Szekessy Vilmos (szerk.): A Magyar Természettudományi Múzeum évkönyve 62. (Budapest 1970)

Bottyán, O.: The variations of the palatum with respect to sexual dimorphism I.

With respect to the palatal lengths and widths, I waived the considerably more practical HEINTZ (1961) palatal measurements, significantly correlating with the MARTIN measurements (as recorded in my preceding paper; 1968), only for the sake of assuring a wider comparability, since the prevailing method in literature is still based on MARTIN'S measurements. The results obtained from my reasearch material confirmed the statements of the above authors. Figures 1 and 2, containing these results, illustrate the per cent frequencies of the absolute measurements by groupings into 2 mm wide classes, treating the male and female data separately. These Figures naturally lack the data of individuals in the inf. and juv. age groups, but they contain the male and female means as well as the number of individuals assigned to them. The sexual difference of the palatal length (2.23 mm) is slightly greater than that of the width (1.51 mm), but the difference is not considerable. Comparing these differences, resulting from the sexual dimoprhism, with the deviation values (3.3 for the length and 3.0 mm, for the width), calculated from a similarly composed material (mentioned in the preceding paragraph), as well as observing the displacements as related to each other of the male and female frequency graphs shown in Figures 1 and 2, it can be established that the differences deriving from sexual dimorphism represent rather low values. Figures 3 and 4 submit, largely per 10 years age groups and the adults separated by the two sexes, the mean values of the palatal lengths and widths as well as those of all adult males and females. These latter deviate from the mean values given in Figures 1 and 2 by containing the data of 606 and 570 skulls, respectively, against those of only 481 adult crania shown by Figures 3 and 4. Figures 3 and 4 display only the upper section of the graphs illustrating the mean values, for the sake of a better comrehension of the differences. And to facilitate comparison, the male and female data are projected onto each other. The width of the columns representing the mean values of the several age groups depends, according to the scale given in the Figure, on the number of individuals, hence the width of the columns is at the same time a measurement characterizing the rate of reliability of the respective mean values. These directives hold also for all subsequent Figures of a similar character.