TY - JOUR
T1 - Age estimation using vertebral bone spurs; Testing the efficacy of three methods on a European population
AU - Sluis, Iris F.
AU - Bartholdy, Bjørn P.
AU - Hoogland, Menno L.P.
AU - Schrader, Sarah A.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors are grateful to the Middenbeemster Historical Society for their diligent archival research. Additionally, we would like the thank the community of Middenbeemster for allowing us to research the Middenbeemster collection. The skeletal collection is curated at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, The Netherlands. Finally, we would like to thank The Laboratory for Human Osteoarchaeoloy, the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University, The Netherlands, for enabling the examination of the human skeletal remains and providing a location to conduct the study. First author: Conducted the research, scored all the vertebral elements and wrote the article. This research was conducted as part of the Master's thesis at the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University. Second author: Conducted the statistical research and contributed to writing the article. Third author: Contributed to the original excavation and the first age and sex estimations of the Middenbeemster collection. Fourth author: Was the supervisor of the research and contributed to writing the article.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Authors
PY - 2022/12/1
Y1 - 2022/12/1
N2 - Age-at-death estimation is an essential step in both bioarchaeological and forensic studies when human remains are found, as this can also contribute to the identification of the individual. It is critical that age-at-death methods be tested verified in various populations, to obtain the most accurate estimation, making research into new age-at-death methods also imperative. Since osteophyte formation on the vertebral column increases with age, this can be used as a possible method of age-at-death estimation. Snodgrass (2004), Watanabe and Terazawa (2006) and Praneatpolgrang et al. (2019) have tested this method before and have provided promising results. We test the efficacy of Snodgrass (2004), Watanabe and Terazawa (2006), and Praneatpolgrang et al. (2019) on a 19th-century archivally recorded Dutch population. A total of 88 individuals, 40 males, and 48 females were scored for the degree of osteophyte formation on the vertebral column. In addition to testing the three methods above, population-specific regression equations were developed and tested. Accuracy percentages for estimating the age-at-death based on the mean osteophyte score of the entire vertebral column were obtained for all three methods (73.86%, 76.14%, and 72.73%, respectively). In this study, a general pattern of osteophyte formation could be established, which is useful for estimating the age at death. We therefore recommend that this method can be used, cautiously as a means of age-at-death estimation.
AB - Age-at-death estimation is an essential step in both bioarchaeological and forensic studies when human remains are found, as this can also contribute to the identification of the individual. It is critical that age-at-death methods be tested verified in various populations, to obtain the most accurate estimation, making research into new age-at-death methods also imperative. Since osteophyte formation on the vertebral column increases with age, this can be used as a possible method of age-at-death estimation. Snodgrass (2004), Watanabe and Terazawa (2006) and Praneatpolgrang et al. (2019) have tested this method before and have provided promising results. We test the efficacy of Snodgrass (2004), Watanabe and Terazawa (2006), and Praneatpolgrang et al. (2019) on a 19th-century archivally recorded Dutch population. A total of 88 individuals, 40 males, and 48 females were scored for the degree of osteophyte formation on the vertebral column. In addition to testing the three methods above, population-specific regression equations were developed and tested. Accuracy percentages for estimating the age-at-death based on the mean osteophyte score of the entire vertebral column were obtained for all three methods (73.86%, 76.14%, and 72.73%, respectively). In this study, a general pattern of osteophyte formation could be established, which is useful for estimating the age at death. We therefore recommend that this method can be used, cautiously as a means of age-at-death estimation.
KW - age-at-death estimation
KW - bioarchaeology
KW - Europe
KW - forensic anthropology
KW - forensic sciences
KW - vertebral osteophytes
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85144280951&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.fsir.2022.100301
DO - 10.1016/j.fsir.2022.100301
M3 - Article
SN - 2665-9107
VL - 6
SP - 1
EP - 8
JO - Forensic Science International: Reports
JF - Forensic Science International: Reports
M1 - 100301
ER -