Abstract
The current literature indicates the assessment of cranial traits is the preferred method for estimating ancestry in forensic anthropology. However, the cranium is not always available for study, highlighting the need for postcranial studies. Also, the relationship between the long bones and climate suggests that there may be differences in postcranial measurements that are related to the geographic origin of a population. This study utilizes postcranial metric data to investigate the relationship between American whites and blacks and identify differences between measurements for each group. Utilizing a sample from the Terry collection housed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., nine postcranial measurements consisting of maximum lengths and epiphyseal breadths were taken from 514 individuals and analyzed using ANOVA and Kruskal Wallis analyses, with post-hoc Tukey and Dunn-Bonferroni correction tests to identify significant differences between groups. Canonical variates analysis was employed to separate groups based on within-group variation. The results indicate upper limb measurements are more useful than lower limb measurements and that maximum length measurements provide more accurate ancestry estimations than epiphyseal breadths.