How reproducibly can human ear ossicles be measured? A study of inter-observer error.

Ear ossicles have thus far received little attention in biological anthropology. For the use of these bones as a source of biological information, it is important to know how reproducibly they can be measured. We determined inter-observer errors for measurements recorded by two observers on mallei (N = 119) and incudes (N = 124) obtained from human skeletons recovered from an early medieval cemetery in southern Germany.