Morphometry of the developing ilium

BRACHETTA-APORTA, N.; D'ADONA, L.; GARCÍA MANCUSO, R.

La Plata

Congreso; XV SSCIP Annual Conference; 2023

LICIF, UNLP, AABA

The ilium is one of the most studied elements of the infant skeleton. Its modifications throughout ontogeny are associated to the adoption of an upright stance and to sexual dimorphism. In this work we analyze the changes in size and shape of the ilium before its fusion in the coxal complex using a sample of 216 iliac bones (91 female and 125 male) corresponding to skeletal remains of juvenile individuals from four documented collections (Lambre collection, Argentina; San José collection, Spain; Bocage Museum and University of Coimbra collections, Portugal). The sex and age at death of the individuals were obtained from the documented information. Photographs of the iliac bone in ventral view were obtained and the bone morphology was described by 7 landmarks and 32 curve semilandmarks. Age-associated changes in size and shape were explored by multivariate analysis according to five a priori age groups: Fetal, 0 to 0.9, 1 to 5.9, 6 to 10.9 and 11 to 16 years. We found significant changes in size and shape of the iliac bone with age. The results indicate that the size increases until 16 years-old, while the shape shows a great variation until around 6 years-old, and then remained relatively stable. In turn, we observed sex contributions in ilium shape changes through age. Our study contributes information concerning to the differences in the trajectories of change between size and shape that contribute to the evaluation of sexual dimorphism.