African sites. The hypodigm has been examined for evidenc…
Statistical study of sexual dimorphism in the human fetal sciatic notch
Whether human fetal skeletal remains exhibit sexual dimorphism has been the subject of considerable debate. Most attention in this debate has focused on the greater sciatic notch of the ilium, since it is a gross morphological characteristic with known sex differences in the adult and is easily seen in fetal skeletal remains. Unfortunately, previous traditional morphometric analyses of the fetal sciatic notch have led to ambiguous results. The pu…
Use of ordinal categorical variables in skeletal assessment of sex from the cranium
Stature estimation and calibration
Many applied problems in physical anthropology involve estimation of an unobservable quantity (such as age at death or stature) from quantities that are observable. Two of the more disparate subdisciplines of our discipline, paleoanthropology and forensic anthropology, routinely make use of various estimation methods on a case-by-case basis. We discuss the rationales for making estimations on isolated cases, taking stature estimation from femoral…
Stature estimation and calibration
Many applied problems in physical anthropology involve estimation of an unobservable quantity (such as age at death or stature) from quantities that are observable. Two of the more disparate subdisciplines of our discipline, paleoanthropology and forensic anthropology, routinely make use of various estimation methods on a case-by-case basis. We discuss the rationales for making estimations on isolated cases, taking stature estimation from femoral…
Use of ordinal categorical variables in skeletal assessment of sex from the cranium
In anthropological studies, visual indicators of sex are traditionally scored on an ordinal categorical scale. Logistic and probit regression models are commonly used statistical tools for the analysis of ordinal categorical data. These models provide unbiased estimates of the posterior probabilities of sex conditional on observed indicators, but they do so only under certain conditions. We suggest a more general method for sexing using a multiva…
Estimation of African ape body length from femur length
Recognizing species diversity among large-bodied hominoids
A persistent problem in paleoanthropology is the recognition of intra- vs. inter-specific differences within fossil samples. Exacerbating this situation is the often fragmentary nature of the fossils themselves, thus precluding rote applications of many multivariate approaches designed for complete case analyses. In this paper we apply finite mixture analysis to samples of large-bodied hominoids to test this procedure's efficacy in clustering ind…
Estimating stature in fossil hominids
Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (39 works) · Biology (36 works) · Mathematics (29 works) · Statistics (28 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Demography (20 works) · Computer Science (19 works) · Forensic and Genetic Research (18 works) · Geography (17 works) · Population (17 works)