Stature Estimation from the Dimensions of Foot in Females

Introduction Stature reconstruction is important as it provides a forensic anthropological estimate of the height of a person in the living state – playing a vital role in identification of individual. Height estimation by measurement of various long bones has been attempted by several workers with variable degree of success. Each worker has derived his own formula for calculating the stature from long bones. However, foot measurement has not frequently been used for this. Studies on the estimation of stature from the skeletal remains or from the mutilated limbs, mostly of the long bones have been reported as indicated by the published work of the Pearson (1899), Trotter and Glesser (1952). The Indian perspective of the problem of stature estimation has been studied by the Athwale et al (1963), Patel et al (1964), Joshi et al (1964,65), Lal and Lala (1972), Kalte and Bansal (1974), Thakur and Rai (1987), Saxena (1984), Bhatnagar et al (1984), Jasuja (1987). Also there are few studies in which stature is estimated from inferior extremity length and foot length. (Agnihotri A.K. et al(2007), Ozden H et al( 2005), Sangli S.G. et al (2005), Oommen A. et al (2005), Krishnan K.(2007), Patel et al (2007). It were Kulthanan et al, Rutishauser (1968), Ozden et al and Philip et al who studied that reliability of prediction of height from foot length was as high as that from long bones(Kulthanan T et.al2004.Rutihauser IH. 1968. Ozden H, et. al2005. Philip TA. 1989). Ossification and maturation in the foot occurs earlier than the long bones and therefore, during adolescence age, height could be more accurately predicted from foot measurement as compared to that from long bones. Present study was, therefore, conducted to find out correlation between foot length and body height and evaluate the reliability of estimation of height from foot length.