Osteological sex determination of a cremated individual

Straipsnyje pateikiamas kremuoto individo osteologinio lyties nustatymo patikimumo įvertinimas, kuris paremtas 80-ies degintinių kapą iš Rytų Lietuvos pilkapių medžiaga. Tyrimo metodas yra osteologiškai ir pagal įkapes nustatytos palaidotų asmenų lyties sugretinimas. Teigiama, kad minimalus osteologinio lyties nustatymo patikimumas yra maždaug 70%, bet greičiausiai jis siekia ir apie 85%.The practicing of cremation rites for the dead in many societies around the world during various periods has left cremated human remains as the only data source for bioarchaeologists in many cases. Interest in them and their inclusion in scientific circulation have recently grown rapidly. The main goals of an osteological analysis of cremated bones are to determine whether a person or an animal was interred in the grave, to determine the number of individuals, their age at death, and their sex. This article is devoted to assessing the reliability of the results of one of the most important tasks of an osteological analysis: sex determination. Osteologically determined sex is compared in this study to the grave goods discovered in the burial. This method is the only one allowing the reliability of osteological sex determination to be assessed using material from prehistoric burial sites. Data from East Lithuanian barrow cremations were used for the analysis. Osteological sex determination is based on the macroscopic examination and measurement of the sexually dimorphic bones. The most reliable sex indicators are the cranial and pelvic bones. The success of an analysis depends on the number of available bone fragments and their condition. Sex determination can also be based on some bone measurements. Data from an osteological analysis of cremations excavated in East Lithuanian barrows was used for the reliability assessment of the sex determination. In all, data was collected about 361 cremations that were excavated in 54 barrow cemeteries and contained the identified remains of at least 446 individuals. Sex determined osteologically and on the basis of grave goods coincided in 55 (68.8%) instances. But the number of discrepancies differed sharply between biological male and female burials. The majority (19 of 25) of the discrepancies were an osteologically identified male burial with female grave goods. This would be difficult to explain just as an erroneous osteological sexing. The more likely error is the identification of cremated male remains as female. Therefore the explanation that some males were given grave goods that are traditionally considered female is more likely. Osteologically identified female burials are probably a more precise indicator of the reliability of the sex determination. Of 40 such burials only 6 (15.0%) contained male grave goods. In summary it can be argued that the minimum reliability of the osteological sex determination of a cremated individual is approximately 70% (determined using all the burial material), and its maximum value is probably about 85% (determined using female burial material). Within this framework the reliability value fluctuates due to the questionable interpretation of grave goods as a sex indicator in some instances. Of course, the volume of data used is fairly small and therefore a certain inaccuracy due to possible chance errors is also likely. In any case, even the research results based on the fairly fragmentary osteological material from East Lithuanian barrows prove the great informativeness and scientific value of cremated remains