Osteology, DNA and Sex Identification: Morphological and Molecular Sex Identifications of Five Neolithic Individuals from Ajvide, Gotland
✍ Scribed by A. GÖTHERSTRÖM; K. LIDÉN; T. AHLSTRÖM; M. KÄLLERSJÖ; T. A. BROWN
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1997
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 134 KB
- Volume
- 7
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 1047-482X
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
Sex identi®cations are crucial for the understanding of the societies we study. To understand an ancient society we need to have some picture of the roles played by males and females in the society. This knowledge has often been produced by morphological sex identi®cations in connection with grave goods and burial ®nds. However, if a morphological sex identi®cation is to be fully trusted, the human remains need to be fairly well preserved. There is also a problem in the fact that morphological traits identi®ed in a modern material are applied on an ancient material. There is a growing difference with time and geographical distance. An alternative to morphological identi®cation is molecular identi®cation based on the presence or absence of a Y chromosome, but such identi®cation has its problems too: the risk of contamination and the fact that the absence of proof is not a good female indicator. In this work we have tried to compare morphological and molecular identi®cations of ®ve Neolithic individuals from the Ajvide site at Gotland in the Baltic sea.