On the maxillomalar suture and the assessment of group affiliation

Abstract

The following research aims to determine whether or not the maxillomalar suture can determine group affiliation via quantitative assessment. Until now the standard method of determination involved a visual assessment of the shape of the suture, which can be biased. Quantification of this method would allow for more accuracy in the determination and greater repeatability of results. Twenty-three measurements were taken on two hundred and nine Black and White males at the Todd Collection in Cleveland and fifty Native American individuals of unknown age and sex from the Libben Site Collection housed at Kent State University. Three measurements were developed to measure the bimaxillary breaths from different points directly on the maxillomalar suture and three qualitative classifications were used to assess the visual shape. The three bimaxillary suture measurements appear to be the best indicators for group affiliation compared to the other metric measurements. Native Americans had the highest mean for those measurements, indicating the widest facial crania, while Blacks had the lowest means. The bimaxillary breadth measures were all statistically significant at the .05 alpha level. There was slight difference between groups in the maxillomalar suture length noted and this difference was statistically significant on the right side only. The visual qualitative assessment showed recognizable variation in the White and Black samples and very little in the Native American sample.