A Method of the Determination of Sex from Artificially Deformed American Indian Crania

Birkby (1966) cautions against the use of discriminant functions based on American Whites and Negroes to determine the sex of American Indian skeletal material. Two problems become apparent in the application of these methods to American Indian crania; (1) the existence of population differences in craniometric means and ranges of variation between American Indians and American Whites and Negroes; (2) the influence of artificial cranial deformation characteristic of many series of American Indian skeletal material. This study develops a multivariate discriminant function for the determination of sex in Arikara Indian crania and demonstrates its applicability to artificially deformed crania from the Southeastern United States.