Masters Theses

Date of Award

5-2021

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Anthropology

Major Professor

Lee Meadows Jantz

Committee Members

Dawnie Wolfe Steadman, Benjamin Auerbach

Abstract

Virtual anthropological (VA) methods have been successfully used to capture metric data in the form of standard caliper measurements as well as volumetric data from various human skeletal elements. Virtual anthropological investigations of morphoscopic traits have increased over the past two decades, however, greater attention has been paid to investigations of metric data and to the use of CT technologies. Few studies have focused on morphoscopic data and fewer have employed 3D surface scans in data collection. Morphoscopic VA studies largely pertain to age estimation using the os coxa; fewer pertain to sex estimation and, to the author’s knowledge, no VA study has investigated ancestry traits to date. As little research exists on the precision of morphoscopic data obtained from 3D surface scans, or virtual cranial skeletal elements in general, error rates for these data are not known, making these data, and studies using them, inadmissible in a court of law.

In an effort to address these voids, this study was devoted to understanding the utility of 3D surface scans for morphoscopic data collection, specifically sex and ancestry related morphoscopic data. This study found slightly higher agreement amongst Walker (2008) cranial traits for sex estimation, versus OSSA (Hefner and Ousley 2014) traits for ancestry estimation, and a minimal impact of experience level on score agreement. No statistically significant differences in Weighted Kappa values were found for cranial or mandibular traits during inter-format comparisons between graduate and professional participants. Correct classification accuracy rates were also ranged from 76-88% using trait evaluations from 3D surface scans.

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