The use of the supero‐inferior femoral neck diameter as a sex assessor

Abstract

The present study examines the sexing potential of the minimum supero-inferior femoral neck diameter in Caucasians and African-Americans who lived at the turn of the century. A Student's t-test and an ANOVA indicate that population differences in neck morphology exist, albeit the strength of the test is fairly weak (P = 0.015). Predictive models were developed using a linear discriminant function analysis for the African-American sample, the Caucasian sample, and the combined African-American and Caucasian (AAC) sample. Jackknifed classification matrices produced classification success rates ranging from 87 to 92%. Each of the three discriminant functions were evaluated using an independent, random holdout sample. Although a smaller holdout sample usually better approximates the true error involved in an application, this was clearly not the case in this study. For African-Americans, 28 of 28 individuals were correctly classified, for Caucasians 24 of 25, and for the combined AAC sample 53 of 53 individuals were sexed correctly. It is more likely that the true accuracy of the model for the population approximates 90%. This accuracy combined with the high rate of preservation of the femoral neck makes this measurement useful in extremely fragmentary samples.

Identification of sex based on digital radiographs of the skeleton

“…Recent metrical and morphological studies on various elements, some of which are on populations with no previous data, have included long bones such as the humerus (Singh and Singh, 1972;Dittrick and Suchey, 1986;Carretero et al, 1995;İşcan et al, 1998;Rogers, 1999;Steyn and İşcan, 1999;Albanese et al, 2005;Frutos, 2005), radius (Berrizbeitia, 1989;Celbis and Agritmis, 2006;Barrier and L'Abbé, 2008), ulna (Steel, 1972;Singh et al, 1974;Introna et al, 1993;Purkait, 2001;Grant and Jantz, 2003;Matzon et al, 2006;Barrier and L'Abbé, 2008;Cowal and Pastor, 2008), femur (İşcan and Ding, 1995;King et al, 1998;Seidemann et al, 1998;Mall et al, 2000;Asala, 2001;Asala et al, 2004;Albanese et al, 2008), tibia (Hanihara, 1958;İşcan and Miller-Shaivitz, 1986;Holland, 1991;Kieser et al, 1992;Işcan et al, 1994;Steyn and İşcan, 1997;González-Reimers et al, 2000;Sakaue, 2004;Šlaus and Tomičić, 2005) and fibula (Sacragi et al, 1993). Some of the most important studies are summarized here.…”

“…Because of its strength and density, it is frequently recovered in forensic and archaeological contexts (White 1991). Therefore, many studies have been conducted over the years using the femur in archaeological and modern skeletal material (DiBennardo and Taylor and Dibennardo, 1982;Wu, 1989;İşcan and Ding, 1995;Steyn and İşcan, 1997;King et al, 1998;Seidemann et al, 1998;Mall et al, 2000;Safont et al, 2000;Alunni-Perret et al, 2003;Purkait, 2003;Šlaus et al, 2003;Asala et al, 2004;Purkait and Chandra, 2004;Purkait, 2005). Steyn and İşcan (1997) took six femoral measurements in a cadaver sample of 106 African Whites (Dart collection).…”

“…Since the integrity of the femoral bone in forensic cases can not be assured, different fragmentary models can be assumed. In that aspect, some authors tested the validity of single femoral variables in sex determination (Seidemann et al 1998, Safont et al 2000, Alunni-Perret et al 2007) while others created single diaphysis patterns assuming that only one of the distal ends was preserved (Asala 2001Purkait 2003, Purkait and Chandra 2004, Purkait 2005).…”

“…Osteometric studies of long bones have established their importance in sex and stature estimation when skeletonized bodies or body parts are recovered without any identification. Given that osteometric methods for sex identification are populationspecific, many researchers from around the world have conducted studies on long bones, establishing specific standards of group assessment for several different populations (Singh and Singh, 1972;İşcan et al, 1998;Steyn and İşcan, 1999;Rogers 1999;Frutos, 2005;Carretero et al, 1995;Dittrick and Suchey, 1986;Albanese, 2005;Berrizbeitia 1989;Celbis and Agritmis 2005;Barrier and L Àbbe, 2008;Steel, 1972;Singh et al, 1976, Introna et al, 1993Purkait, 2001;Grant and Jantz, 2003;Matzon et al, 2006;Barrier and L Àbbe, 2008;İşcan et al 1998, İşcan and Shihai 1994, Albanese 2003, Seidemann 1998, Mall et al, 2000,Asala 2000, Asala et all 2004Hanihara, 1958;Holland, 1991;Kieser et al,1992;Milner Savitz 1984b, İşcan et al, 1994;Bruzek, 1995;Steyn and İşcan, 1997;Gonzalez-Reimers et al, 1999;Sakaue, 2004;Slaus and Tomicic, 2006;Sacragi et al, 1994). Among them some data, though limited, derive from Balkan populations (Jantz et al, 2008b;Kimmerle et al, 2008a).…”