Population variation in osteological aging criteria: An example from the pubic symphysis
✍ Scribed by Hoppa, Robert D.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 2000
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 88 KB
- Volume
- 111
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0002-9483
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✦ Synopsis
A fundamental assumption made by skeletal biologists is that both the pattern and rate of age-related morphological changes observed in modern reference populations are not significantly different than in past populations. In this brief exploration, the composition of a single reference and two independent, known-age, target samples are evaluated for the pubic symphysis. Differences in the timing of age-progressive changes between the reference and target samples are observed, and in particular, females demonstrated a pattern that was fundamentally different from the reference sample. These results serve as a cautionary note for the use of osteological aging criteria and issues of representativeness for modern standards.