Márquez-Grant Nicholas
a Cranfield Forensic Institute, Cranfield University, Defence Academy of the United Kingdom , Shrivenham , UK , and.
b School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford , Oxford , UK.
Ann Hum Biol. 2015;42(4):308-22. doi: 10.3109/03014460.2015.1048288. Epub 2015 Sep 14.
Information on methods of age estimation in physical anthropology, in particular with regard to age-at-death from human skeletal remains, is widely available in the literature. However, the practicalities and real challenges faced in forensic casework are not always highlighted.
To provide a practitioner's perspective, regarding age estimation in forensic anthropology (both in the living as well as the dead), with an emphasis on the types of cases, the value of such work and its challenges and limitations.
The paper reviews the current literature on age estimation with a focus on forensic anthropology, but it also brings the author's personal perspective derived from a number of forensic cases.
Although much is known about what methods to use, but not always how to apply them, little attention has been given in the literature to the real practicalities faced by forensic anthropologists, for example: the challenges in different types of scenarios; how to report age estimations; responsibilities; and ethical concerns. This paper gathers some of these aspects into one overview which includes the value of such work and the practical challenges, not necessarily with the methods themselves, but also with regard to how these are applied in the different cases where age estimation is required.
关于体质人类学中年龄估计方法的信息，特别是关于从人类骨骼遗骸推断死亡年龄的信息，在文献中广泛可得。然而，法医实际工作中面临的实际情况和真正挑战并不总是得到突出强调。
从从业者的角度阐述法医人类学中年龄估计（包括对生者和死者）的相关情况，重点介绍案件类型、此类工作的价值及其面临的挑战和局限性。
本文回顾了当前关于年龄估计的文献，重点关注法医人类学，但也融入了作者从多个法医案件中获得的个人观点。
尽管对于使用何种方法人们了解甚多，但对于如何应用这些方法却并非总是如此，文献中很少关注法医人类学家面临的实际情况，例如：不同类型场景中的挑战；如何报告年龄估计结果；责任；以及伦理问题。本文将其中一些方面汇总成一个概述，其中包括此类工作的价值和实际挑战，不一定涉及方法本身，还涉及这些方法在需要进行年龄估计的不同案件中的应用方式。
