Mathematics

Mohammed Ferguson

26 June, 15:14

In forensic anthropology, the length of the femur bone (the thigh bone) in the skeleton is used to estimate the height of the person when he or she was alive. The height of a person is estimated to be 4 times the length of the femur. 22

(a) If the femur bone on a female skeleton measures 15.5 inches, approximately how tall was the

woman?

(b) If the femur bone on a male skeleton measures 17 inches, approximately how tall was the

man?

(C) Write an equation for the height, H. of a person with femur bone of length b.

(d) Graph the equation H with height on the y-axis and bone length on the z-axis. Your graph

should include heights up to 80 inches.

(e) What is the slope of your line? What does it mean in this context?

(f) Use your equation or the graph to estimate the length of your own femur bone. (Be sure to

indicate your height and how you figured out your estimated femur bone length.)