Estimating sex from the seven cervical vertebrae: An analysis of two European skeletal populations

Virtual morphometric method using seven cervical vertebrae for sex estimation on the Turkish population

“…In our model 16, it was striking that there was no CTR measurement. As expected, higher accuracy is obtained by using more measurement parameters and more vertebrae [11,15,16,28].…”

“…Kibii et al reported that the centrum in the seventh vertebra shows a higher degree of sexual dimorphism than the vertebral canal and that the vertebral canal CAP and CTR measurements may not show sexual dimorphism in different populations [13], as corroborated in our study, in which C7AP and C1AP demonstrated sexual dimorphism indexes of 8.40% 8.28%, respectively. Vertebral body heights reach full skeletal maturity in the 20 th year of life and thus are more affected by secondary sexual development and environmental effects than vertebral foramen measurements [15,29]. The CHT measurement shows a higher degree of sexual dimorphism in all cervical vertebrae than the CTR and CAP parameters due to differences in the developmental stages of CHT [15].…”

“…Many studies have demonstrated the impact of sex estimation formulae on skeletal remains that are not closely related to the reference population [4,6,15,32]. Genetics, environmental effects, socio-economic status, and secular differences, among others, are known to affect the size and structure of the skeletal system.…”

“…However, sex estimation studies on the cervical vertebrae are limited and mostly focus on the axis and atlas or on the seventh cervical vertebra due to their atypical morphological structure and easier identification [9][10][11][12][13][14]. Research performed on the remaining cervical vertebrae in terms of sex estimation is thus limited [15], but accuracies over 80% have been reported by previous studies [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16]. As the degree of sexual dimorphism and body proportions can differ between populations, and the most accurate vertebral sex markers may differ between geographical samples, population-specific studies are required to provide the most accurate outcomes [6].…”

Virtual Morphometry of the First Lumbar Vertebrae for Estimation of Sex Using Computed Tomography Data in the Turkish Population

“…Today, many parts of the adult skeleton are used for sex estimation [3]. Studies on the vertebral column have also shown that the vertebrae demonstrate sexual dimorphic features [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15].…”