ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the different methods involved in estimating the sex of an individual from his/her skeleton. When estimating the sex of an individual, one must consider individual and population variation that modulates skeletal and secondary sexual characteristics development. Techniques used to estimate the sex of an individual based on the skeleton may include visual assessment of gross morphology and/or a metric assessment of the skeletal remains. Determination of sex based on assessment of the size and the morphology of parts of the cranium follows the observation that males tend to be larger. The reliability of morphological skeletal characteristics to estimate the sex of an individual varies according to the remains being analyzed and the chosen parameters used to provide the estimation. Combing both observable morphological features and DNA may prove to be very helpful in future studies of sex determination, especially in the examination of populations with extensive variation in the expression of sexual dimorphism.
