s*x of skeleton?

Question

are the skeletons used in classrooms male or female?

Answer 1

My osteology professor was a very intelligent guy who had worked a long, prosperous, and published career. He had worked on police cases as a forensic scientist. He had recently published about Homo floriensis, and had studied fossils from nearly every stage of human evolution. When it came time in our class to talk about determining the s*x of a skeleton, he said that even without any really good features to look at, your chance of getting it right was 50%. A blind guess will be right a whole 50% of the time. The pelvis is a really good bone for determining s*x, one of the only bones you can use, but he was quick to remind us that even an 80% chance of sexing skeletons correctly, which is a pretty high average, was only 30% better than a guess. It's not an exact science, and when you see skeletons sexed, especially ancient ones, there is usually a large amount of uncertainty in that designation. The skull is virtually useless in s*x determination, by the way. Femurs are similarly useless.

The skeletons you see in your classroom are mostly likely artificial ones, constructed for classroom use. If they are real, I have been informed on several occasions that classroom skeletons are often of Australian Aborigines. I don't know why, and I don't know what s*x they usually are. Check the pelvis.

Answer 2

These days neither. They are mostly molded plastic or resin, it's a lot cheaper and people don't freak out or have religious objections to it. They are usually models of male skeletons.

Answer 3

Most of time they are male.

If you look at the hips, and if they are a bit wide then its a female. If they look more narrow then, male :-)

Answer 4

Look at the brow bone.  If it has a prominent ridge above the eyes, it is male.  You can also look at the pelvis.  Males have a narrower pelvic opening than females.

Answer 5

There are many ways to determine the s*x of a skeleton.  The pelvic girdle's diameter (birth canal) is one of the best, but even the ascending ramus of the mandible can give a good indication.  Most of the real skeletons used as teaching skeletons come from developing countries and are semi-legally imported into Western countries.  I do not believe that they tend to be either male or female, but I have only seen about 10 in my career.

Answer 6

Why? Does it really matter?  Anthropologists use the pelvis bones to make that determination.  I have always had a sneaking suspicion that they are plastic and androgynous anyway.  A human male pelvis has 'tall' pelvic bones and narrow, where a human female's pelvis bones are shorter and spread apart to form a comfortable cradle-like area for the developing fetus.  The long femur bones can also indicate whether the skeleton is male or female because the males have straight femurs and females are curved to add strength for carrying the extra weight.