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The diversity of human sex

Floor 0, Room 5, Showcase 5.8. Grimaldi Man. Replica
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Archaeology uses various techniques to estimate the biological sex of individuals from their skeletal remains. Anthropological analysis, which studies the shapes and measurements of bones, has been the traditional method for determining sex, but more modern techniques have made it possible to study the DNA of millennia-old bones, while more recent analyses investigate sex markers in tooth enamel. The use of these techniques has not only provided more sophisticated tools for 'sexing', but has also produced a more complete picture of the complexity of human sex throughout History.

Anthropological analyses sometimes come across morphologies that cannot be clearly assigned to one sex or the other. Sometimes, in the same individual, anthropological analysis may suggest one sex with a certain degree of certainty, while chromosome analysis indicates the opposite sex. How can this be? On the one hand, due to morphological ambiguities or poor preservation, anthropological analysis is not always infallible. Moreover, archaeology has to take into account that human sexual development is a complex process, where in addition to having XY or XX chromosomes, these need to be activated and produce the development of genitalia and other sexual characteristics. This activation does not always occur as expected, so that, on rare occasions, cases such as cisgender women with an XY karyotype may occur. DNA analysis can also reflect diversity within chromosomal sex. For example, a team of archaeologists from the Autonomous University of Barcelona recently determined that a skeleton from the Almoloya site (Murcia) has XXY chromosomes, while other sites have found individuals with X0, XXX or XYY karyotypes.

Individuals with ambiguous sexual characteristics or markers of both sexes are certainly a minority. But in order to do rigorous work, archaeology cannot ignore the multiple possibilities of human sexual development.

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