Metric sex determination from the pelvis in modern Greeks

Abstract

The ability to determine sex from unknown skeletal remains is vital, and methods to do this on the various bones of the human skeleton have been researched extensively. Many researchers have emphasized the need for population specific data for methods which are based on measurements, as there are vast differences in body size in various populations. The pelvis is known to be the most sexually dimorphic part of the human body, and no discriminant function formulae for this bone are available for Greek or other Mediterranean groups. The purpose of this study was therefore to develop discriminant functions which can be used for sex determination on measurements of the pelvis of modern Greeks. A sample of 97 male and 95 female pelves in a skeletal collection housed in Heraklion, Crete, was used. Measurements were taken from the articulated pelvis, single os coxae and the sacrum. Discriminant function formulae for all measurements and various combinations were used in order to assess the degree of sexual dimorphism in various parts of the pelvis, and to make the formulae usable on fragmented remains. For the single os coxae, average accuracies of 79.7 – 95.4% (79.1 – 93.5% on cross-validation) were found. However, it was found that measurements of the sciatic notch were unreliable and yielded poor results, and it is advisable that this characteristic must only be used as a last resort. Dimensions of the sacrum were not very dimorphic (average accuracy 60.9%), while measurements from the articulated pelvis yielded poorer results than that from single innominate bones. The diameter of the acetabulum was the single most dimorphic characteristic, providing on average 83.9% accuracy when used in isolation.