Journal
JOURNAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SCIENCE
Volume 38, Issue 6, Pages 1253-1265Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2011.01.001
Keywords
Discriminant function analysis; Southern Levant; Measurement; Metrics; Character traits; Morphological characters
Funding
- National Science Foundation [0618937]
- Direct For Social, Behav & Economic Scie
- Division Of Behavioral and Cognitive Sci [0618937] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The skeletal elements of mountain gazelle (Gazella gazella) have proven difficult to sex with statistical confidence due to wide overlap in the body size of the two sexes. We studied a sample of 53 modern mountain gazelle skeletons to determine which character traits and metric measurements best predict sex. The success of the character traits was determined using blind tests while the metrics were examined using discriminant function analysis. The most useful elements include the previously identified horn core, pubis and atlas, but also some new bone portions that preserve well in the archaeological record (e.g., distal tibia, distal metacarpal and metatarsal, and second phalanx). Surprisingly, two elements commonly used in sexing analyses (distal humerus and astragalus) were not among the most effective elements. Although cutting points and discriminant functions for sexing gazelle bone portions are presented here, they do not account for potential body size change and thus are not suited for direct application to archaeological assemblages. Instead, we provide guidelines for application to archaeological gazelle assemblages, most importantly a regression analysis that considers the sex ratios obtained from multiple measurements to predict the sex ratio of archaeological gazelle populations. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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