Dados do Trabalho

Título

EXPLORATION OF A SUBADULT SEX ESTIMATION METHOD USING PELVIC METRICS

Introdução

Biological sex estimation represents a main component of the biological profile estimated by forensic anthropologists. Adult sex estimation methods using morphological and metric analyses of the pelvis consistently yield high classification accuracies. Subadult sex estimation methods have been less successful due to a lack of large skeletal samples representing all of ontogeny. However, approaches can be re-evaluated now that larger samples are available through virtual anthropology. Specifically, pelvic metrics have not been fully explored regarding their utility in sex estimation of subadults.

Objetivos

The goal of this research is to explore the utility of pelvic ILDs, collected from partially and fully fused subadult innominates, in sex estimation of individuals between the ages of 7 and 20 years.

Parte experimental

Thirty-four pelvic landmarks were placed on 356 left innominates from which 10 standard ILDs (LANGLEY e colab., 2016) were calculated using the X, Y, and Z coordinates. Cross-validation and linear discriminant function analyses (LDA) were performed to model the relationships between pelvic metrics, a maturity indicator, and known biological sex.

Resultados e Discussões

Correct sex classification of females ranged from 93.33% to 96.67%; male classification ranged from 88.0% to 93.33% correct; total correct sex classifications ranged from 90.0% to 93.42% (Table 1). Accuracies are remarkably comparable to adult sex estimation methods and are stronger than morphological subadult sex methods currently published that use the pelvis.

Conclusões

Large samples enabled exploration of metric data using robust statistics to expose the utility of pelvic ILDs for subadult sex estimation, given an ongoing or completely fused innominate. These results are transformative to the field, as we can now confidently estimate sex, with a high level of accuracy, on younger individuals than previously assumed.

Referências e agradecimentos

LANGLEY, Natalie R e colab. Data collection procedures for forensic skeletal material 2.0. University of Tennessee and Lincoln Memorial University, 2016.

Palavras Chave

interlandmark distances; discriminant function analysis

Arquivos

Área

Antropologia Forense