Former MSc Human Anatomy student Qiudian Wang and her supervisors Sameer Dhumale and Abduelmenem Alashkham have presented their work at British Association of Clinical Anatomists conference in which skull metric and morphological techniques are often used in forensic anthropology to determine ethnicity. This study aimed to determine ethnicity of Malay and Indian mandibles due to a lack of existing literature on these populations. Measurements of bi-condylar breadth, bi-gonial breadth, bi-mental foramina breadth, bi-antegonial breadth, maximum ramus breadth, maximum condylar breath, maximum coronoid breath, maximum mandibular length, maximum mandibular ramus height and length, maximum mandibular body length and breadth, mandibular and mental angles tangent, and length and depth of mandibular ramus flexures were taken from 100 (34 Malay, 66 Indian) mandibles which are from Edinburgh University skull collection. Linear discriminant analysis and orthogonal partial least squares discriminant analysis was used to acquire discriminant function and refine the selection of indicators, with a P value <0.05 considered to be statistically significant. The accuracy of ethnic determination between Malay and Indians mandibles was 82% with the tangent mental angle being the most sexually dimorphic trait between the two populations. In conclusion, sex determination of Malay and Indian mandibles can be significantly achieved. Publication date 06 Jan, 2020
