Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian Estimation of Age-at-Death From Human Skeletal Morphology

根据骨骸确定个体的死亡年龄是体质人类学和法医人类学的重要组成部分。 在过去，年龄的确定在很大程度上被视为一种“艺术”，对估计的统计基础只给予很少的关注。 在这个项目中，研究了来自Robert J. Terry Human Skeleton Collection（目前存放在史密森学会）的已知死亡年龄个体的大样本，以拟合各种年龄估计的统计模型。 先前由托马斯麦肯博士和T. D.斯图尔特对375名在朝鲜战争中丧生的美国士兵的分析也将进入这些分析。 麦肯和斯图尔特的数据被收藏在史密森尼学会的托马斯戴尔斯图尔特论文中。 除了呈现统计分析的结果外，该项目还将向面临确定死亡年龄问题的感兴趣的研究人员提供特里、麦肯和斯图尔特样本的原始数据。

Determination of the age-at-death of individuals from their osteological remains is an important part of physical and forensic anthropology. In the past, age determination has largely been treated as an `art,` with only minor attention given to the statistical bases for estimation. In this project a large sample of known age-at-death individuals from the Robert J. Terry Human Skeletal Collection (currently housed at the Smithsonian Institution) are examined to fit various statistical models for age estimation. Data previously collected by Drs. Thomas McKern and T.D. Stewart on 375 U.S. soldiers killed in the Korean War will also be entered into these analyses. The McKern and Stewart data are housed in the Thomas Dale Stewart Papers at the Smithsonian. In addition to presenting the results of the statistical analyses, this project will make the raw data from both the Terry and McKern and Stewart sample available to interested researchers faced with the problem of determining ages-at-death.