The Difficulty of Sexing Skeletons from Unknown Populations

Determination of sex from skeletal remains is performed using a number of methods developed by biological anthropology. They must be evaluated for consistency and for their performance in a forensic setting. Twenty skeletons of varied provenance had their sex determined by 15 existing methods of forensic anthropology (7 metric and 8 morphological). The methods were evaluated for their consistency in determination of sex. No single individual was identified as belonging to one sex exclusively. Ambiguous results were obtained by metric methods for fourteen individuals (70%) and by morphological methods for only five individuals (25%) (Chi-squared = 4.3, df = 1, P