Cranial Nonmetric Sexual Dimorphism and Sex Estimation in East and Southeast Asian Individuals

Bibliographic Data

ID5284337
AuthorsD Tallman (0000-0002-0940-279X, Boston University, corresponding author), Sean D Tallman
Year2019
Volume2
Issue4
Pages204-221
Publication date2019-12-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueForensic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2573-5020 • E-ISSN: 2573-5039
PublisherUniversity Press of Florida (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.5744/fa.2019.1010
OpenAlexW2931449726
LanguageEN
Citations received7

Sex-often analyzed through the visual assessment of robust or gracile nonmetric skeletal features-is one of the most important components of the biological profile, as it dictates the methods used in the estimation of age and stature. Differences in sexual dimorphism exist between populations; however, little work has tested the efficacy of nonmetric-scoring systems on Asian groups. This study examines cranial (nuchal crest, mastoid process, supraorbital margin, glabella, and mental eminence) nonmetric sexual dimorphism in 1,397 Japanese and Thai individuals through the development of population-specific univariate and multivariate statistics, which were subsequently tested on 109 Filipino individuals. The univariate sectioning points produced classification accuracies of 45.5-93.2%, while cross-validated logistic regression equations resulted in classification accuracies of 68.4-97.3%. However, Walker's (2008) and Garvin et al.'s (2014) discriminant functions developed on non-Asian individuals produced lower classification accuracies and higher sex biases when applied to the Asian samples due to reduced sexual dimorphism. While some population differences exist between the Japanese and Thai, the inclusion of population in statistical models failed to contribute to the predictions. Further, the success of the univariate and multivariate models on the Filipino sample suggests that they can be cautiously applied to other East and Southeast Asian groups. While age and intraobserver error minimally affect the nonmetric traits, secular change may influence their expression, thereby complicating their use in sex estimation. The findings of this research underscore the importance of developing Asian-specific biological profile methods in the current judicial climate

Biology · Estimation · Logistic regression · Multivariate statistics · Population · Sexual dimorphism · Statistics · Univariate · Zoology · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Demography · Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Mathematics

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