Forensic anthropological research in Indonesia: developing a sex estimation standard for the contemporary population

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ABSTRACT

Currently, there are a lack of forensic anthropological sex estimation standards for an Indonesian population. Morphoscopic assessments were considered for its ease of use and application to fragmentary remains. For the skull, the cranial nonmetric traits in Walker (2008) are the most frequently used standard. Digital imaging modalities are considered an appropriate proxy to physical skeletal material. This present study assesses the accuracy of Walker (2008) and Asian-derived models in Tallman (2019) on a contemporary Indonesian population. Five univariate and nine multivariate predictive models were derived. This study provides forensic practitioners with an appropriate skeletal sex estimation standard for use in Indonesia, strengthening their capabilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Forensic anthropology
• sexual dimorphism
• sex estimation
• cranial nonmetric traits
• computed tomography
• Indonesia

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the staff at RSWS for providing access to the CT scans and to the WA branch of ANZFSS for their Symposium Award, which allowed this study to be presented at the IAFS 2023 conference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical statement

Ethics approved by the University of Western Australia (2021/ET000377) and Hasanuddin University (LB.02.01/2.2/6807/2022).