Chapter 3 - Advancements in Sex and Ancestry Estimation

Abstract

Sex and ancestry estimation are inherently interconnected and are crucial parameters of the biological profile. New techniques to estimate sex and ancestry are constantly being published, but importantly, research concerning the understanding of human sexual dimorphism and human biological variation has flourished and these factors inform the techniques utilized by forensic anthropologists. Collaboration with hospitals and medical examiner's offices has led to the establishment of large computed tomography databases, which has acted as a catalyst for the development of advanced techniques, specifically in regard to subadult sex estimation research and ancestry estimation. The use of different modes of data provides a better representation of the larger, diverse population, which impacts the reference collections that forensic anthropologists utilize. The increased use of different imaging techniques has enabled researchers to evaluate traits in novel means, which has increased our understanding as well as provided metric, objective measures to nonmetric, subjective traits. During the past decade, there has also been tremendous growth in genomic data. Importantly, for forensic anthropologists, craniometrics have proven to provide similar approximations for both population structure and admixture estimations as genetic data. Continued understanding of the pattern and expression of human variation is the best way to make advancements in both sex and ancestry estimation.