Sexual differentiation in the innominate bone studied by multivariate analysis.

A series of 60 innominate bones of known age and sex were measured producing 17 absolute measurements from which 7 indices were created. These bones were used in forming reference groups to develop a computer-applied discriminant function for sexual allocation. One set of data was discarded because the sexual attribution of the bone was found to be inadequate. From the remaining 59 bones 58 were sexed correctly when the discrininant function was applied to them retrospectively; 54 were sexed correctly with a probability exceeding 0.95. It is likely, however, that the accuracy achieved here would not be reached by applying information from this reference group to new material.