Determination of sex from femora

The determination of sex from bones or bone fragments considerably contribu tes to identifying unknown bodies or skeletal remains. Due to temporal chan ge and regional differences anthropometric standards have to be constantly renewed. The present study provides measurements of femoral dimensions in a contemporary German population and analyses sexual dimorphism by discrimin ant analysis. Maximum length (male: 46.4+/-2.4 cm, female: 43.3+/-2.4 cm), maximum midshaft diameter (male: 3.1+/-0.2 cm, female: 2.8+/-0.2 cm), condy lar width (male: 8.4+/-1.0 cm, female: 7.7+/-0.5 cm), vertical head diamete r (male: 4.9+/-0.3 cm, female: 4.4+/-0.3 cm), head circumference (male: 15. 7+/-0.8 cm, female: 13.8+/-1.0 cm) and transverse head diameter (male: 4.9/-0.3 cm, female: 4.3+/-0.3 cm) were measured in 170 femora, 100 from male (age: 16-92 years, mean: 60.8 years; body height: 153-190 cm, mean: 171 cm) and 70 from female (age: 20-96 years, mean: 72 years; body height: 146-175 cm, mean: 161 cm) individuals. In the discriminant analysis (leave-one-out -method) 67.7% of cases could be grouped correctly with the maximum length alone, 72.4% with the maximum midshaft diameter, 81.4% with the condylar wi dth, 86.8% with the vertical head diameter, 87.7% with the head circumferen ce and 89.6% with the transverse head diameter. The stepwise procedure with all head measurements showed that the results for the transverse head diam eter could not be improved. With all measurements subjected to stepwise pro cedure 91.7% of cases could he classified correctly combining midshaft diam eter and head circumference (D=3.012Xmidshaft diameter in cm+0.780Xhead cir cumference in cm 20.569). (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.