Studies of sexual dimorphism of the sacrum have generally been conducted as part of broader population research or on living persons and cadavers, making the anthropological literature sparse. The greater sciatic notch and the preauricular sulcus of the ilium have both been found to show sexual dimorphism, although studies of these traits often have ambiguous definitions of characteristics and lack the standardization of measurements. This research was designed to reexamine and test the accuracy of standard scoring systems and measurements of the posterior pelvis used to determine sex and to establish new formulae combining traits and measurements to accurately determine sex using logistic regression analysis. A series of metric measurements and morphological scores were recorded for 104 males and 106 females of both European- and African-American ancestry from the William M. Bass and Terry Collections. In order to reexamine previous research conducted on the posterior pelvis, standard ratios of metric measurements were analyzed to determine ranges and cut-off values for males and females in this sample. The ratio of ala width to the maximum transverse diameter of the sacral base and the ratio of the length and width of the sciatic notch have proven to be the most useful ratios in sex determination, though not as accurate as the formulae created using logistic regression. These data were also analyzed in SPSS using logistic regression to assess the usefulness of metric measurements and morphological scores of the posterior pelvis in sex determination. Using stepwise logistic regression, a combination of traits for both the sacrum and posterior ilium that are the most reliable and accurate for sex determination have been determined. The values for these selected traits can be incorporated into the log odds formulas which will classify an individual as male or female. The ultimate goal of this research was to provide physical anthropologists with iii logistic regression equations that can be used to estimate the sex of the posterior ilium and sacrum. Two equations ranging in accuracy from 79-84% were developed to determine sex of the posterior pelvis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ucf.edu/oai:stars.library.ucf.edu:etd-2539 |
| Date | 01 January 2010 |
| Creators | Novak, Lauren M. |
| Publisher | STARS |
| Source Sets | University of Central Florida |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Electronic Theses and Dissertations |
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