I often get asked βhow do you know what ethnicity/sex that person was by their skull?β So I took these comparative pictures to show you just how much variation can be seen in our bones. From left to right is an Indian (as in from India) female, an African male, a Caucasian male, and an asian female (she was a large woman). Now thereβs no way you canβt see differences in these skulls. The teeth, eye sockets, jaws, noses, and many other features all allow me to make an educated guess as to what sex and ethnicity the person was. I almost always double check my guess with an anthropologist friend thatβs seen and worked on thousands of human skulls in his profession, but after youβve held a few dozen in your hands like I have, you start to pick up on what to look for. All of these skulls came from adults, but some are larger or smaller than the βaverageβ of their ethnicity/sex. Thereβs natural variations in every ethnicity/sex, which is why I call them educated guesses instead of fact. These subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, differences are why so many collectors/professors/anthropologists want to have a male and female representative of every major ethnicity. (If youβre not familiar with laws regarding human osteology please read this) What differences between these 4 skulls are most interesting to you? Comment below!
