The impact of data from early fusing and basipodial bones on adult body size estimate: methodological insights from Upper Palaeolithic sites in southern Italy

In this paper, we present a biometric dataset of four wild ungulate species from two Late Pleistocene sites of southern Italy to highlight potential issues in estimating population body size when bone remains are highly fragmented. The materials come from the Epigravettian archaeological layers of Grotta Paglicci (Rignano Garganico) and Grotta della Cala (Marina di Camerota) and are ascribed to Bos primigenius, Capra ibex, Equus ferus and Cervus elaphus. Width measurements of long bone epiphyses, as well as width measurements of carpal and tarsal bones, were compared to reference standards using logarithmic ratio. The analysis showed a systematic difference between the results obtained when considering bones without epiphyses (e.g., talus) and with early ossifying epiphyses, on the one hand, and those obtained when measuring later fusion epiphyses, on the other. In particular, the first group provided more variable and often more downwardly skewed values. This means that biometric analyses used to estimate adult body size in a population are affected by those anatomical elements that are more likely to belong to animals that still have a good margin for growth, despite the effort to discard bones that look juvenile. Our results underline the need for caution when choosing anatomical elements for biometric analysis.