Selection of skull morphological traits for sexual dimorphism analysis

The aim of the present work was to test how the method used for elimination of pathological or incidental individuals from the studied historical sample, as well as the number of morphological traits analysed, influence values of sexual dimorphism index (SDI). The material from two Polish medieval burial sites: Sypniewo (11th to 13th century) and Gródek nad Bugiem (13th to 17th century), was studied. In total, 749 skeletons were analysed, 527 of which were from Sypniewo and 222 from Gródek nad Bugiem. Sexual dimorphism index was used to compare the results obtained when different methods were employed to eliminate the individuals characterised by extreme values of the analysed traits from the sample. It was concluded that in the majority of cases the method used for material selection significantly affected the results.