Hips Don’t Lie: A Validation Study of the Albanese Metric Sex Estimation Method for the Proximal Femur on a Modern North American Population

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Sex estimation is a key component of the biological profile used in skeletal studies for bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. In the crucial need for non-pelvic sex estimation methods, Albanese (2008) introduced a new method that implements measurements between three newly defined landmarks on the proximal femur. These landmarks create a triangle which reflects both the angle of the femoral neck and the concomitant adaptations from the female pelvis. The original study generated logistic regression equations for sex estimation that are not population specific and have achieved a 95-97% allocation accuracy. In this validation study, Albanese’s method was applied to samples from the Texas State University Donated Skeletal Collection (n = 100) and the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection (n = 50) and achieved an allocation accuracy of 89% and 92%, respectively. I conducted an intra-observer error assessment (n = 20) and obtained an error margin of less than 1%. Considering these results, the Albanese (2008) method of sex estimation is an exceptionally reliable method thus far and would benefit strongly from other studies to further validate or negate it as a universally applicable approach.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 33211