Department of Physical Anthropology, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland.
Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Am J Phys Anthropol. 2020 Sep;173(1):190-199. doi: 10.1002/ajpa.24083. Epub 2020 Jun 29.
The present study tests the effectiveness of entheseal robusticity (ER) as a potential predictor of adult age-at-death by applying multiple regression models to a large contemporary identified skeletal sample.
ER was recorded for 23 bilateral postcranial entheses on 481 adult individuals (271 females and 210 males) from the Frassetto identified skeletal collection of Sassari (Italy), following the method of Mariotti et al. 2007. ER scores were used as predictors in multiple regression analyses with age as the dependent variable; the performance of the resulting models was tested through standard error of estimate, the correlation coefficient between predicted and documented age, and the percentage of correctly classified individuals.
ER show a higher correlation with age in females, resulting in more accurate estimates when compared with those obtained for males. Age-at-death is overestimated for male individuals under 45 years old and underestimated for older individuals. Regression models including a reduced set of ER sites result in better estimates compared with those using the complete set of variables.
Results suggest the potential usefulness of ER for the estimation of age, especially for female skeletal remains. If used with caution, ER may be a valid complement to existing methods for the reconstruction of the biological profile of skeletal remains of archaeological and forensic interest.
本研究通过对大量当代鉴定骨骼样本应用多元回归模型，测试肌腱附着处骨粗壮度（ER）作为成人死亡年龄预测因子的有效性。
采用 Mariotti 等人 2007 年的方法，对来自意大利萨萨里的 Frassetto 鉴定骨骼收藏中的 481 名成年个体（271 名女性和 210 名男性）的 23 对双侧后肢附著处的 ER 进行了记录。将 ER 得分作为预测因子，纳入以年龄为因变量的多元回归分析中；通过估计标准误差、预测年龄与记录年龄之间的相关系数以及正确分类个体的百分比来检验所得模型的性能。
ER 在女性中与年龄的相关性更高，因此与男性相比，估计结果更为准确。对于 45 岁以下的男性个体，死亡年龄被高估，而对于年龄较大的个体，死亡年龄被低估。与使用完整变量集相比，包含较少 ER 部位的回归模型得出的估计结果更好。
结果表明 ER 对于年龄估计具有潜在的有效性，尤其是对于女性骨骼遗骸。如果谨慎使用，ER 可能是重建考古和法医学有兴趣的骨骼遗骸生物学特征的现有方法的有效补充。
