The Secular Trend in Sicily. Proposal for Long Bones Measures and Statures open access databases

Human Stature is a widely used index of both individuals and populations. Stature is a sensitive measure of a series of factors including gender, age, social status, and environment. Human biologists and historians can use information on stature to betterunderstand the human condition through the ages. There are three goals of this paper: 1. review previous studies of height; 2. remeasure adult bones and expand sample sizes; 3. provide three free databases (long bone length; average height of populations; average agerelated stature. However, the aim of this paper is not to present an exhaustive analysis of the Secular trend in Sicily. The samples range from the Paleolithic to the Contemporary Age. The data consist of measures from 82 adult specimens and includes the average stature of 28 Sicilian populations and the average stature from 11 different periods (plus modern Italians). A few examples of statistical analyses are presented to illustrate the potential, reliability, and reproducibility of the databases.