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A comparison of biological sex and gender in subadult burials

Griffiths, Katharine Susan; (2018) A comparison of biological sex and gender in subadult burials. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London). Green open access

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Abstract

Fundamental to mortuary associated gender studies is the comparison of the biological sex of skeletal remains with the cultural aspects of burial. Previously this type of gender study has been limited to the study of adults and those concerning children have been somewhat hypothetical due to the problems inherent in the osteological assignment of sex to immature human remains. However, the sexual dimorphism displayed in adult teeth is also found in the dentition of children and adolescents and this research project uses dental morphometrics of both the permanent and deciduous dentition to assign biological sex to subadult individuals. This thesis is comprised of three distinct phases of research. A comparison of the effectiveness of maximum coronal tooth diameters with cervical tooth diameters of known sex adult individuals (Spitalfields Collection, Natural History Museum, London). This phase of the project directly compares the sexual dimorphism of two types of diameter taken from the same teeth of the same individuals. Cervical tooth crown diameters can be very useful in archaeological odontometric studies where dental attrition precludes the use of maximum coronal crown diameters. A pilot study to establish a reliable method of assigning sex to subadult individuals, using a historical sample of known biological sex (Bocage Collection Lisbon, Portugal and Coimbra Collection, Coimbra, Portugal). This phase uses discriminant functions derived from the adults in this sample to classify the subadults The application of this piloted method to an archaeological sample (Windover, Florida State University, Tallahassee) using morphologically sexed adults and subadult individuals of unknown sex from the same population This thesis then attempts to make comparisons between the assigned biological sex of the Windover subadult individuals and pathology, and the cultural burial aspects represented by the burial assemblage, which consists of textiles, tools and other artefacts.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: A comparison of biological sex and gender in subadult burials
Event: UCL (University College London)
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10059464
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