Bioarchaeology of the Near East, 10:27-46 (2016)

Metric sex estimation of ancient Egyptian skeletal remains
Part II: Testing of new population-specific methods

Emily J. Marlow*, Iwona Kozieradzka-Ogunmakin
KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology
The University of Manchester,
Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT, UK
email: emily.marlow@alumni.manchester.ac.uk (corresponding author)

Abstract: This paper is the second of two that explore metric sex estimation of ancient Egyptian human skeletons. The purpose of the study is to create metric sex estimation methods that are specific to ancient Egyptians, and to ensure the methods will be of value to other researchers by testing them on a dissimilar sample from the same population. The population-specific methods were created using a reference sample consisting of 318 adult individuals. The majority of individuals were recovered from cemeteries in Giza, which date to the Old Kingdom (n=106) or the Late Period (n=154). In addition, 43 individuals date to Predynastic Period Keneh, 13 individuals to Middle Kingdom Sheikh Farag, and two individuals to Ramesside Period Thebes. Sex was estimated using standard morphological techniques. Discriminant function analysis with a stepwise approach was used to create the metric methods. The test sample consists of the skeletal remains of 119 (81 male, 38 female) adult individuals recovered from the Saqqara-West cemetery site. This site consists of burials dated to both the late Old Kingdom (n=28) and the Ptolemaic Period (n=91). The results of this test demonstrate that a number of the population-specific methods presented herein might be of value to other researchers working in Egypt, provided their sample derives from the same time period(s) and geographic locations as the reference and test samples used in this study.

Key words: human skeletons; discriminant analysis; Saqqara

Received 11 December 2015; accepted 4 May 2016; published online 9 June 2016.

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