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Sexual Dimorphism of the Humerus in Contemporary Cretans—A Population‐Specific Study and a Review of the Literature *
Author(s) -
Kranioti Elena F.,
Michalodimitrakis Manolis
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01103.x
Subject(s) - sexual dimorphism , population , humerus , identification (biology) , dimension (graph theory) , demography , statistics , forensic anthropology , skeleton (computer programming) , biology , mathematics , geography , zoology , ecology , anatomy , archaeology , sociology , pure mathematics
Sex determination is the first essential step for positive identification when a decomposed body is recovered. Taking into consideration the population aspect of sexual dimorphism of the skeleton, the present study aimed to create a sex identification technique using osteometric standards, derived from a contemporary Cretan population. A total of 168 left humeri were measured according to standard osteometric techniques. The differences between the means in males and females were significant ( p < 0.0005). About 92.3% of cases were correctly classified when all measurements were applied jointly. Stepwise procedure produced an accuracy rate of 92.9%. The most effective single dimension was vertical head diameter (89.9%). The current study provides standards for a population that has not been represented so far in the existing databases. It demonstrates that the humerus is an effective bone for the estimation of sex because even in a fragmentary state it can give high classification accuracy.