The Difficulty of Sexing Skeletons from Unknown Populations

Table 5

Comparison of the consistency between morphological (descriptive) and metric methods, where M = male; F = female; A = ambiguous.

Specimen number	Specimen label	Morphological (descriptive) methods (out of 8)			Metric methods (out of 7)			All methods (out of 15)
		M	F	A	M	F	A	M	F	A
1	A	7		1	7			14		1
2	B	7		1	7			14		1
3	1	1	6	1		7		1	13	1
4	2	8			1	4	2	9	4	2
5	3	8			6		1	14		1
6	4	4		1	4	2		8	2	1
7	5	7	1		4	2	1	11	3	1
8	6	6	2			5	2	6	7	2
9	7	7	1		2	3	2	9	4	2
10	AM1	6	2		4	2	1	10	4	1
11	AM2	8			3	3	1	11	3	1
12	AM3	5	2	1	1	5	1	6	7	2
13	AM4	8			4	2	1	12	2	1
14	AM5	8			4	1	2	12	1	2
15	HS-041	8			3		2	11		2
16	HS-038	8			4	2	1	12	2	1
17	HS-039	8			3	2	2	11	2	2
18	HS-012	6			4	1	2	10	1	2
19	SC-002	5	3		1	6		6	9
20	SC-003	6	2			5		6	7

A skeleton of an adult from the Abbie Museum of Anatomy, University of Adelaide.
A skeleton of known sex, age, and race from a donated cadaver: White Australian male who died at age XX years.
Actual skeletons of individuals of unknown sex, age, and race used as teaching aids in dissection rooms.
Skeletons of individuals of unknown sex, age, and race from Abbie Museum of Anatomy, University of Adelaide.
Boxed half-skeletons of unknown sex, age, and race from University of Adelaide.
Some traits were excluded due to their absence on the skeleton.