Saini Vineeta, Srivastava Rashmi, Shamal Satya Narayan, Singh Tej Bali, Kumar Vinod, Kumar Pramod, Tripathi Sunil Kumar
Department of Forensic Medicine, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India,
Int J Legal Med. 2014 Jul;128(4):699-707. doi: 10.1007/s00414-013-0957-x. Epub 2013 Dec 28.
In recent years, several investigations have documented notable secular changes in human skull morphology. The present study is the next link in the series, addressing its possible effects in the cranial base in North Indian populations. The present study aims to examine the sexual dimorphism in cranial base of two temporally different samples of North Indian population to provide updated population specific osteometric standards. The contemporary and the subrecent samples are comprised of 158 (M 110; F 48) and 325 adult crania (M 206; F 119), respectively. Five variables of cranial base were measured, and data were subjected to discriminant function analysis using SPSS 16.0. The t-tests between the two temporally different samples showed significant sexual dimorphism and population variation. Contemporary females showed comparatively greater dimensions than subrecent. Contemporary population exhibited less sexual dimorphism than subrecent population. Factors associated with the changes in sexual dimorphism are likely to be a consequence of improved nutrition and population admixture in last 50 years. The accuracy of sex prediction ranged from 48.1 to 70.0 % in contemporary sample and 60.9 % to 77.2 % in subrecent sample. Overall, these findings support the conclusion that sexual dimorphism shows variation within few decades, so sex discriminating osteometric standards must be updated regularly.
近年来，多项研究记录了人类头骨形态显著的长期变化。本研究是该系列研究的下一个环节，探讨其对北印度人群颅底可能产生的影响。本研究旨在调查北印度人群两个不同时期样本的颅底性别二态性，以提供最新的特定人群骨测量标准。当代样本和近代样本分别由158个（男性110个；女性48个）和325个成人颅骨（男性206个；女性119个）组成。测量了颅底的五个变量，并使用SPSS 16.0对数据进行判别函数分析。两个不同时期样本之间的t检验显示出显著的性别二态性和人群差异。当代女性的尺寸相对近代女性更大。当代人群的性别二态性比近代人群小。与性别二态性变化相关的因素可能是过去50年营养改善和人群混合的结果。当代样本中性别预测的准确率在48.1%至70.0%之间，近代样本中在60.9%至77.2%之间。总体而言，这些发现支持以下结论：性别二态性在几十年内会发生变化，因此性别判别骨测量标准必须定期更新。
