Title: BURNED BONES: AN UNIVARIATE APPROACH TO SEX
DETERMINATION
Authors: David Gonçalves
Afilliation: Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (CIAS), University of
Coimbra, Portugal; Instituto de Gestão do Património Arquitectónico e Arqueológico
(IGESPAR), Lisboa, Portugal.
Abstract
The reliability of osteometric sex determination of unknown individuals from burned
skeletal remains has been seldom investigated. Bones submitted to extremely high
temperatures are affected by differential shrinkage thus leading to the notion that this methodology is not suitable for reliable sex classification. However, we still know too little about the influence of heat-induced shrinkage over the sexual dimorphism of the human skeleton to make such an assumption. A sample of 305 contemporary individuals cremated right after death was examined in order to investigate this issue. This was done by assessing the sexual dimorphism of standard measurements from several bones burned until complete calcination. Results demonstrate that sexual dimorphism is still present in calcined bones despite
differential shrinkage. New sex discriminating cut-off points specific to calcined bones were calculated thus allowing for better sex classification accuracies. As a result, this univariate approach enhances the chances of achieving sex determination from burned skeletal remains because it does not require the multivariate approach conventionally adopted for the scoring of morphognostic traits. Although the osteometric references here presented have been developed from contemporary populations, the validation of this methodology still brings new prospects for the biological profiling of archaeological populations.
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