Sex estimation of skeletons in middle and late adulthood: reliability of pelvic morphological traits and long bone metrics on an Italian skeletal collection

There are several metric and morphological methods available for sex estimation of skeletal remains, but their reliability and applicability depend on the sexual dimorphism of the remains as well as on the availability of preserved bones. Some studies showed that age-related changes on bones can cause misclassification of sex. The purpose of this study was to establish the reliability of pelvic morphological traits and metric methods of sex estimation on relatively old individuals from a modern Italian skeletal collection. The data for this study were obtained from 164 individuals of the Milano CAL skeletal collection and average age of the samples was 75 years. In the pelvic morphological method, the recalibrated regression formula of Klales and colleagues (2012), pre-auricular sulcus, and greater sciatic notch morphology were used for sex estimation. With regard to the metric method, 15 standard measurements from upper and lower limbs were analyzed for sexual dimorphism. The results showed that in pelvic morphological approach, the application of regression formula of the revised Klales and colleague formula (2017) resulted in 100% accuracy. Classification rates of metric methods vary from 75.19 to 90.73% with the maximum epiphyseal breadth of proximal tibia representing the most discriminant parameter. This study confirms that the effect of age on sex estimation methods is not substantial, and both metric and morphological methods of sex estimation can be reliably applied to individuals of Italian descent in middle and late adulthood.