Determination of Sex by Discriminant Function Analysis of Mandibles From two Croatian Archaeological Sites

Many morphologic characteristics and metric methods have been employed for sex determination. If there are only skulls or fragmented jaws available, identification of sex is made on differences in shape and size of the cranial morphological marks. In the present study, an attempt is made to establish standards for sex determination from fragmentary and complete mandibles from two archeological sites in Croatia. On each mandible 18 parameters were measured. Descriptive and multifactorial statistics were performed on the collected data and seven discriminant functions were generated. A discriminant function derived from nine mandibular variables provided 92.06% reliability in sex determination. Length of the mandibular body (mates 88.34 +/- 4.67 mm; females 81.41 +/- 3.04 mm), mandibular angle (males 118.47 +/- 6.16 degrees; females 125.63 +/- 5.37 degrees) and minimum ramus breadth (males 31.26 +/- 2.94 mm; females 28.36 +/- 2.15 mm) are detected as variables providing the best separation of the sexes. Results of this study show that mandibles can be used for determining sex, as stated in other similar studies.