Sex estimation of the subadult ilium prior to acetabular fusion

Abstract

Previous studies evaluating sexual dimorphism in subadult pelvic features present variable, and at times conflicting, conclusions. As a result, there is yet to be a consensus on whether the subadult pelvis can be used in sex estimation methods. This study aims to assess the forensic utility of ilium shape and greater sciatic notch morphology in sexing subadult pelves prior to acetabular fusion. A sample of 397modern U.S. individuals with unfused acetabula (i.e., tri-radiate cartilages) aged birth to 14years was queried from a larger sample of postmortem computed tomography scans. Elliptical Fourier analyses were performed on ilium and greater sciatic notch outlines and resultant PCs were evaluated for significant effects of sex and age. Greater sciatic notch metrics were also collected. Stepwise linear discriminant function analyses with leave-one-out cross-validation were performed on the PCs and metric variables. Analyses were performed on pooled samples, on age-specific cohort samples, and on samples that iteratively removed the youngest one-year cohort. Cross-validated correct classification rates ranged from 57% to 65% and no patterns were observed to support an appearance and/or consistent expression of sexually diagnostic traits. Based on the results, sex estimation using these features is not recommended in pelvic remains prior to acetabular fusion, although the sample sizes of individuals over 5years of age were limited in this study. Future studies should focus on the sexually diagnostic ability of pelvic traits in subadult samples post-fusion of the acetabulum.