The Western (Buonfornello) necropolis (7th to 5th BC) of the Greek colony of Himera (Sicily, Italy): Site‐specific discriminant functions for sex determination in the common burials resulting from the battle of Himera (ca. 480 BC)

Abstract

Abstract The Western (Buonfornello) necropolis of Himera, dating from the 7th to 5th century BC, has yielded 10,096 burials, among which are six common burials (n = 2–22). On the basis of the archaeological and historical evidence, these are presumed to be the result of the Battle of Himera, fought in approximately 480 BC, or some other warfare episode taking place in the same period, and it is hypothesised that all the individuals are male. A reliable morphological sex determination is impossible in most cases due to the bad state of preservation of the pelves. The present paper aims to establish whether sex dimorphism in diaphyseal dimensions allows for the calculation of site‐specific discriminant functions (DFs) that are useful for sex determination and to verify the archaeological hypothesis that all individuals in the six common burials are male. DF computation was conducted for sex determination based on the diaphyseal dimensions recorded for a sample of 89 pelvis sexed individuals (57 males and 32 females). The DFs were selected by taking into account the large number of m/f samples (n > 30) and the accuracy (>90%). DF was tested on a sample of male/female Himeran pelvis sexed individuals not used for computing DFs (n = 17, 11 males and 6 females) and 27 skeletons from common burials. In the first case, pelvis and DF sex determination are concordant in 16 cases (94.1%). In the second case, three out of 27 individuals were discarded as DFs produced conflicting sex determinations. The remaining 24 individuals were sexed as males by means of DFs in 95.8% of cases. The archaeological hypothesis that all individuals in these common burials are male cannot be rejected as site‐specific DFs diagnose the male sex in a percentage that is higher than their accuracy in a sample of pelvis sexed individuals.

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