Sex determination from the femur and tibia in South African whites

Abstract

With the current high incidence of violent crimes in South Africa, it has become very important to be able to determine the sex of individuals from their skeletal remains. The aim of this study is to provide standards usable for this purpose, to be used on the contemporary South African white population. Very little skeletal data is available for this group. Osteometric information was obtained from 56 male and 50 female individuals from cadaver collections. Six femoral and seven tibial measurements were taken, and subjected to SPSS discriminant function analysis. The distal breadths from both the femur and tibia provided the best discrimination. Formulae were developed for a number of combinations of measurements, which can be used to determine the sex on fragmentary remains. Average accuracies ranged from 86% to 91%, with female accuracies slightly higher than those of the males. The results of this study compares well with others, e.g., those from American whites.