Sexual Dimorphism with Help of Sacrum

Sex determination of a skeleton is a problem of concern to paleoanthropologists, paleodemographers & forensic scientists. Pelvic bones are most important for sex determination, followed by skull & the long bones. Forensic expert is often faced with a single specimen on whom he is asked to pronounce an opinion about its origin in general terms, or it may be necessary to establish as probably belonging to a given person when the identity is already suspected on circumstantial evidence. The sex classification of a bone is possible with a degree of certainty only when it can be compared to a series of bones of known sexual dimorphism. Otherwise, a female bone could be classified as a male when the series to which it belonged was particularly robust. The sacrum has always attracted the attention of the medico-legal experts for establishing its sex, because of its contribution to pelvic girdle and associated functional sex differences. Thus sacrum assumes an applied mportance in determining sex with the help of measurements carried upon it.