Department of Anthropology, Texas State University-San Marcos, San Marcos, TX 78666, United States.
Forensic Sci Int. 2012 Jun 10;219(1-3):290.e1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2011.11.034. Epub 2011 Dec 29.
Estimating the sex of skeletal remains is critical in creating the biological profile of an adult individual. Previous research has shown that analyzing the sternum may lead to an accurate estimation of sex based on studies performed on various populations around the globe, such as Indian, European, African, Canadian and North American. The motivation of the current study is to develop classification functions and sectioning points for use in forensic investigations in the United States. The majority of previously published methods are population specific, meaning the data would not prove useful in the United States. For this study, sternal measurements were collected from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection located at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville following the metric definitions provided by Schwartz and Bass. This collection consists of recent skeletal remains with known age at death, ancestry and sex. Material for the present study consisted of 410 human sterna: 285 male (256 American White/29 American Black) and 125 female (120 American White/5 American Black). Previous studies analyze the applicability of Hyrtl's law in the estimation of sex. This law follows that the mesosternum is greater than twice the length of the manubrium in males and in females the length of the manubrium is greater than half the length of the mesosternum. In this study, comparisons of the proportion of the length of the manubrium to the length of the mesosternum were performed to determine if Hrytl's law is applicable in an American population. Comparisons of these measurements between individuals identified as American Black and American White were analyzed to determine whether this method could be used on both population groups. Further, discriminant function analysis was used to estimate sex and provide a population specific classification function for use in the United States. The discriminate function analysis produced an overall cross-validation classification rate of 84.12% for sex estimation. The cross-validation classification rate for males and females was 80.00% and 88.24%, respectively.
评估骨骼遗骸的性别对于构建成年人的生物学特征至关重要。先前的研究表明，通过分析胸骨，可以根据全球范围内的各种人群（如印度人、欧洲人、非洲人、加拿大人和北美人）的研究，准确估计性别。本研究的动机是开发分类函数和分段点，用于美国的法医学调查。以前发表的大多数方法都是特定于人群的，这意味着这些数据在美国不会有用。在这项研究中，胸骨测量值是从田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校的 William M. Bass 捐赠骨骼收藏中收集的，这些数据符合 Schwartz 和 Bass 提供的度量定义。该收藏包括具有已知死亡年龄、祖先和性别的最近骨骼遗骸。本研究的材料由 410 个人类胸骨组成：285 名男性（256 名美国白人/29 名美国黑人）和 125 名女性（120 名美国白人/5 名美国黑人）。以前的研究分析了 Hyrtl 定律在性别估计中的适用性。该定律遵循男性的中胸骨长度大于胸骨柄的两倍，而女性的胸骨柄长度大于中胸骨长度的一半。在这项研究中，比较了胸骨柄长度与中胸骨长度的比例，以确定 Hrytl 定律是否适用于美国人群。分析了被确定为美国黑人和美国白人的个体之间这些测量值的比较，以确定该方法是否可以用于这两个人群组。此外，还使用判别函数分析来估计性别，并提供特定于美国人口的分类函数。判别函数分析产生了 84.12%的总体交叉验证分类率，用于性别估计。男性和女性的交叉验证分类率分别为 80.00%和 88.24%。
