Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants
Let’s Talk about Sex: Testing Methods of Identification on Metacarpals and Metatarsals of Um Et Jamal, Jordan
Department
Anthropology
College
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Date Range
2011-2012
Abstract
Three methods for sex identification were tested on a sample of metacarpals and metatarsals excavated in 1996 from a commingled deposit in the Byzantine tomb,Umm El Jamal, in Northern Jordan. The purpose of the research was to test both the ease of replicability as well as accuracy among the three methods and to refine the minimum number of individual's data for the site. Methods tested included Scheuer & Elkington (1993), Case & Ross (2006), and Barrio (2006). Results showed 71% similarity across the three methods for metacarpals. Case & Ross had the easiest method to repeat, measuring only axial length on metacarpals and metatarsals, and based on that one measurement determining sex from tables previously created. Madden and Brashler's research on Umm El Jamal previously determined the minimum number of adult individuals using all skeletal elements to be 7, this study suggests 4 based solely on the metacarpals which fits well with previous research.The MNI based on metatarsals parallels the previous MNI of 7.
Conference Name
Annual Meeting
Conference Location
Portland, Oregon
ScholarWorks Citation
Madden, Gwyn and Hoop, Caitlin, "Let’s Talk about Sex: Testing Methods of Identification on Metacarpals and Metatarsals of Um Et Jamal, Jordan" (2011). Faculty Scholarly Dissemination Grants. 358.
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/fsdg/358
