The assessment of sex is of immense relevance in the analysis of human skeletal remains, as other parameters of the biological profile are usually sex-specific (e.g., age at death or stature). The radius can be used to estimate sex when more dimorphic bones are not available or in the case of incomplete and fragmentary remains. Ten radius measurements collected in a sample of 364 individuals (166 females and 198 males) from the Coimbra Identified Skeletal Collection (late 19th - early 20th centuries) were employed to generate univariable and multivariable models for sex estimation. All models were evaluated with a 10-fold cross-validation method and an independent holdout sample from the Luís Lopes Collection (late 19th - mid 20th centuries) encompassing 50 individuals (25 females and 25 males). Univariable models show an accuracy ranging from 77.7% to 89.8% (cross-validation), and from 70% to 86% (test sample), while accuracy in the multivariable models varies from 88.7% to 93.4% (cross-validation), and 84.0% to 90.0% (test sample). Results suggest that measurements of the radius are useful to develop standard guidelines for sex estimation of anonymous skeletal remains.
Keywords: Biological profile; Forensic anthropology; Osteometry; Sexual dimorphism.
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