The effectiveness of skeletal age‐estimation in the reconstruction of population survivorship in post‐medieval Dublin

Abstract

Bioarchaeologists have long used age estimates from skeletal remains to draw conclusions about past lifeways and sociobiological phenomena such as health, stress, fertility, and frailty, among others. However, the estimation of age from skeletal remains is complicated by a multitude of well‐documented challenges including age mimicry, variation in degeneration, preservation, and accuracy between anatomical regions, individuals, and populations. The application of transition analysis to bioarchaeological age estimation was introduced nearly two decades ago to address some of these challenges, and the newest version promise further improvements. However, given the time lag between the introduction of a new technology and its adoption, continued evaluation of existing methods remains important. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of skeletal age‐at‐death estimation through transition analysis in the reconstruction of population survivorship in 18th century Dublin, Ireland. It was hypothesized that there would be no differences between the survival distributions calculated from 18th‐century parish records and survival distributions estimated from skeletal remains rom approximately the same time and location. Results show that survivorship estimated from transition analysis was approximately equal to the survivorship calculated from burial records in early‐ to mid‐adulthood, despite the fact that the samples do not represent the same individuals. However, transition analysis consistently produced higher survival curves in later adulthood, despite the lower socioeconomic statuses of the individuals represented in the skeletal sample relative to the individuals in the burial records, though these differences were not statistically significant for females. These findings suggest that bioarchaeologists should continue to exercise caution when drawing conclusions about populations based on skeletons.