Date of Award

1-1-2019

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

College/School/Department

Department of Anthropology

Content Description

1 online resource (xi, 206 pages) : color illustrations.

Dissertation/Thesis Chair

Sean M. Rafferty

Committee Members

Wendy McQuade, Lisa Anderson, Timothy Gage, Recai Yucel

Keywords

age-at-death, Bayesian, estimation, pathological, phase methods, regression, Skeletal maturity, Mortality, Death, Bayesian statistical decision theory, Human skeleton

Subject Categories

Biological and Physical Anthropology | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology | Other Anthropology

Abstract

A common task bioarchaeologists face is to estimate age-at-death in populations that have no corresponding documentation. This poses many challenges, the first of which is that age-at-death is highly variable within and among populations and can be further confounded by genetic and environmental influences, as well as other components of the biological profile. Estimating age-at-death in a historic sample can be even more challenging due to missing age indicators or taphonomic changes that obscure the features. Bayesian Analysis offers the potential to mitigate these challenges and to estimate age-at-death with lower degrees of uncertainty and higher probabilities of increased accuracy and precision.

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