title: Impact of secular trends on sex assessment evaluated through femoral dimensions of the Czech population.
abstract: Human skeletal variability is influenced by several factors, including genetics, environment, and socio-cultural background. Forensic methods being traditionally based on targeted reference groups, it is recognized that they are population-specific. Additionally, secular trends highly impact on the skeletal morphology, but the effect of outdated methods on forensic cases is not yet well documented. This paper compares the sexual dimorphism of femoral dimensions in two samples from the Czech population separated by 60 years in time (Pachner and the Prague National Museum Collections). Significant secular trends are present within this short span in both sexes and for most of the seven tested linear variables. The consequence of secular trends on sex determination is tested with logistic regression, and a decrease in reliability is systematically observed when using the older Czech sample on the 20th century sample, whichever the set of variables included. A model based on a recent Croatian sample provides a higher reliability on contemporaneous Czech individuals. These results imply that above population specificity, temporal consistency may be a major criterion to fulfil when applying forensic anthropology identification methods.
authors.affiliation: Univ Bordeaux - CNRS - MCC, PACEA, UMR 5199, 33615 Pessac, France. Electronic address: pierreguyo@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Guyomarc'h
authors.affiliation: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jana
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Velemínská
authors.affiliation: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Petr
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sedlak
authors.affiliation: National Museum, Department of Anthropology, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Miluše
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dobisíková
authors.affiliation: Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Iva
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Švenkrtová
authors.affiliation: Univ Bordeaux - CNRS - MCC, PACEA, UMR 5199, 33615 Pessac, France; Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Science, Department of Anthropology and Human Genetics, Prague, Czech Republic.
authors.forename: Jaroslav
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Brůžek
mesh_terms: D018153:Czech Republic; D005260:Female; D005269:Femur / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D006801:Humans; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D054881:Sex Determination by Skeleton; D013997:Time Factors
keywords: Accuracy; Classification; Femur; Forensic Anthropology Population Data; Logistic Regression; Reliability; Sex determination