Comparison of cranial sex determination by discriminant analysis and logistic regression.

Various methods have been proposed for estimating dimorphism. The objective of this study was to compare sex determination results from cranial measurements using discriminant analysis or logistic regression. The study sample comprised 130 individuals (70 males) of known sex, age, and cause of death from San José cemetery in Granada (Spain). Measurements of 19 neurocranial dimensions and 11 splanchnocranial dimensions were subjected to discriminant analysis and logistic regression, and the percentages of correct classification were compared between the sex functions obtained with each method. The discriminant capacity of the selected variables was evaluated with a cross-validation procedure. The percentage accuracy with discriminant analysis was 78.2% for the neurocranium (82.4% in females and 74.6% in males) and 73.7% for the splanchnocranium (79.6% in females and 68.8% in males). These percentages were higher with logistic regression analysis: 85.7% for the neurocranium (in both sexes) and 94.1% for the splanchnocranium (100% in females and 91.7% in males).