Malar Tubercle
Definition
A small bony protuberance on the inferior surface of the malar (zygomatic) bone, scored as present or absent. Higher frequency in East Asian and some Indigenous American populations than in European-ancestry populations.
- Location
- Inferior surface of the malar (zygomatic) bone
- Scoring
- Present or absent
- Higher frequency in
- East Asian, some Indigenous American groups
- Use
- Ancestry estimation from cranial morphology
Common questions
How reliable is the malar tubercle alone for estimating ancestry?+
A single trait like the malar tubercle is only weakly informative on its own, since frequencies overlap between population groups; anthropologists combine it with multiple cranial and dental traits, often through software like FORDISC, for a defensible estimate.
Why does malar tubercle frequency vary between population groups?+
The trait reflects population-level skeletal variation shaped by ancestry and geographic history, similar to other non-metric cranial traits used in biological distance studies within forensic anthropology.
Related terms
- Anterior Nasal Spine (ANS)
- A morphoscopic trait: the bony projection at the inferior border of the nasal aperture, scored on a 0-3 scale from absent to...
- Discriminant Function Analysis
- A multivariate statistical technique that derives linear combinations of measurements to maximally separate two or more groups (male and female). The resulting...
- FORDISC
- Forensic Discriminant Computer program, developed by Ousley and Jantz at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Performs discriminant-function analysis on user-supplied craniometric measurements...
- Forensic Data Bank (FDB)
- The modern documented skeletal sample within FORDISC, built from cases submitted by US medical examiners since the late 1980s. Provides reference data...
- Howells Craniometric Database
- A dataset of 82 standard craniometric measurements on over 2,500 adult skulls from more than 30 population groups worldwide, assembled by W.W....
- Morphoscopic Traits
- Non-metric cranial features assessed on ordinal or nominal scales (anterior nasal spine, malar tubercle, nasal bone shape, post-bregmatic depression, inferior nasal aperture...
- Population Affinity
- The preferred modern forensic-anthropological term for the relationship between an unidentified individual's skeletal morphology and a modern reference population. Replaces the older...
- Posterior Probability
- The probability, returned by FORDISC, that the unknown skull belongs to the classified reference group, given that it must belong to one...
- Typicality Probability
- In FORDISC analysis, the probability that the unknown skull is a typical member of the best-matching reference group, based on Mahalanobis distance....