Sexual dimorphism in the foramen magnum of nigerian adult

Abstract

Forensic study is very important in the identification of sex especially when the body of the deceased has been destroyed as a result of physical injury due to weapons, fire or strong chemicals. This becomes more difficult if only parts the skeletal are found or if the bones are compromised by physical insults such as explosive or violence. The aim of this study, therefore, is to determine the presence of sexual dimorphism in the foramen magnum of Nigerian skulls, construct a discriminant function and evaluate their practical performance in the sectioning point based on sex. The skulls used in the study were obtained from selected Nigerian universities. The sample comprised 100 skulls of Nigerian origin. Of these skulls, 90 were males and 10 females. The result obtained demonstrated that significant sexual dimorphism is present in the cranial base of the Nigerian crania. Using sectioning point derived by the discriminant function, a value higher than the sectioning point was deemed to be male and a value below it deemed to be female.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 36 citations exist upstream.