Sexing an adult human skeleton from its fragmented remains is a tremendous challenge in both archaeological and forensic contexts. Although reliable sex estimation methods using the os coxae do exist, as well as the possibility of performing a secondary sexual diagnosis within a funerary assemblage, it is essential in the case of fragmented individuals to set up an alternative sex estimation method based on a skeletal element that is both sexually dimorphic and has a high taphonomic survival rate. This study investigated the sexual dimorphism of the cranial base (occipital and temporal bones), through an exclusively metric approach, in 537 identified western European adults. Using logistic regressions, thirteen predictive models were built up, which yielded up to 86.8% accuracy after cross-validation and with a decision threshold of 0.70. BASE is an R package with a graphic user interface that can be used to apply these predictive models to a target adult individual (https://archive.softwareheritage.org/browse/directory/5e3e3753e1f9c360b0ddbebaa2d2b42e5d7686d9). This paper provides measurement definitions, practical details and user recommendations. BASE is a new sex estimation tool which is free of charge, fast and easy to use, and allows anthropologists to collect biological data from larger numbers of individuals, even when their skeletons are highly fragmented and damaged. This new method can certainly contribute to a better understanding of past populations and will be of considerable value to forensic investigations in today’s context of steadily rising numbers of missing persons. BOUCHERIE A. , POLET C. , MARTINE V., LEFÈVRE P., SANTOS F., 2025. BASE – BAsicranial Sex Estimation: An R package for sexing adult western European individuals from the cranial base morphometry in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. , (2) :
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Shells are powerful climate archives - they add growth increments on timescales as short as sub-daily, and often live for decades, some even more than 100 years. With the aid of isotope and trace-elemental geochemistry, the effects of climate change on temperature, seasonality and extreme weather can be read from them. Belgium is one of the few countries blessed with extensive records of exquisitely preserved fossil shells dating to the Pliocene, a geologic period dating from 5.3 to 2.6 million year ago. Critically, the Pliocene is the youngest geologic time during which CO2 levels were >400 ppm and mean annual temperatures comparable to those to be reached by the end of this century, following Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP) 2-4.5 of the IPCC. It therefore presents an ideal near-future analogue. Rich collections of well-preserved Belgian Pliocene shells are in the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS), and more material is collected from temporary outcrops like building sites in and around Antwerp with the aid of citizen-scientists. In recent years, RBINS collaborated with national (VUB, KULeuven) and international (VU Amsterdam, Naturalis, UDerby) researchers to start tapping into these exquisite climate archives, unraveling previously unknown details on Belgian past climate, predicting amplified seasonality in Europe in a warmer world, and investigating the potential of fossil shells to document heat waves and storms. The poster will highlight some of this recent collaborative work, and, why the RBINS, through its collections, fieldwork and expertise can play a pivotal role in climate research in Belgium.
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RBINS Staff Publications 2024
In addition to the type species, Binkhorstia ubaghsii, which is fairly common in the upper part of the Nekum Member (Maastricht Formation) in the wider vicinity of Maastricht (the Netherlands) and Binkhorstia euglypha, which appears to be restricted to the overlying Meerssen Member of the same formation (uppermost Maastrichtian), a third member, B. desaegheri nov. sp., is recorded from the upper middle Santonian of the Campine area in north-east Belgium. The history of Binkhorstia is convoluted, serving as a prime example of how attempts to unravel the higher-level taxonomic position of late Mesozoic crabs may prove difficult. Over time, the genus has been referred to various families or subfamilies, either podotreme or putative eubrachyuran; here the new family Binkhorstiidae is placed in the superfamily Retroplumoidea. Binkhorstiids appear to have been a relatively short-lived endemic group that fell victim to Cretaceous‒Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary perturbations.
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