Determination of race and sex from the crania of a skeletal collection in Dade County, Florida

The skeletal collection in Dade County, Florida contains 414 cases, however, only 63 have adult crania of suitable condition for morphometric analysis. This study first presents the results produced by FORDISC 1.0, an interactive forensic computer program used to determine race and sex from cranial measurements. Secondly, it presents conclusions drawn from a craniometric comparison of black and white individuals of both sexes from the Dade sample to those from the turn of the century Terry and Hamann-Todd collections and Ayers and associate's modem forensic sample. FORDISC achieved a 70 percent accuracy rate in the determination of race. In the determination of sex, FORDISC correctly sexed 69 percent of the sample. The results of the population comparisons suggest changes in cranial morphology over time, such as a significant increase in basion-bregma height in white males, white females, and black females. These changes have serious implications in the identification of unknown individuals, as physical anthropologists must update their criteria to determine race and sex in accordance with these variations.