This research was undertaken because current techniques used by forensic anthropologists for the identification of unknown human skeletal remains have largely been created using U.S. Black and White samples. When applied to Hispanics, however, these techniques perform poorly and can lead to misclassifications; consequently, there is an imperative need for population‐specific standards for Hispanics. The current research examined the classification accuracies obtained by the original Walker (Am J Phys Anthropol, 136, 2008) and Klales et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol, 149, 2012) methods for nonmetric sex estimation and recalibrated regression equations specifically for Hispanics. Ordinal data were collected for five skull and three pelvic traits from a sample of 54 modern Hispanic individuals. Recalibration of the Klales et al. equation improved accuracy (90.3 percent compared to 94.1 percent). Although recalibration of the Walker method equation decreased accuracy (81.5 percent compared to. 74.1 percent), it greatly improved sex bias (22.2 percent compared to −7.4 percent), thereby making the recalibrated equations more appropriate for use with Hispanics. (Publisher abstract modified)
Improving Nonmetric Sex Classification for Hispanic Individuals
NCJ Number
252257
Date Published
January 2017
Length
0 pages
Annotation
This research examined the classification accuracies obtained by the original Walker (Am J Phys Anthropol, 136, 2008) and Klales et al. (Am J Phys Anthropol, 149, 2012) methods for nonmetric sex estimation and provides recalibrated regression equations specifically for Hispanics.
Abstract