Analysis of Ancient DNA for Human Sex Determination

The reconstruction of the history of the Etruscan population is one of the most interesting topics in the context of Mediterranean basin settlement. From an anthropological and archaeological perspective, knowledge of the sex ratio is fundamental. The current methods for sex determination are based on morphometric analysis of some significant bones and are for many reasons inadequate in several situations. We present an alternative sex determination technique. which relies on the amplification via PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) of sexual chromosomes from specific fragments (Y-repeat and X-Y amelogenin homologous gene) of the DNA extracted from tiny part of bone. The application of this method to 29 Etruscan (sixth to third centuries B.C. ) bone sample let us determine the sex of 12 individuals. The a posteriori comparison with previous work done on the same specimens using classical morphometric analysis provide a strong support to the usefulness and reliability of DNA-based sex determination