Department of Archaeology, School of Human and Environmental Studies, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AB, UK.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2014 Jan;153(1):144-53. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22416. Epub 2013 Nov 7.
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.
对非成年人骨骼遗骸的死亡年龄评估一直在不断审查中。然而，在许多过去的社会中，个体的身体成熟度在社会意义上可能比其确切年龄更为重要，尤其是在青春期。在最近的一篇文章（Shapland 和 Lewis：Am J Phys Anthropol 151（2013）302-310）中，强调了一组可能有助于描绘青春期生长突增进展的牙齿和骨骼指标。本文介绍了一种现代临床医生常用的青少年发育的进一步骨骼指标：颈椎成熟度（CVM）。该方法应用于来自伦敦圣玛丽斯皮塔尔中世纪墓地的 594 名青少年。分析显示，与现代青少年相比，CVM 后期阶段的达到年龄可能存在延迟，这可能反映了生长和发育的负面环境条件。从该遗址收集到的 CVM 数据与其他青春期成熟和长骨生长的骨骼指标进行比较，以确定该方法在考古学收藏中的有用性。
