Bone histology: A key for human sex determination after death

Abstract

Age at death and sex are the key information required at a crime scene investigation or archaeological exploration. A number of morphological techniques are present to estimate age and sex from human bones. These techniques showed good result when major parts of human bones were present. In cases, where only fractions of bone are present, these techniques become irrelevant. Bone histological techniques can be applied on bone fragments to estimate age and sex. Age estimation using these techniques has been the key focus of research over the last few decades. At the early stages of these techniques, some researchers reported no relation of sex with histological changes. This made sex a by-product of age estimation or was left unconcerned. Bone histology of human changes with region, race and age. This paper presents the history of histological sex determination. Comparison of different researches was given with regards to region of research, selection of bone and microstructural parameter selection. A discussion concludes this paper with overall research done, and what future work can be done to improve histological sex determination.