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Greater sciatic notch morphology: Sex, age, and population differences
Author(s) -
Walker Phillip L.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
american journal of physical anthropology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.146
H-Index - 119
eISSN - 1096-8644
pISSN - 0002-9483
DOI - 10.1002/ajpa.10422
Subject(s) - sexing , longevity , demography , population , biology , morphology (biology) , zoology , genetics , sociology
The accuracy of a method for visually scoring sex differences in the greater sciatic notch was tested on 296 skeletons of known age and sex. The proportion of correct sex assignments is 80% when all specimens are classified, and 89% when os coxae assigned the score in which the sexes show the greatest overlap are excluded. Although many os coxae (35%) have this sexually intermediate morphology, excluding them has the advantage of substantially reducing sex biases in sexing errors. For both sexes, there is a strong relationship between age at death and sciatic notch score. People who die at a younger age tend to have wider, more feminine‐appearing sciatic notches than people of greater longevity. There are also significant population differences. The 18th–19th century English sample from St. Bride's Church has a more feminine morphology than Americans of European or African ancestry. Environmental influences on skeletal development (vitamin D deficiency) appear to provide the most likely explanation for these population differences. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2005. © 2005 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.