The talus: sex assessment of prehistoric New Zealand Polynesian skeletal remains

Prehistoric Polynesian skeletal remains are frequently being recovered in New Zealand due to the increasing pace of urbanisation. Since such material must often be reinterred quickly, it is important that the sex of individuals be determined from the remains in a relatively short time. For this purpose, discriminant function analysis was utilised for sex determination of prehistoric adult New Zealand Polynesian tali (24 males and 27 females). Five measurements were taken and subjected to Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) discriminant function analysis. For the discriminant functions derived, accuracy of sex determination ranged from 85.1 to 93.3%. Reduction in error over random assignment by sex ranged from 70 to 87%.