Estimating Ancestry

ANA 315
Ms Liebenberg
 Lecture Objectives
O By the end of this lecture you should be able to:
O List the methods typically used to estimate
ancestry as well as the advantages and
disadvantages of each method
O Run and interpret an analysis with the computer
program, FORDISC
O Know which steps should be taken to improve a
FORDISC analysis
 What do we know about
ancestry so far?
O Anthropologists use the term ancestry, not race
O There is a lot of human variation involved, so
there is a lot of group overlap
O That is why we only ever estimate ancestry
O We make our estimations based on what we can see
and/or measure from the bones, so we do not make
wild assumptions and conclusions
O Ancestry (“race”) can be a sensitive subject, so we
need to be tactful about our descriptions,
terminology, research etc.
 Estimating Ancestry
O There are 2 approaches to analysing skeletal
material to estimate ancestry:
O Morphology/Morphoscopics
O Osteometric approach
O Discriminant Analysis
O Fordisc
 Morphology
O Morphological characteristics
O Analyses discrete characteristics from a list of traits
O Quantify the shape of a bone
O E.g. round or rectangular orbits
O Assess presence or absence of a feature
O E.g. post-bregmatic depression
O Assess degree of expression of a feature
O E.g. size of nasal aperture
White Black Asian
Black South African

Prognathic
facial profile
Black South African

Short/Small
nasal spine
 Black South African
Wide inter-
orbital breadth

Wide nasal aperture

Smooth/Guttered
nasal margin
White South African

Orthognathic/Straigh
t facial profile
White South African

Large/Prominent
/Projecting nasal
spine
 White South African

Narrow/pinched
inter-orbital
breadth

Narrow nasal
aperture

Sharp nasal margin

White Black Asian

No
co t D
m a
pl ub
ia e
nt rt
!
Problems with Morphology
O Too much variation and group overlap
O Ambiguous definitions affect repeatability
O What is wide, narrow, sharp, smooth, big, small?
O Subjectivity
O What I see as wide is not necessarily wide to you
O What traits do we use and how do we manage our
estimate when half the traits classify the remains as
black and the other half as white?
O No error-rates
O How accurate is the method?
 Morphology Revised
O Morphological method made morphoscopic (Hefner, 2009)
O Line drawings with range of variation and scores
O Better definitions
O Robust statistics
 Morphology Revised
O Despite the improvement to make method more valid,
it is not working on South Africans
O Why?
O Not usable in forensic casework
 Osteometry
O Osteometry is the preferred method for ancestry
estimation
O Measuring continuous traits
O More precise and repeatable
O Gives more information on size and shape of a bone
 Discriminant Analysis
O Multivariate statistics
O Use combinations of multiple variables to create
group boundaries for classification, while taking
individual variation into account
O How to do discriminant analysis:
O (Measurement x Unstandardized coefficient) +
(Measurement x Unstandardized coefficient) + … +
… + Constant = value
O Compare value to sectioning point
Table 1. Canonical discriminant function coefficients for the skull and
mandible of South African males*
Functions and Unstandardized White and
Measurement
variables (mm) coeff. Black centroids
Function 3 (face)
Nasal height 0.1663298 W = 0.81735
Nasal breadth -0.2704951 B = -0.87184
Constant -1.3765213
-1.3765213
Sectioning point 0.027245
Average Accuracy 86%
*Taken from İşcan and Steyn 1999

* If the calculated value is smaller than 0.027245 the

individual is classified as black, if the value is larger the
individual is classified as white
 Fordisc (FD3)
O “Forensic Discriminants”
O Computer program that uses DA to classify unknown remains
into the most likely group
O Used for sex and ancestry
O Population-specific
O Uses a custom South African database to classify individuals as
black, white or coloured
O Gives the error rates and accuracy of the models
O Cranium most frequently used, but postcranial standards now
available as well
O Case-specific
O Can use all the measurements that you could take from a skull to
make the discriminant formula
O Makes it possible to use on fragmentary remains
 How to run a FD3
Analysis
O There are 4 sections of a FD3 output to look at:
1. Model accuracy
O This section tells you which variables were included
in the formula and how accurate the formula is by
looking at the classification accuracy for each
group
O If the accuracy is low you cannot trust the estimate
 How to run a FD3
Analysis
2. Classification
O You are looking for the classification with:
O The smallest distance from the centroid
O The highest posterior probability (between 0 and 1)
O Likelihood of unknown belonging to certain group
O Significant typicalities (Typ>0.05)
O How typical unknown is for group to which it was classified
O < 0.05 = typicality is not significant, probably does not belong
to that group
 How to run a FD3
Analysis
3. Group and measurement means
O Shows the group means for each measurement to show
how the unknown compares to the other groups
O +/- indicates the standard deviations from the mean
O If it deviates too much (+++/- - -) something is wrong
O Either a measurement error, the individual is strange, or
the unknown is not typical to that group
 How to run a FD3 Analysis
4. The figure Can 2 (11.5%)

O Demonstrates the group overlap, group

boundaries and where the unknown is 2.0

placed C

O The size of the ellipse shows the within- 0.0

B
W

group variation, i.e. the dispersion

around the mean -2.0

O Bigger ellipse = greater variance -2.0 0.0 2.0

Can 1 (88.5%)

O Where the ellipses touch = group

overlap. The more overlap there is, the
more similar the groups
O Less overlap is better for classification
(function will be more accurate)
 How to run a FD3
Analysis
O To improve an output and get the most valid, optimal
results:
O Do cross-validation (LOOCV) to test the accuracy of your
function
O Check for measurement errors
O Do stepwise variable selection
O Tests to see which measurements can best separate the groups
and removes the variables that do not help with classification
- END OF LECTURE -