Femoral Cortical Bone Development in the Dickson Mounds Collection. Meghan Moran, Western Michigan University, Anthropology Department; home address: 4612 Wimbleton Way, Kalamazoo, MI 49009 The goal of this research is to improve our understanding of the function and development of the hip in relation to bipedalism. Rafferty (1997) has shown that cortical thickening on the medial border of the femur is directly related to the loading of the hip in bipedal walking, and this makes it the most diagnostic bipedal feature. Thus one would expect that the thickening of the medial border of the femoral neck during growth would correlate with the development of bipedal gait in children. This in turn would allow for a new means to assess bipedal locomotion in the fossil hominid remains. To test this hypothesis 91 femora were selected from the Dickson Mounds site housed at the Illinois State Museum in Springfield, Illinois. They were sorted into age cohorts from neonatal to 60 years of age at time of death. They were measured, x-rayed, and graphed for cortical bone thickness. The results of this research affirmed that medial cortex of femoral necks become thicker during the years when most children begin t o walk and continues long after this point through the age of 10. This strongly supports the contention that bipedal gait is a major factor in the thickening of the medial border in children ages 1-3.
