Sex determination of the Bosnian population based on discriminant function analysis

Objective: The goal of this study was to determine sex of the Bosnian population males and females on their skeletal remains based on humeral and femoral head diameters. Methods: This study included skeletal material of the humeri and femurs from left and right side of the body that belonged to the 135 people, 100 men and 35 women. All individuals were older than 25 years, and all epiphyses, on the examined bones, where closed. There have been excluded all bones with ongoing pathological process or post mortally damaged. This conditions reduced number of analyzed bones, so that at final 28 left and 25 right humeri, and 31 left and 33 right femurs of females where includes in this research. The following parameters were evaluated: maximum left and right humeral and femoral head diameters. All measurement where done directly on washed and dried bones with digital caliper and all values were expressed until the hundredth of a millimeter. Sexual dimorphism between variables was analyzed with sexual dimorphism index. All data were analyzed using descriptive statistic, t test and discriminant function analysis. Results: Statistical analysis has shown all variable for males have bigger dimensions for femoral and humeral head diameters and also bigger variability of males than females. The biggest absolute difference has right humerus, and the lowest right femur. T test results shows significant difference between average lengths of humeral and femoral heads diameters, for males and females, considering p<0.01. The accuracy for the sex estimation using discriminant function is high, ranging from 89.06% for left humerus, 90.08% for left femur, 90.22% for right femur till 90.4% for right humerus. Accuracy is higher in females. Conclusion: All variable shows statistically significant sexual dimorphism. The current study provides standards for the sample and further studies on bigger samples are needed to create population standards.