Home
/ History / Archaeology / Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology / Estimating Age-at-Death Infants and Juveniles (non-adults)
Estimating Age-at-Death Infants and Juveniles (non-adults)
Estimating age-at-death from children, or non-adult remains requires different techniques from adults. Watch Dr Rebecca Gowland explain more.
In this section we’re going to focus on estimating the age-at-death of non-adult skeletal remains, or infant and juvenile skeletal remains. During this growth period, there’s a huge number of changes regularly happening in the skeleton. As a result, we can usually use these changes to establish a fairly reliable chronological age estimate.
There are three broad categories of technique that we use. These include:
- Dental development and eruption
- Long bone growth
- Skeletal maturity indicators (the appearance of ossification centres and the fusion of the epiphyses- unfused ends of bone that permit growth)
Read about these techniques in further detail in the next article. Then practice and consider the techniques in the discussion.
Reach your personal and professional goals
Unlock access to hundreds of expert online courses and degrees from top universities and educators to gain accredited qualifications and professional CV-building certificates.
Join over 18 million learners to launch, switch or build upon your career, all at your own pace, across a wide range of topic areas.
