Sexual dimorphism of the humerus in contemporary Cretans--a population-specific study and a review of the literature*.
Sex determination is the first essential step for positive identification when a decomposed body is recovered. Taking into consideration the population aspect of sexual dimorphism of the skeleton, the present study aimed to create a sex identification technique using osteometric standards, derived from a contemporary Cretan population. A total of 168 left humeri were measured according to standard osteometric techniques. The differences between the means in males and females were significant (p < 0.0005). About 92.3% of cases were correctly classified when all measurements were applied jointly. Stepwise procedure produced an accuracy rate of 92.9%. The most effective single dimension was vertical head diameter (89.9%). The current study provides standards for a population that has not been represented so far in the existing databases. It demonstrates that the humerus is an effective bone for the estimation of sex because even in a fragmentary state it can give high classification accuracy.
Kranioti
Elena F
EF
Department of Forensic Sciences, Medical School, University of Crete, Heraklion, Greece.
Michalodimitrakis
Manolis
M
D000368:Aged; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods*; D006115:Greece; D006801:Humans; D006811:Humerus / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008297:Male; D044469:Racial Groups; D054881:Sex Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*