Sexual Dimorphism in Anthropometric Measurements of Adult Uttarkashi (India) Individuals: A Forensic Anthropological Study

Abstract

Biological profiling of unknown human remains is the foremost task required in forensic/medico-legal death investigations and sex determination of such remains is an important element of biological identity of an individual. In present study, 12 anthropometric measurements were recorded on 298 Uttarkashi individuals (150 males and 148 females) between age group of 18-25 years. Majority of measurements were found to have a significant degree of sexual dimorphism among them; being highest for cubit and thumb lengths and lowest for left palm and right foot lengths (p >0.001). From Univariate discriminant function analysis, cubit length and left foot length were selected as the best variables to discriminate sex of about 80% (84% males and 76% females) 79% (84.7% males and 73.6% females) individuals, respectively. Similarly, 86% subjects could be classified to their correct sex category from all the lineal measurements (88.5% males and 87.2% females) or the hand measurements only (83.1% males and 84.6% females) from the multivariate discriminant function analysis. The results of present study can be considered an addendum to the existing population data for forensic anthropological literature.