Estimation of sex from the human hyoid bone in a contemporary white European population

Abstract

This project evaluates a method of sex estimation using the human hyoid bone in forensic cases. It evaluates the accuracy of six discriminant functions developed by Kindschuh et al. (2010) on an archaeological skeletal population and then applies the functions to a contemporary white European skeletal population from the McCormick Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The hyoid body and the left and right greater cornua were measured from 134 individuals (68 male; 66 female). Fifteen measurements were taken from fused hyoids and 12 measurements were taken from unfused hyoid bones. Applying discriminant functions developed from archaeological hyoid bones yielded accuracy rates ranging from 79.1% to 92.3% for contemporary white European hyoid bones. Mean and sex specific accuracy rates indicate that two functions developed on archaeological fused hyoids were not accurate in estimating females in a contemporary white European skeletal population. Discriminant functions developed on the unfused hyoid and the hyoid body of fused and unfused hyoids had accuracy rates ranging from 88.1% to 92.3%, indicating that they were efficient for determining sex for a contemporary white European skeletal population. Two-sample t-tests indicate statistically significant differences between archaeological and contemporary populations in the height of the anterior cornua (CHI) of both fused and unfused males. Significant differences are also observed between the archaeological and contemporary populations’ total hyoid length (THL) in both males and females. Four of the six discriminant functions developed by Kindschuh et al. (2010) can be applied to contemporary white European hyoid bones; however significant differences in THL and CHI between archaeological and contemporary skeletal populations indicate that discriminant functions developed solely on archaeological fused hyoids are less accurate when applied to contemporary white European hyoid bones.