The Difference Between The Sexes Is Written Into Our Bones, Even After Cremation

[Judi Lynn]

MIKE MCRAE 2 FEB 2019

Long after your flesh is dust and your stories forgotten, your bones will whisper secrets about your life. Future archaeologists will wring out truths about your health, your past, and your place in society.

Many of these clues can vanish if our remains are split and warped by the heat of cremation, but a new technique for picking out subtle hints of sex in skeletal fragments could provide researchers with new insights into old bones.

A new way to estimate sex based on physical characteristics of cremated bones is claimed by its creators to be 80 percent effective, which is actually about as accurate as current methods used for analysing intact skeletons.

"This is a new method for supporting the sex determination of human cremated remains in antiquity," says biological anthropologist Claudio Cavazzuti of Durham University.

More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-trick-for-analysing-bones-can-distinguish-their-sex-even-after-cremation

[Laffy Kat]

1. No kidding? That is amazing.

I guess it would not be possible with cremains down to ashes though? Nothing to measure.