Introduction to Anthropometry

Anthropometry is the systematic collection and correlation of measurements of size and proportions of human body, living or dead. It is a typical and traditional tool not only for Physical Anthropology, but also human biology and auxology. The word is derived from Greek words, anthropos which mean man, and metron which means measure. One of the aim of Biological/Physical Anthropologists is to understand human variation. In pursuit of this idea, they use certain research methods, of which Anthropometry is a significant one.

The origin of these measurements can be traced back long ago, the artists of ancient Egypt and Greece formulated some standard criteria for human body. But it was Friedrich Blumenbach (1753-1840) who laid the foundations of craniology in the field of scientific anthropometry. He differentiated mankind into different races on the basis of skull-form.

In biological anthropology and human paleontology, it is a technique of choice for qualifying variability and relationship of fossils and extant populations. Mathematical approaches are used in describing the size and proportions of various fossil hominids. It is the most universally applicable, inexpensive, non-invasive method available to assess the nutritional history throughout one’s life.  It is essential in the field of forensics, specially forensic anthropology which is concerned with the relationship between medicine and law. Anthropometry also finds its use Architecture and also in Design of clothing, equipment, interiors, furniture, etc.

In view of the fact that no two individuals are ever alike in all measurable characters, except perhaps mono-zygotic twins and that the later tend to undergo change in varying degrees. Hence, persons living under different conditions and members of different ethnic groups and the offspring of unions between them frequently present interesting differences in body form and proportions. It is therefore necessary to have some means of giving quantitative expression to the variations exhibited by such traits. Anthropometry constitutes a means towards this end, the Anthropologists are concerned with functional relationships among traits and between traits and the environment.

In brief, Anthropology plays an essential role in all areas  of human endeavor concerned with the relative and absolute quantification of the human body.

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