Science and Technology in Archaeology Research Center, The Cyprus Institute, 2121 Aglantzia, Nicosia, Cyprus.
School of Biology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece.
Forensic Sci Int. 2018 Oct;291:1-11. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.07.029. Epub 2018 Aug 4.
Pelvic morphology is highly reflective of both sex and age changes in humans, making it a popular research focus in forensic anthropology. Relevant studies range from traditional descriptive to more complicated approaches involving statistical modeling, with the latter having become excessively popular in the last decades. The present study examines the performance of Bayesian statistics in age estimation based on the morphological changes observed on the iliac auricular surface. The aim is two-fold: a) to test whether a Bayesian approach can improve age-at-death estimation compared to the original Lovejoy et al. (1985a) and Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002) methods, and b) to explore the impact of adopting different samples as informative priors as well as for obtaining the transition analysis parameters. For this purpose, two modern Greek documented collections have been used, the Athens and the Cretan Collection. Our results found no clear improvement in age prediction when adopting Bayesian age estimation, with only one exception: Athenian males for the Buckberry and Chamberlain (2002) method. The choice of samples for transition analysis and as informative priors affected the results but this effect was statistically non-significant.
骨盆形态在很大程度上反映了人类的性别和年龄变化，因此成为法医人类学的热门研究焦点。相关研究范围从传统的描述性研究到更复杂的涉及统计建模的研究，后者在过去几十年中变得过于流行。本研究考察了贝叶斯统计在基于耳状面形态变化的年龄估计中的表现。目的有两个：a）测试贝叶斯方法是否可以提高死亡年龄估计的准确性，与原始的 Lovejoy 等人（1985a）和 Buckberry 和 Chamberlain（2002）方法相比，以及 b）探索采用不同样本作为信息先验以及获得转换分析参数的影响。为此，使用了两个现代希腊有记录的收藏，雅典和克里特收藏。我们的结果发现，采用贝叶斯年龄估计并没有明显改善年龄预测，只有一个例外：Buckberry 和 Chamberlain（2002）方法的雅典男性。转换分析和信息先验样本的选择会影响结果，但这种影响在统计学上并不显著。
