Age Estimation Using Thoracic and First Two Lumbar Vertebral Ring Epiphyseal Union

The assessment of age-at-death in non-adult skeletal remains is under constant review. However, in many past societies an individual's physical maturation may have been more important in social terms than their exact age, particularly during the period of adolescence. In a recent article (Shapland and Lewis: Am J Phys Anthropol 151 (2013) 302-310) highlighted a set of dental and skeletal indicators that may be useful in mapping the progress of the pubertal growth spurt. This article presents a further skeletal indicator of adolescent development commonly used by modern clinicians: cervical vertebrae maturation (CVM). This method is applied to a collection of 594 adolescents from the medieval cemetery of St. Mary Spital, London. Analysis reveals a potential delay in ages of attainment of the later CVM stages compared with modern adolescents, presumably reflecting negative environmental conditions for growth and development. The data gathered on CVM is compared to other skeletal indicators of pubertal maturity and long bone growth from this site to ascertain the usefulness of this method on archaeological collections.

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brief communication: A proposed method for the assessment of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains using cervical vertebrae maturation

Shapland

Lewis

2013

“…The age range over which these changes typically occur is extremely variable among modern adolescents (Marshall, ), and may have been more so in the past, given the greater disparity in environmental conditions and exposure to stress between different populations over time. Although we can assess the biological age of older children with relative accuracy (Albert and McAllister, ; Cardoso, ), we are so far unable to map puberty.…”

Section: Mineralization Of the Mandibular Canine Rootmentioning

confidence: 99%

Brief communication: A proposed osteological method for the estimation of pubertal stage in human skeletal remains

Shapland

Lewis

2013

Puberty forms an important threshold between childhood and adulthood, but this subject has received little attention in bioarchaeology. The new application of clinical methods to assess pubertal stage in adolescent skeletal remains is explored, concentrating on the development of the mandibular canine, hamate, hand phalanges, iliac crest and distal radius. Initial results from the medieval cemetery of St. Peter's Church, Barton-upon-Humber, England suggest that application of these methods may provide insights into aspects of adolescent development. This analysis indicates that adolescents from this medieval site were entering the pubertal growth spurt at a similar age to their modern counterparts, but that the later stages of pubertal maturation were being significantly delayed, perhaps due to environmental stress. Continued testing and refinement of these methods on living adolescents is still necessary to improve our understanding of their significance and accuracy in predicting pubertal stages.

“…Beyond the study of other age indicators from the presacral spine, such as the morphometrics of the fetal vertebra (Kósa and Castellana, 2005) or the size and shape of osteophytes in the mature and old adult spine (Stewart, 1958; Snodgrass, 2004; Watanabe and Terazawa, 2006), the literature has shown few studies dealing with the fusion of secondary ossification centers in the vertebral column. Apart from anatomical texts, which report a basic outline of the age ranges and broad patterns of development and fusion (e.g., Scheuer and Black, 2000), the only studies that provide fusion times are those carried out by McKern and Stewart (1957) for the thoracic vertebrae, Buikstra et al (1984) for the cervical vertebrae, Albert and Maples (1995), and Albert et al (2010) for thoracic and first two lumbar vertebrae. One other study (Veschi and Facchini, 2002) also provides fusion timing for vertebral epiphyses, but here no detailed data can be found for each individual vertebra and secondary center of ossification since they have all been pooled.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…McKern and Stewart (1957) document the timing of union in the annular rings of the vertebral bodies and the spinous process, while Buikstra et al (1984), Albert and Maples (1995), and Albert et al (2010) provide fusion times for the annular rings of the vertebral bodies. Due to limitations and specificities in their own samples, union data provided by McKern and Stewart (1957) and Buikstra et al (1984) are truncated inferiorly at the age of 17 years, and these studies included only males and females, respectively.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although McKern and Stewart's (1957) study included the entire vertebral column, data were pooled from different vertebrae, and thus fusion times are not discriminated by vertebra number. Albert et al (2010) have also pooled data from the different vertebrae. In addition, because large series of documented skeletons of adolescents and young adults are hard to obtain, data in some of these studies are necessarily influenced by relatively small samples (Buikstra et al, 1984; Albert and Maples, 1995).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Age estimation from stages of epiphyseal union in the presacral vertebrae

Cardoso

Ríos

2010

The presacral vertebrae have various secondary centers of ossification, whose timing of fusion can be used for age estimation of human skeletal remains up to the middle to the latter third decade. However, detailed information about the age at which these secondary centers of ossification fuse has been lacking. In this study, the timing of epiphyseal union in presacral vertebrae was studied in a sample of modern Portuguese skeletons (57 females and 47 males) between the ages of 9 and 30, taken from the Lisbon documented skeletal collection. A detailed photographic record of these epiphyses and the age ranges for the different stages of epiphyseal union are provided. Partial union of epiphyses was observed from 11 to 27 years of age. In general, centers of ossification begin to fuse first in the cervical and lumbar vertebrae, followed by centers of ossification in the thoracic region. The first center of ossification to complete fusion is usually that of the mammillary process in lumbar vertebrae. This is usually followed by that of the transverse process, spinous transverse process, and annular ring, regardless of vertebra type. There were no statistically significant sex differences in timing of fusion, but there was a trend toward early maturation in females for some vertebra or epiphyses. Bilateral epiphyses did not show statistically significant differences in timing of fusion. This study offers information on timing of fusion of diverse epiphyseal locations useful for age estimation of complete or fragmented human skeletal remains.