Congruence of Methods for Determination of Sex using Real, Virtual and 3-D Printed Specimens

Increasingly, physical anthropology is seeing the use of a variety of digital technologies to capture, describe and analyse skeletal elements. The last ten years have seen a dramatic increase in the number of publications undertaking validations of osteological techniques using CT (computed tomography) data and/or virtual models. In the last few years, with the increasing availability of relatively low cost technological approaches to rapid prototyping, especially 3D printing (3DP), production of bone replicas has gained popularity. However, no studies have explored the relative congruence of methods on real, virtual and 3DP models. This paper presents the results of a study to explore congruency in metric and morphological methods for determination of sex from the human hipbone. Intraand inter-observer agreement between real, 3D virtual models and 3DP models is assessed using the Kappa statistic. Implications for future osteological studies are discussed.