Sex determination of Chinese femur by discriminant function.

The objective of this study was to provide a method of sex determination for Chinese femur, especially for fragmentary remains. Statistical analysis of 17 measurements based on 141 northeastern Chinese femora shows that all measurements have significant sex differences. Sex determination by the midpoint method of a single measurement can obtain an average accuracy of 76.8%. The results indicate that of all dimensions the maximum head diameter is the best discriminator of sex. It alone can determine the sex of a femur with 85.1% accuracy. The results also show that maximum head diameter, transverse head diameter, epicondylar breadth, upper breadth, and medial condylar length have higher sexual dimorphisms than the dimensions of length. According to the result to stepwise discriminant analysis and the need for sexing fragmentary remains, 22 discriminant functions composed of various combinations of variables were calculated which can determine the sex of the femur correctly 82.3 to 87.2%. The methods of sex determination provided by this paper can be used to sex poorly preserved femora.