Sex Assessment of Fragmentary Skeletal Remains

Abstract

To determine the sex of fragmentary human skeletal remains, discriminant function analysis using 18 measurements on relatively preservable parts of the skeleton was made on samples from western Japan, of recent, medieval and aeneolithic Yayoi periods. A total of over 150 discriminant functions based on one to eight variables were applied to recent samples and the sex could be determined with over 90% accuracy, using combinations of only two to three measurements. When the discriminant function coefficients calculated from measurements on the recent Japanese were applied to the excavated skeletal remains, they proved to be useful in sexing the samples from the Yoshimo-hama site (15-16C.). In case of the Yayoi population (300 B. C. -A. D. 300), a suitable selection of the discriminant functions containing the variables which showed relatively small differences among the populations studied made feasible sex determination at a high rate of accuracy. When the discriminant functions were calculated for each population respectively, the measurements were found to be highly useful for sex determination in all the populations studied. Furthermore, the combination method of midpoints between the male and female mean measurements also showed a sufficiently high accuracy in sexing the samples. Since the methods we used are not so influenced by the degree of bone preservation, these approaches can be used to determine the sex of excavated human skeletons containing poorly preserved materials.