Osteometry

Osteometry is the study and measurement of human or animal skeleton, especially in an anthropological or archaeological context. In Archaeology it has been used to various ends in the subdisciplines of Zooarchaeology and Bioarchaeology.

In zooarchaeology the main goal of osteometry is taxonomic determination and, to lesser extent, determination of sex. Usually it is very difficult to discriminate between different species of the same genus or family (e.g. South American camelids), and the statistical analysis of osteometric parameters is quite useful.