title: Sex determination in a contemporary Mexican population using the scapula.
abstract: The scapula is useful for sex determination in human skeletons. Muscles provide protection to the scapula making it difficult to fracture, therefore increasing the potential for undamaged scapulae at forensic scenes. The goal of this project is to evaluate the accuracy of discriminant functions, created using an indigenous Guatemalan population when applied to a contemporary Mexican sample for determination of sex from the scapula. The length of the glenoid cavity (LGC) and breadth of the glenoid cavity (BGC) were measured. The sample included 177 individuals (101 males and 76 females) with age ranges from 21 to 100 years old. When the Guatemalan discriminant functions were applied to the Mexican sample they showed high accuracy rates for sexing male scapulae (100%) and low accuracy rates for sexing female scapulae (48.68%-51.32%). Size comparisons were made to an indigenous Guatemalan sample and a contemporary White sample. Overall, LGC and BGC were larger in the Mexican sample than in the Guatemalan sample but LGC and BGC were smaller in the Mexican sample than in the White sample. Population-specific discriminant functions were created for the Mexican population with an overall sex classification accuracy rate of 83.6%-89.3%.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, Canada. Electronic address: allison.hudson@dal.ca.
authors.forename: Allison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hudson
authors.affiliation: Forensic Sciences Program, Department of Anthropology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3, Canada. Electronic address: tanya.peckmann@smu.ca.
authors.forename: Tanya R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Peckmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Anthropology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3, Canada. Electronic address: ciara.logar@smu.ca.
authors.forename: Ciara J
authors.initials: CJ
authors.lastname: Logar
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 3C3, Canada. Electronic address: susan.meek@smu.ca.
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Meek
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008800:Mexico; D008875:Middle Aged; D012540:Scapula / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D054881:Sex Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Adults; Discriminant functions; Forensic anthropology population data; Mexico; Scapula; Sex determination