Age-at-death estimation is a key component of creating a biological profile in forensic and bioarchaeological contexts, and the development of methods that utilize different skeletal elements or observe traits in a new manner are an important part of progress in the study of forensic anthropology. Use of the acetabulum for identifying age-at-death is among new methods being developed, and the recently published method by Calce (2012) was the focus of the present study. The present author analyzed a sample of 489 modern American individuals drawn from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection housed at the University of Tennessee and assigned each individual to a phase described by Calce (2012).
The results of the present study show that use of this method correctly classified age-at-death 62.2% of the time. The performance of this method is low compared to the results of the initial study where Calce (2012) found the method to be 81% accurate. This suggests that the acetabulum is not as beneficial as an age-at-death indicator as previously considered, and that more research on the utility of the acetabulum as an age indicator is required.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/15049 |
| Date | 22 January 2016 |
| Creators | Shapero, Stephen Paul |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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