New approach to age estimation of male and female adult skeletons based on the morphological characteristics of the acetabulum.

Abstract

Age estimation is essential to the human identification process, both in forensic and archeological contexts. Based on the previous male-specific method of Rissech et al. (J Forensic Sci, 2006, 51:213-229), a new approach to age estimation based on the acetabulum has been described and evaluated in 611 individuals from the Lisbon Collection (Lisbon, Portugal). This paper has two main goals: (1) to revise and better define the variables of Rissech's method related to the acetabular fossa, namely, variables 5, 6, and 7, and (2) to extend the applicability of this new approach to both sexes while analyzing age-related sex differences in the acetabular aging process. The results demonstrate the suitability of combining acetabulum traits and a Bayesian approach to estimating age in adults of both sexes. This study has confirmed the usefulness of the redefined variables of the acetabular fossa when age-related changes are considered. Furthermore, the newly defined variables have good to excellent values of repeatability. The study has also extended the method's applicability to females. The revised method has absolute error averages of 7.28years for males and 7.09years for females, based on a sex-specific reference sample. In addition, approximately 74% of the individuals estimated had an absolute error less than 10years. Interestingly, the acetabular aging process follows similar trends in both sexes, but the aging rate seems to be different between males and females, especially in middle-aged individuals. Despite the fact that the age estimates, on average, did not improve significantly with the use of a sex-specific reference sample, it is recommended that the sexes be analyzed separately due to the differences in aging rates and inaccuracy values.