ABSTRACT
Objective To study the sex difference and discriminating formulas by measuring both metacarpal bones on X-ray and body height of Kazakh nationality adults,providing anatomical data for physical anthropology and forensic medicine. Methods The metacarpal bones length on X-ray films and body height from 200 adults of Kazakh nationality,including 100 male and 100 females were measured. The obtained date were statistically dealt by SPSS15.0 software. Results The length of the 4th metacarpal bone in male and the 5th in female were statistical significance beside, 4 discriminating formulas were obtained as follows: Y＝2.824r_1+2.563r_4-0.654r_5+0.614l7-0.039l_9+2.452l_(10)-212.186,Y＝2.350r_1+2.377r_4-0.995r_5+0.445l_7+0.046l_9+2.966l_(10)-191.622,Y＝0.393h_1+3.152r_1+0.435r_5+1.250r_(10)-463.734,Y＝0.362h_1+2.785r_1+0.028r_5+1.834 r_(10)-404.748, the accuracy being 89.67%、86.55%、90.00% and 87.50%. Conclusion The data presented in this paper indicates that the body height of male and female kazakh minority is closely related with the enlargement of their metacarpal bones.