Most cited article - PubMed ID 34169512
Familial occurrence of skeletal developmental anomalies as a reflection of biological relationships in a genealogically documented Central European sample (19th to 20th centuries)
The most significant sexual differences in the human skull are located in the upper third of the face (the frontal bone), which is a useful research object, mainly in combination with virtual anthropology methods. However, the influence of biological relatedness on sexual dimorphism and frontal bone variability remains unknown. This study was directed at sexual difference description and sex classification using the form and shape of the external surface of the frontal bones from a genealogically documented Central European osteological sample (nineteenth to twentieth centuries). The study sample consisted of 47 cranial CT images of the adult members of several branches of one family group over 4 generations. Three-dimensional virtual models of the frontal bones were analyzed using geometric morphometrics and multidimensional statistics. Almost the entire external frontal surface was significantly different between males and females, especially in form. Significant differences were also found between this related sample and an unrelated one. Sex estimation of the biologically related individuals was performed using the classification models developed on a sample of unrelated individuals from the recent Czech population (Čechová et al. in Int J Legal Med 133: 1285 1294, 2019), with a result of 74.46% and 63.83% in form and shape, respectively. Failure of this classifier was caused by the existence of typical traits found in the biologically related sample different from the usual manifestation of sexual dimorphism. This can be explained as due to the increased degree of similarity and the reduction of variability in biologically related individuals. The results show the importance of testing previously published methods on genealogical data.
- Keywords
- Forensic anthropology, Genealogical documented sample, Geometric morphometrics, Kinship,
- MeSH
- Frontal Bone * diagnostic imaging anatomy & histology MeSH
- Adult MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Tomography, X-Ray Computed MeSH
- Sex Characteristics MeSH
- Forensic Anthropology * methods MeSH
- Sex Determination by Skeleton * methods MeSH
- Imaging, Three-Dimensional * MeSH
- Check Tag
- Adult MeSH
- Humans MeSH
- Male MeSH
- Female MeSH
- Publication type
- Journal Article MeSH
