Washington, July 7 (IANS) Forensic scientists can tell the sex of skeletal remains by evaluating the size and shape of the pelvis or hip bone, says a study.
‘This technique is accurate, but is not without its limitations,’ says study co-author Ann Ross, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at North Carolina State University.
The new technique for determining the sex of skeletal human remains is significantly more accurate than traditional visual inspections.
‘For example, when faced with fragmentary remains of the hip bone, it can be difficult to determine the deceased person’s sex based solely on visual inspection,’ Ross says.
‘This can be a significant challenge when evaluating remains from disasters – such as plane crashes – or degraded remains in mass burials – whether the burials date from prehistory or 20th century political violence,’ she added.
But Ross and her colleague Joan Bytheway have now used 3-D imaging technology to effectively quantify the specific characteristics of the hip bone, that differentiate males from females.
The researchers found more than 20 anatomical ‘landmarks’ on the hip bone that can be used to determine a body’s sex.
According to Ross, finding so many landmarks is important because it means that the sex of a body can be ascertained even if only a small fragment of the pelvis can be found.
In other words, even if only 15 percent of the pelvis is recovered, it is likely that at least a few of the landmarks can be found on that fragment.
Here’s how it would work: a forensic scientist would use a digitiser to create a 3-D map of the pelvic fragment and measure the relevant anatomical landmarks.
The scientist could then determine the sex of the remains by comparing those measurements to the measurements listed in the paper by Bytheway and Ross.
‘This technique also has the benefit of being significantly more accurate than traditional visual inspections,’ Ross says, according to a university statement.
The report appears in the July issue of Journal of Forensic Sciences.
