Falys Ceri G, Prangle Dennis
Department of Archaeology, School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, RG6 6AB, UK.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2015 Feb;156(2):203-14. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.22639. Epub 2014 Oct 18.
The sternal end of the clavicle has been illustrated to be useful in aging young adults, however, no studies have investigated what age-related changes occur to the sternal end post epiphyseal fusion. In this study, three morphological features (i.e., surface topography, porosity, and osteophyte formation) were examined and scored using 564 clavicles of individuals of European ancestry (n = 318 males; n = 246 females), with known ages of 40+ years, from four documented skeletal collections: Hamann-Todd, Pretoria, St. Bride's, and Coimbra. An ordinal scoring method was developed for each of the three traits. Surface topography showed the strongest correlation with age, and composite scores (formed by summing the three separate trait scores) indicated progressive degeneration of the surface with increasing chronological age. Linear regression analyses were performed on the trait scores to produce pooled-sample age estimation equations. Blind tests of the composite score method and regression formulae on 56 individuals, aged 40+ years, from Christ Church Spitalfields, suggest accuracies of 96.4% for both methods. These preliminary results display the first evidence of the utility of the sternal end of the clavicle in aging older adult individuals. However, in the current format, these criteria should only be applied to individuals already identified as over 40 years in order to refine the age ranges used for advanced age. These findings do suggest the sternal end of the clavicle has potential to aid age estimates beyond the traditional "mature adult" age category (i.e., 46+ years), and provides several suggestions for future research.
锁骨胸骨端已被证明在年轻成年人的年龄判定中有用，然而，尚无研究调查骨骺融合后锁骨胸骨端会发生哪些与年龄相关的变化。在本研究中，对来自四个有记录的骨骼样本库（哈曼 - 托德、比勒陀利亚、圣布里德和科英布拉）的564根欧洲血统个体（n = 318名男性；n = 246名女性）的锁骨进行了检查，并对其三个形态特征（即表面形貌、孔隙率和骨赘形成）进行评分，这些个体已知年龄在40岁及以上。针对这三个特征分别开发了一种序数评分方法。表面形貌与年龄的相关性最强，综合评分（通过将三个单独的特征评分相加得出）表明随着实际年龄的增加，表面逐渐退化。对特征评分进行线性回归分析，以生成合并样本年龄估计方程。对来自基督教堂斯皮塔菲尔德的56名年龄在40岁及以上的个体进行了综合评分方法和回归公式的盲测，结果表明两种方法的准确率均为96.4%。这些初步结果首次证明了锁骨胸骨端在老年个体年龄判定中的实用性。然而，就目前的形式而言，这些标准仅应应用于已确定年龄超过40岁的个体，以便细化用于高龄的年龄范围。这些发现确实表明锁骨胸骨端有潜力辅助超出传统“成熟成年人”年龄类别（即46岁及以上）的年龄估计，并为未来研究提供了一些建议。
