Exploring Male Sex-Bias in Ancient DNA Research

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Preliminary research and anecdotal evidence suggest that there is an overrepresentation of male samples relative to female samples in published ancient DNA research; however, the reason behind this bias is poorly understood. In this paper, we quantify this sex bias within an ancient DNA database of 3,365 individuals for whom sex was reliably assigned. We compare sex calls made using molecular methods to osteological sex assessments, exploring their rate of agreement. We find that ~58% of individuals were sexed as male using molecular methods, and that this is most often consistent with the osteological assessment. We then explore possible explanations for male bias, including some discrepancy between osteological and genetic sex calls that introduces an unforeseen bias, superior preservation of more robust male skeletons, preferential burial treatment of male individuals in the past (e.g., males buried in more prominent positions), intentional sampling bias introduced by researchers (e.g., preferencing male individuals in order to obtain Y chromosome data), and a higher sequencing success rate for male individuals for reasons that are unclear. This research aims to clarify if male overrepresentation is the result of research design and methods, and therefore correctable, or reflective of ancient cultural practices.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• Increasing the Accessibility of Ancient DNA within Archaeology

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 29865