An assessment of sex using craniofacial measurements of human crania by discriminant function analysis

D. Jain, O. P. Jasuja, S. Nath

Abstract: Objective. The present research was undertaken to study the accuracy and reliability of the craniofacial measurements in sex discrimination through univariate and multivariate discriminant function analysis.
Methods. Three hundred adult crania (150 males and 150 females) were measured for ten craniofacial measurements. Univariate and multivariate discriminant functions were formulated for determining the sex of the skull.
Results. In univariate analysis, bizygomatic breadth and maximum cranial circumference were found as the best reliable parameters whereas in multivariate analysis, function 2 and function 5 achieved the highest sex classification accuracy.
Conclusion. This study demonstrates a significant result for different craniofacial measurements. It can be concluded that these univariate and multivariate discriminant functions could be used in finding the sex of the unknown skull or fragmentary remains.
Keywords: crania, sex determination, sexual dimorphism, metric measurements, craniofacial dimensions, discriminant function analysis.