Sex estimation based on deciduous and permanent dentition in a contemporary spanish population

Abstract

Sex estimation of skeletal remains with satisfactory allocation accuracy represents an essential step in reconstructing the biological profile of unknown individuals in archaeological research and forensic practice. Teeth are among the most frequently recovered physical elements of an individual that remain after death due to their hardness, durability, and resistance to postmortem insults. This study was based on the deciduous and permanent dentition of 269 individuals (150 males and 119 females) from the Granada osteological collection of identified infants, young children, and adults (Granada, Spain). Mesiodistal, buccolingual, and diagonal crown and cervical diameters of both dentitions were measured, and logistic regression analyses were performed to create equations for sex discrimination. The results show that the first and second deciduous molars and the permanent canines are the teeth with the greatest sexual dimorphism, providing percentages of correct assignment of sex between 78.1 and 93.1% in deciduous dentition and between 79.4 and 92.6% in permanent teeth, depending on the dimensions used. The results indicate that this method may be applicable as an adjunct with other accepted procedures for sex estimation when fragmentary skeletal remains are encountered in archaeological excavations and in forensic contexts.

Sex estimation using cervical dental measurements in an archaeological population from Iran

“…A comparison between the two sexes showed that the classification accuracy of all functions was higher for males. This result is in agreement with other studies on cervical tooth measurements (Vodanovic et al 2007;Hassett 2011;Viciano et al 2011Viciano et al , 2013Viciano et al , 2015Zorba et al 2011Zorba et al , 2013Mujib et al 2014;Peckmann et al 2015). This means that females have a greater variation in tooth size and can more often be misclassified as male.…”

“…Discriminant function analysis for single tooth measurements also showed that the cervical measurements of the permanent canines and incisors were the most dimorphic teeth providing classification accuracy between 76.9 and 87.9 %. These results were in accordance with previous studies (Alt et al 1998;Starp 1990;Ellendt 1993;Hassett 2011;Viciano et al 2011Viciano et al , 2013Viciano et al , 2015Mujib et al 2014). In addition, it was found that second molar dimensions can be a very effective single variable for sex estimation with a classification accuracy of 83 %.…”

Odontometric analysis of sexual dimorphism in permanent maxillary and mandibular molars

“…A comparison between the two sexes showed that the classification accuracy of all functions was higher for males. This result is in agreement with other studies on molar odontometrics [13,[17][18][19][20][21][22].…”

“…The correct identification of sex from skeletal remains is one of the main challenges in forensic anthropology and osteoarchaeology. Dental sexual dimorphism has long been acknowledged as a reliable biological feature in this respect, and studies have demonstrated that dental dimensions can be used to accurately assess the sex of skeletal remains in different populations [1][2][3][4][5][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. The present study is one of few reference studies for sex estimation using odontometric data in Iranian archaeological populations [7].…”

Objetos de oro y epicampaniforme en la Cova del Gegant. Relaciones en la costa mediterránea de la Península Ibérica durante la Edad del Bronce

“…Esto ha favorecido el empleo de métodos para establecer el sexo y la edad de los individuos más aproximativos que los convencionales. La determinación de la edad para los subadultos sigue a Ubelaker (1978) y Schaefer et al (2009), para la estimación del sexo en adultos a Viciano et al (2013) y Alemán et al (1997) y para la edad a Işcan et al (1984Işcan et al ( , 1985 y Brothwell (1989). El conjunto consta de un mínimo de 19 sujetos (Tab.…”