The Americas Data Set consists of osteometric measurements taken from 2762 human skeletons of American Indian ancestors dating from throughout the Holocene. These reflect 127 unique sites, some of which consist of multiple temporal and cultural horizons. A summary of the sites sampled and sample sizes in the data may be found in this document. Dr. Benjamin Auerbach obtained all of these data during multiple research trips taken between 2001 and 2007. These trips were made possible by the generous funding of the Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Prize (see the Goldman Data Set page for more information about this prize), the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and through the support of the National Science Foundation—a Graduate Research Fellowship and a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (BCS #0550673, co-PI with Dr. Christopher Ruff). Dr. Auerbach continues to be grateful to the staff and curators at the institutions in across North America and Europe for allowing permission to work with their collections. A list of source institutions may be found below.

Up to 139 measurements were taken from each individual: seven are craniometrics, and the rest are measurements from the manubrium, clavicles, all vertebrae, the pelvis, the six major limb long bones, and the talus & calcaneus. In addition to these linear metrics, observations were recorded for which of these skeletal elements were missing at the time of observation, which skeletal elements were damaged (and therefore not measured or had measurements estimated), as well as signs of trauma or pathology. Sex and age were estimated as well from pelvic observations, as well as from the cranium. Descriptions of all dimensions measured may be found in the Americas Data Measurement Descriptions PDF.

In addition to these data, geographic location, archaeological context (including broad subsistence categories), and reconstructed climate data are provided for each archaeological site. Latitudes and longitudes for archaeological sites are provided in decimal degrees in the main data set. General archaeological context for each site may be found in the Americas Data Archaeological Context PDF; this document includes citations of essential primary sources for information about archaeological sites. Subsistence categories are broad, and represent the predominant form of subsistence economy practiced by the individuals represented by these data. Individual burial archaeological context data are not provided here, but may be available through cited sources (when it is available). Climate data (mean temperature, maximum and minimum temperatures, and mean precipitation) were obtained from weather station data recorded before 1990, which were matched to sites based on published information about paleoclimates (paleopalynological, dendrological, and ice core data) and modern ecological data.

For detailed information about the archaeological contexts, climatic reconstructions, osteometric data, and other data, please consult Dr. Benjamin Auerbach’s doctoral dissertation (Auerbach, 2007).

Among the individuals represented in these data are measurements taken by Dr. Auerbach from multiple early Holocene skeletons (often referred to as “Paleoindians”). These include the skeletons from Little Salt Spring (FL), Warm Mineral Springs (FL), Windover (FL), Spirit Cave (NV), Grimes Point (NV), Eva (TN), Horn Shelter (TX), Wilson-Leonard (TX), Midland (TX), Kennewick (WA). In some cases, this is the first place some of these measurements have been made available.

Links to the data will eventually be provided at the bottom of this page. All numeric data will be in the main “Measurements and Context Data” file, including osteometrics, sex and age estimations, temporal periods, climate data, subsistence group assignments. The descriptions of individual pathologies and trauma, as well as missing or damaged elements, will be provided in the “Skeletal Inventories, Trauma, and Pathology” file.

These data will be made available to researchers for download in March 2019. The data will be available below as a Microsoft Excel legacy file and as a comma-separated text file. Please also consult the additional documents that describe measurements and archaeological site information. Dr. Auerbach’s dissertation is also provided as a primary reference.

ALL RESEARCHERS WHO PLAN TO USE THESE DATA ARE WELCOMED AND ENCOURAGED TO CONTACT DR. AUERBACH. . ANY USE OF THESE DATA IN PRESENTED OR PUBLISHED RESEARCH CARRIES THE STIPULATION THAT THE SOURCE OF THE DATA BE CITED. ACCEPTABLE CITATIONS FOR THE DATA INCLUDE THE REFERENCE OF THE DATA’S ANALYSIS (AUERBACH 2007, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014; AUERBACH & RUFF 2010) AND OF THIS WEB SITE.

Archaeological sites sampled: PDF file

Archaeological context: PDF file

Maps of sites, plotted by time period: PDF file

Description of the osteological measurements: PDF file

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING INSTITUTIONS FOR PERMITTING ACCESS TO THEIR COLLECTIONS:

American Museum of Natural History, New York
Arizona State Museum, Tucson
Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Seattle
Canadian Museum of History, Gatineau
Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland
Duckworth Collection, The University of Cambridge (LCHES), Cambridge
Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago
Florida Museum of Natural History, Gainesville
Florida State University Department of Anthropology, Tallahassee
Frank H. McClung Museum of Natural History and Culture, Knoxville
Harvard Peabody Museum, Cambridge
Illinois State Museum, Springfield
Kent State University Department of Anthropology, Kent
Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, Albuquerque
Musee de l'Homme, Paris
Muzeo Nationale di Antropologia e Etnologia, Florence
National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian Institution), Washington, D.C.
Natural History Museum, London
Nevada State Museum, Carson City
Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, Berkeley
San Diego Museum of Man, San Diego
San Jose Department of Anthropology, San Jose
Texas Archaeology Research Laboratory, Austin
University of California - Davis Department of Anthropology, Davis
The University of Tennessee Department of Anthropology, Knoxville
Utah Museum of Natural History, Salt Lake City
Webb Osteology and Archaeology Collection, University of Kentucky, Lexington

Americas Osteological Data Set: Measurements and Context Data (right-click and save file)

Microsoft Excel (XLS) file
Comma-separated values (CSV) file

Americas Osteological Data Set: Skeletal Inventories, Trauma, and Pathology (right-click and save file)

Microsoft Excel (XLS) file
Comma-separated values (CSV) file

Publications using data from the Americas Data Set (see Publications for copies of most papers listed here):

Auerbach BM, & Ruff CB. 2004. Human body mass estimation: a comparison of “morphometric” and “mechanical” methods. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 125:331-342.

Auerbach BM, & Ruff CB. 2006. Limb bone bilateral asymmetry: variability and commonality among modern humans. Journal of Human Evolution 50:203-218.

Auerbach BM. 2007. Human skeletal variation in the New World during the Holocene: Effects of climate and subsistence across geography and time. Ph.D. Dissertation. Center for Functional Anatomy & Evolution: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. 1107 pp. (3 volumes)

Auerbach BM & Raxter MH. 2008. Patterns of clavicular bilateral asymmetry in relation to the humerus: variation among humans. Journal of Human Evolution 54:663-674.

Auerbach BM & Ruff CB. 2010. Stature estimation formulae for indigenous populations from North America. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 141:190-207.

Auerbach BM. 2010. Giants among us? Morphological variation and migration on the Great Plains. In Auerbach BM (ed.): Human Variation in the Americas: the integration of archaeology and biological anthropology. Occasional Paper No. 38. Center for Archaeological Investigations. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, pp. 172 - 214.

Auerbach BM. 2011. Reaching great heights: changes in indigenous stature, body size, and body shape with agricultural intensification in North America. Pinhasi R & Stock JT (eds.): Human Bioarchaeology of the Transition to Agriculture. London: Wiley-Liss. pp. 203-233.

Auerbach BM & Sylvester AD. 2011. Allometry and apparent paradoxes in human limb proportions: implications for scaling factors. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 144:382-391.

Auerbach BM. 2011. Methods for estimating missing human skeletal osteometric dimensions employed in the revised Fully technique for estimating stature. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 145:67-80.

Auerbach BM. 2012. Skeletal variation among early Holocene North American humans: implications for origins and diversity in the Americas. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 149:525-536.

Trinkaus E, Holliday TW, & Auerbach BM. 2014. Neandertal clavicle length. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 111:4438-4442.

Auerbach BM. 2014. Body mass, stature, and proportions of the skeleton. Owsley DW & Jantz RL (eds.): Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton.. Texas A&M Press: College Station. pp. 212-231.

Auerbach BM. 2014. Morphologies from the edge: perspectives on biological variation among the late Holocene inhabitants of the northwestern North American Arctic. In Hilton CE, Auerbach BM, & Cowgill LW (eds.): The Foragers of Point Hope: The Biology and Archaeology of Humans on the Edge of the Alaskan Arctic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 235-265.

Roseman CC & Auerbach BM. 2015. Ecogeography, genetics, and the evolution of human body form. Journal of Human Evolution 78:80-90.

Savell KRR, Auerbach BM, & Roseman CC. 2016. Constraint, natural selection, and the evolution of human body form. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 113:9492-9497.