Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2012 Oct;149(2):181-92. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22106. Epub 2012 Jul 5.
The Miles method of age estimation relies on molar wear to estimate age and is widely used in bioarcheological contexts. However, because the method requires physical seriation and a sample of subadults to estimate wear rates it cannot be applied to many samples. Here, we modify the Miles method by scoring occlusal wear and estimating molar wear rates from adult wear gradients in 311 hunter-gatherers and provide formulae to estimate the error associated with each age estimate. A check of the modified method in a subsample (n = 22) shows that interval estimates overlap in all but one case with age categories estimated from traditional methods; this suggests that the modifications have not hampered the ability of the Miles method to estimate age even in heterogeneous samples. As expected, the error increases with age and in populations with smaller sample sizes. These modifications allow the Miles method to be applied to skeletal samples of adult crania that were previously only amenable to cranial suture age estimation, and importantly, provide a measure of uncertainty for each age estimate.
迈尔斯（Miles）的年龄估测方法依赖于磨牙磨损来估计年龄，被广泛应用于生物考古学领域。然而，由于该方法需要进行物理排序，并且需要一组未成年个体的样本来估计磨损率，因此无法应用于许多样本。在这里，我们通过对 311 名狩猎采集者的磨牙咬合面磨损进行评分，并从成人磨损梯度中估算磨牙磨损率，对迈尔斯方法进行了修改，并提供了估算每个年龄估计值相关误差的公式。在一个子样本（n=22）中对修改后的方法进行检查的结果表明，除了一个案例之外，所有案例的间隔估计值与从传统方法估算的年龄类别都有重叠；这表明，即使在异质样本中，这些修改也没有妨碍迈尔斯方法估计年龄的能力。正如预期的那样，误差随着年龄的增长以及样本量较小的人群而增加。这些修改使迈尔斯方法能够应用于先前仅适用于颅骨缝年龄估计的成年颅骨骨骼样本，并且重要的是，为每个年龄估计值提供了不确定性的度量。
