Non-adult ageing

In bioarchaeology, the age-at-death of a child is used to make inferences about mortality rates, growth and development, morbidity, weaning ages, congenital and environmental conditions and infanticide. In forensic contexts, assigning an age to a living child of unknown identity may be necessary when the child is suspected of a crime; when penal codes differentiate law and punishment for children of different ages (Schmeling et al., 2001; Foti et al., 2003); or if the child is a refugee of uncertain age. For the deceased child, age estimation is considered to be the most accurate biological identifier that a forensic anthropologist can provide.

Age estimation of non-adults is based on a physiological assessment of dental or skeletal maturation, and relies on the accurate conversion of biological into chronological age. Error in the accuracy of this conversion can be introduced by random individual variation, the effects of the environment, disease, secular changes and genetics (Demirjian, 1990; Saunders et al., 1993a). Most importantly, the age of development of the dentition and skeleton are known to differ between the sexes, a biological assessment that has yet to be carried out successfully in non-adults.

Dental development

Dental development (mineralisation and eruption) is less affected by environmental influences than skeletal growth and maturation (Acheson, 1959), and mineralisation of the dentition is the preferred method for producing an age estimate for non-adults.