Determination of the Paleolithic reindeer sex applying the K-means algorithm to frontal bones with pedicles

The article presents the application of K-means clustering algorithm to sorting female and male pedicles of reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) from the Paleolithic site of Cosăuţi from Soroca District (the Republic of Moldova). According to the obtained results, 29.8% of frontal bones with pedicles belo...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Roman Croitor
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Zenodo 2022
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7541095
Description
Summary:The article presents the application of K-means clustering algorithm to sorting female and male pedicles of reindeer ( Rangifer tarandus ) from the Paleolithic site of Cosăuţi from Soroca District (the Republic of Moldova). According to the obtained results, 29.8% of frontal bones with pedicles belong to males, while the rest of 70.2% of specimens belonging to females. The obtained value of the sex ratio of the reindeer pedicle sample confirms the earlier study that obtained the same results based on sexual dimorphism of limb bones. The volume of pedicles represents the most secure parameter that allows one to distinguish female pedicles from male pedicles. The distribution of pedicle volume size in the samples of males and females corresponds to the age profiles of the samples.