Variability of sexual dimorphism in dental metric traits: a comparative study of ethno-territorial groups

Sexual dimorphism represents a significant component of morphological variability within biological popula-tions. Investigating patterns of sexual differences in tooth size is essential for the development of sex identification methodologies based on odontometric data. This study aims to examine sexual dimorphism in dental metric traits across geographically and chronologically diverse samples and to conduct a comparative analysis of these pat-terns. The study encompasses five cranial series comprising a total of 524 individuals: Mamisondon (7th– 9th cen-turies AD, North Ossetia), Mayatsky (8th–10th centuries AD, Voronezh Region), Dmitrievsky (8th–9th centuries AD, Belgorod Region), Kozino (18th century AD, Moscow Region), and Obdorsk (18th–19th centuries AD, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug). Dental measurements were conducted in accordance with the methodological guide-lines established by A.A. Zubov [1968] and S. Hillson [2005]. To assess sexual dimorphism indices, different sets of odontometric traits can be categorized into multiple groups. The analysis revealed unequal contributions of different components of the odontometric system to Mahalanobis distances. Furthermore, each new study group exhibited varying levels of sexual differences for individual traits compared to other series. These results suggest that complex mechanisms underlie human dental sexual dimorphism, which substantially limits the applicability of dental metric traits for sex identification methodologies.