Abstract
PURPOSE: Skull morphometrics is very important in archaeology and forensic sciences for sex identification, especially when only limited osteometric data are available. The foramen magnum (FM) and occipital condyles, appears to be the most permanently preserved region of the human skeleton. The FM length (FML) is the most frequently measured, and often, the single available parameter of the FM in dry skulls. METHODS: FM data for 2524 skulls were taken from the Howells craniometric dataset (HCD). The validation cohort consisted of data for 177 Greek adult non-pathological intact dried skulls (GRD) as provided by the Aristotle University and National and Kapodistrian University (Athens). Descriptive statistics, parametric and non-parametric tests were used. Logistic regression modelling with the derivation of predicted probabilities and receiver operating characteristic ROC curve analyses with 95% CI were applied. Two-tailed P<0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The results indicate that the mean of the HCD FML in male was 35.78mm while FML mean in GRD was 35.337mm. The original regression model had predicted correctly 65% of skulls. CONCLUSIONS: There was no significant difference between the predicted and observed values for sex in the Greek skulls validation set. FML, alone, can predict sex (male) with accuracy limit of 71%.
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