Abstract
One of the first steps in the identification of human remains is sex estimation. Discriminant functions are very useful for this purpose, as they are based on the fundamental premise of the sexual dimorphism in osseous remains. However, the absence of studies of this kind in the thoracic cage is visible, and adequate cause to justify this work. To this purpose, we analysed and measured a set of ribs, R1 to R4, belonging to skeletons of contemporary chronology (1970–2010), in order to obtain discriminant functions enabling sex estimation through equations applied to the rib neck. The sample comes from the Cemetery of San José, which is located at the Laboratory of Anthropology at the University of Granada. All data from this sample was known: ancestry, sex, age-at-death and cause of death. Results showed a percentage of success of approximately 80–88% in ribs R2 to R4, and approximately 85–90% in R1, reaching up to 93.2%. Results from intra-/inter-observer error tests show excellent reproducibility of the method. The data confirms that it is possible to estimate sex from the rib neck.
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19 March 2021
A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02567-2
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge Emucesa, the San José Cemetery Company of Granada, for allowing us access to study material, also to the Laboratory of Physical Anthropology of the University of Granada and the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.
Funding
This work has been supported by a grant from the FPU Research and Teaching Fellowships (Becas de Formación de Profesorado Universitario FPU), 2018 announcement, ref. FPU18/00669, from the Ministry of Education and Professional Formation, Government of Spain.
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The original online version of this article was revised: The original article contains an error in Figure 1. In the published article, two of the measurements were incorrect. “LT” should be replace with “LH” and “LSHN should be LSNT” and vice versa.
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Partido Navadijo, M., Fombuena Zapata, I., Borja Miranda, E.A. et al. Discriminant functions for sex estimation using the rib necks in a Spanish population. Int J Legal Med 135, 1055–1065 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02537-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-021-02537-8