Forensic Anthropological Inter-Population Studies: An Analysis of Australian Skeletal Variation

The present thesis explores population specificity as it relates to forensic practice, specifically within the context of the Australian population. The sample comprises 771 cranial CT scans, representing contemporary living Australian individuals. To include a relatively broad representation of the country, scans were collected from, four states and one territory. A total of four univariate and 15 multivariate predictive models were produced with accuracies ranging from 75.4 to 90.5% with associated sex bias values between -4.9 to -0.7%. Findings of this investigation strengthen the need for population specific anthropological standards to ensure high accuracy when ascertaining identification from unknown remains.