SEX DETERMINATION FROM THE FEMUR AND TIBIA IN SOUTH-AFRICAN WHITES

With the current high incidence of violent crimes in South Africa, it has become very important to be able to determine the sex of individua ls from their skeletal remains. The aim of this study is to provide st andards usable for this purpose, to be used on the contemporary South African white population. Very little skeletal data is available for t his group. Osteometric information was obtained from 56 male and 50 fe male individuals from cadaver collections. Six femoral and seven tibia l measurements were taken, and subjected to SPSS discriminant function analysis. The distal breadths from both the femur and tibia provided the best discrimination. Formulae were developed for a number of combi nations of measurements, which can be used to determine the sex on fra gmentary remains. Average accuracies ranged from 86% to 91%, with fema le accuracies slightly higher than those of the males. The results of this study compares well with others, e.g., those from American whites . (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.