Estimating age at death from the size of the growing epiphyses and metaphyses of the femur and tibia at the knee

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is to evaluate the utility of the width of the epiphyses and metaphyses of the femur and tibia at the knee in estimating age at death in subadult skeletons. The study sample was taken from the Lisbon documented skeletal collection (NMN H, Lisbon, Portugal) and it comprises 84 individuals (males, 47; females, 37) between 9 months and 18 years. Simple linear regression models and r2 values were calculated for the relationship between chronological age and epiphyseal and metaphyseal width for the sex-pooled sample. Linear regression models were calibrated to obtain prediction equations. Mean standard error (MSE ) and mean 95% confidence interval (MC I) were calculated for all equations. Results show that epiphyseal widths correlate better with chronological age (femur: r2=0.91; tibia, r2=0.93) than metaphyseal widths (femur: r2=0.87; tibia, r2=0.89). At the knee, the distal femoral metaphysis is the most accurate site for age estimation (MSE : 1.52 years; MC I: ±3.05 years)