J Forensic Sci, March 2009, Vol. 54, No.

2
doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2008.00977.x
Available online at: www.blackwell-synergy.com

Nicholas V. Passalacqua,1 M.S.

Forensic Age-at-Death Estimation from the

Human Sacrum*

ABSTRACT: A new method is described here that incorporates seven developmental and degenerative changes for estimating chronological age
from morphological features of the human sacrum. The construction of this method involved multiple stages of trait identification, character-state
definition and age correlation, rank-order phase development, and percent-correct sample testing with phase and sample aggregation, all of which
resulted in a six-phase component system for application on modern individuals. This phase system was first developed on European American male
and female samples from the Hamann-Todd collection; then tested on African American male and female Hamann-Todd samples as well as Euro-
pean American male and females from the WM Bass collection to examine possible sex and ⁄ or ancestry differences. Variation in age estimates due
to sex and ancestry was negligible; thus, the multiple samples were all pooled creating a robust method with a large sample size. Overall age ranges
increase in width at two standard deviations as is expected from degenerative age-related processes but retain utility in forensic situations.

KEYWORDS: forensic science, forensic anthropology, age-at-death estimation, sacrum, auricular surface, sacro-iliac joint

Accurate age-at-death estimates are important components of materials due to destructive taphonomic processes or commingling
bioarchaeology and other population-focused studies in that they factors; thus, it is important to develop reliable aging techniques
provide key baselines for assessing the applicability and reliability for a variety of different skeletal regions.
of estimates of other biological parameters such as sex and stature. Forensic applications require an accuracy that is lacking in most
In addition, they are essential for inferring derived demographic bioarchaeological and seriation methodologies (see 12 for discussion
parameters such as growth rates, fertility schedules, and life expec- on accuracy and precision). Bioarchaeological methods are less con-
tancies (1,2 and references therein). In forensic anthropological con- cerned about the possibility of victim exclusion due to inaccurate age
texts, accurate age-at-death estimates are crucial in efforts to estimation and focus instead on seriating the entire burial sample to
positively identify partially or wholly decomposed individuals by study populational trends. In a forensic context, the focus is on the
narrowing down the missing persons list of potential victims. individual, providing an assessment of age that does not exclude the
Unlike sex or stature, the reliability of age markers is strongly individual from the missing persons list. These fundamental differ-
related to the age class of the individual under study. While develop- ences in goals result in differing levels of acceptance of potential esti-
mental processes such as epiphyseal fusion or dental eruption patterns mate error. While bioarcheological techniques are precise, these
typically provide rather accurate chronological age estimates for juve- techniques are usually inaccurate. An individual aged with these tech-
nile or immature individuals, degenerative processes such as the later niques will potentially fall outside of the smaller confidence intervals
metamorphic stages observed in symphyseal surfaces are more useful (1 standard deviation) 30% of the time. Forensic techniques require
in assessing the age of older individuals. Furthermore, developmental different results. They must be accurate, though this entails providing
and degenerative processes affect different anatomical structures at imprecise age estimates with ranges which will correctly classify an
different stages in the life history of the individual. As such, their individual at least 95% of the time. Furthermore, the reporting of
imprint will be more or less regularly patterned and recognizable error statistics in forensic science applications is necessary concern-
depending on the life stage and structure being observed. Therefore, ing legal admissibility as per the Daubert Guidelines (13); however,
the development of new aging methods based on alternative anatomi- in bioarcheological scenarios, there are no such constraints.
cal areas is an important endeavor as it should improve the estimates The development of new techniques must consider these differ-
for age at least in the age class, where the new elements may better ing perspectives. In general, if the correct sampling and analytical
reflect the chronological metamorphoses. procedures are applied, a new aging technique will improve exist-
Reliable aging techniques are available for many different ana- ing methods only when it is capable of providing narrower confi-
tomical regions of the human body, including: cranial sutures (3,4), dence intervals for the obtained age estimates. All methods should
epiphyseal-diaphyseal fusion (5,6), pubic symphysis (7), auricular provide narrow (1 standard deviation—68% probability) and wide
surface of the ilium (8,9), sternal rib ends (10), and dentition (11). (2 standard deviations—95% probability) ranges. This would allow
However, at times one or more of these diagnostic areas may not for easier comparison to other methods which use the same mea-
be available for analysis in archaeological or paleontological sure of prediction and, in effect, standardize methodologies (14).
The study of ‘‘new’’ skeletal regions for age-related changes,
such as the sacrum, can help to narrow confidence intervals in two
1
Department of Anthropology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, different ways that are not mutually exclusive: (i) it may reveal
MI 48824.
*Presented in part at the 59th Annual Meeting of the American Academy
new processes strongly correlated with age that are not observable
of Forensic Sciences, San Antonio, TX, February19–24, 2007. in other structures and (ii) traits related to processes affecting other
Received 20 Jan. 2008; and in revised form 25 Mar. 2008; accepted 18 diagnostic areas may be easier to observe in the new structure,
Oct. 2008. reducing uncertainty related to intra- and interobserver error rates.

 2009 American Academy of Forensic Sciences 255

256 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES

The sacrum is particularly useful for age estimation because a surface (8), which focus on qualitative skeletal keys that can be dif-
number of clearly defined developmental changes such as fusion of ficult to assess. The newly proposed method analyzes each trait
the first sacral body vertebral epiphysis, occur well into the adult life individually and assesses what the age might be as a whole avoid-
stage of the individual, a time when most other developmental ing the more general qualitative model.
changes within the skeleton are complete. The sacrum is a bone with
21 primary ossification centers and four areas of articulation to other
Materials
age-diagnostic surfaces (two auricular surfaces, one vertebral plate,
and the occasionally fusing coccyx). The sacrum itself exhibits age- In the construction of the new aging method, a sample of 384
related changes in early, middle, and late childhood (fusion of the paired ilia and sacra, ranging in age from 10 to 96 years were cho-
bodies), through early to middle adulthood (auricular surface sen from the Hamann-Todd collection and 249 specimens from the
changes), and even later stages of adulthood (osteophytic activity). WM Bass collection housed at the University of Tennessee, Knox-
Despite this obvious utility, the sacrum has been almost completely ville. The general composition of each of the subsamples is pre-
ignored for adolescent and adult age-at-death estimation (5,8). sented in Fig. 1.
The auricular surface of the ilium has received much recent inter- The Hamann-Todd collection at the Cleveland Museum of Natural
est as an effective skeletal marker of age (8,9,15–17). However, History (Cleveland, Ohio), consists of roughly 3100 modern human
methods for assessing morphological changes in the auricular surface skeletons of both males and females of all ages and mainly of African
of the ilium in association with age are often perceived as difficult to and European ancestry. The collection was amassed between the
apply. Furthermore, because the sacral auricular surface does not years of 1839 and 1938 by both Carl August Hamann and T. Wingate
undergo the same morphological changes as the ilium auricular sur- Todd. Most of these skeletal elements are derived from positively
face, there can be no direct comparison. The sacral auricular surface identified individuals of known age, but some of the specimens are
lacks the same billows and striations of the corresponding ilium derived from individuals where age was determined through soft tis-
auricular surface likely due to much thicker hyaline cartilage and sue markers (see 25 for further discussion). Efforts were made to
much thinner cortical bone than the paired ilium of the sacro-iliac avoid pathological specimens and individuals under 10 years old, as
joint (18). By studying the sacrum, the shared characteristics between these individuals can be aged more accurately using other methodolo-
the sacral and ilium auricular surfaces might be used to gain insight gies. In an attempt to create a balanced sample, 10 individuals were
into the origin of these morphological changes and how these meta- originally sampled for each age decade, pooling those individuals
morphoses progress in the structure of the bone. 10–30 years of age and individuals over the age of 70 (26). After
Previous research dealing with age estimation from the sacrum some preliminary investigation, additional data were collected from
is limited. McKern and Stewart (5), studied sacral body fusion pat- the Hamann-Todd collection to give a more rounded age distribution
terns and concluded that while definable morphological changes at age stages, where significant changes between phases were noted.
occur on the lateral auricular joints, it was not possible to use them Following development of phases and marker morphologies on
for age-at-death estimation. The next major discussion of sacral the Hamann-Todd collection (described below), the sample of 249
aging is found dispersed in the ilium auricular surface aging individuals from a modern forensic population was used to test the
method described by Lovejoy et al. (8). They also stated that the efficacy of the new aging technique. These independent test sam-
sacrum cannot be used for accurate age-at-death estimation, though ples were collected using similar criteria as those for the reference
they mentioned that a plate-like epiphysis fuses to the lateral por- Hamann-Todd samples.
tion of the sacrum in young adulthood (19). Research has been
conducted on changes in the cartilaginous component of the sacral
auricular surface (18,20), but these changes cannot be easily corre- Methods
lated to bony indicators. Scheuer and Black (6) provided an in-
Development of Methodological and Statistical Descriptions
depth discussion of the sacral epiphyses.
The fusion and absorption of vertebral annular epiphyses to the The construction of an age-at-death method involves a number
body of thoracic vertebral elements have been studied and shown of complex decisions and statistical confirmations. The initial step
to be a reliable predictor of age (21–24). However, the trait has not is to develop general descriptions of how the sacrum changes over
been studied in the lower lumbro-sacral vertebrae. time, these morphologies are then defined and quantified as charac-
The method proposed herein will incorporate components of a ter states. Data from the Hamann-Todd European American male
number of previously described methodologies to different regions and female samples were chosen for the preliminary analyses as
of the sacrum, resulting in an assemblage of criteria for estimating their reference datasets were the largest and most balanced of all
age in one osteological structure. the subsamples (see Fig. 1). To begin, the Spearman correlation of
The objectives of the current study were fourfold: (i) identify and each of the traits and their associated character states against docu-
determine whether morphological changes observed in the auricular mented age were evaluated. Next, a means of combining the inde-
surface of the sacrum and associated structures (seemingly mirroring pendent traits must be constructed to develop a method using the
the age-related processes observed in the conjoining structure of the entire sacral morphological gestalt. At this step, Spearman correla-
ilium) can be statistically correlated with chronological age; (ii) prior- tions were employed to generate rank order statistics to determine
itize traits in terms of their utility to predict age; (iii) develop confi- trait change sequencing. From this information, a sequential coding
dence intervals (1 and 2 standard deviations) for each age marker; component system was developed. Character state scores for each
and (iv) test the method on an independent sample. of the eight traits were arranged to produce a dummy variable
The approach to age-at-death estimation taken in this research expressed as a seven-digit code (only seven traits are used in the
project is relatively unique. The criteria for evaluating morphologic final age estimate as the trait of coccygeal fusion was not found to
traits will primarily be on a presence ⁄ absence basis and numeri- be correlated with age). These statistics were selected to obtain a
cally expressed via binomial variables. This approach differs from coding system in which a higher score in the generated seven-digit
most age estimation techniques such as the Suchey and Katz pubic code corresponded more frequently to an older individual. Each
symphyseal study (7), and Lovejoy et al.’s work on the auricular unique seven-digit component code was translated into a verbal
 PASSALACQUA • AGE-AT-DEATH ESTIMATION FROM THE SACRUM 257

Hamann-Todd Collection Hamann-Todd Collection

Number of Induviduals
35
European American Males 16
European American Females

Number of Induviduals
30 14

12
25

10
20

8
15
6
10
4

5
2

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Age Age
Hamann-Todd Collection Hamann-Todd Collection
16
African American Males 16
African American Females
Number of Induviduals

Number of Induviduals
14 14

12 12

10 10

8 8

6 6

4 4

2 2

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110

Age Age
WM Bass Collection WM Bass Collection
40
European American Males European American Females
22
Number of Induviduals

20
Number of Induviduals

35
18
30
16

25 14

12
20
10
15 8

6
10
4
5
2

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
Age Age
FIG. 1—Subsample distributions by ancestry and sex.
description of the combination of morphological traits (morphologi- of an individual occurs when the individual falls outside of the age
cal stage) and was associated with the appropriate phase and statis- range for the phase. This results in a misrepresentation of the age-
tically validated chronological confidence interval (presented in at-death prediction. Inaccuracy rates are calculated by averaging
standard deviations; 68% and 95% probabilities). the absolute distance of the phase mean age to the actual age (27).
T-tests were used to check for discrepancies between phases and
differences between left and right side scoring. Finally, each of the
Morphologic Traits Analyzed and Character State Definitions
subsamples was tested against the Hamann-Todd European Ameri-
can sample to elucidate any ancestry or sex specific biases. To The following eight traits and associated character states were
evaluate the performance of the Hamann-Todd European American noted for every sacrum in the Hamann-Todd sample and incorpo-
male and female methods on the other samples, percent correct and rated into the new methodology. Each morphological character was
inaccuracy were calculated. Percent correct is the percentage of originally scored according to multiple trait variants (specifically
individuals correctly classified to a phase based on the confidence three character states), similar to those previously employed in age
interval (here presented in standard deviations). A misclassification estimation from the ilium (15).
258 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES

FIG. 3—Age-related sequencing of sacral body fusion.

FIG. 2—Different views of the anatomically dynamic regions of the

sacrum in reference to age.

Terminology
Descriptive terms utilized are similar to, and maintain the mean-
ing of, those used in previous research with the exception of apex,
which here refers to the rim of bone surrounding the auricular sur-
face (Fig. 2).

Sacral Vertebral Body (S1 ⁄ S2 and S2 ⁄ S3) Fusion

Sacral vertebral body fusion is the developmental fusion of the
sacral vertebral elements (sacrabrae) to adjacent vertebral bodies to
form the single sacral bone. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the scoring of
these traits is based upon the completeness of fusion, rather than
the appearance of any bony bridging.

Microporosity FIG. 4—Examples of the presence of both micro- (A) and macroporosity
(B) occurring on the sacral auricular surface.
Microporosity is defined as pits or holes on the cortical auricular
surface with a diameter less than 1 mm (15). The presence of both
Surface Texture
microporosity and macroporosity is depicted in Fig. 4.
Billows are morphologies similar to those found on the pubic
symphyseal surface (7) and the auricular surface of the ilium. They
Macroporosity
can be manifested as very shallow ridges and furrows but usually
Macroporosity is defined as cortical auricular surface pits or are characterized by an uneven surface containing slight depres-
holes with a diameter of more than 1 mm (15) (see Fig. 4B). sions and peaks. They appear on the auricular surface early in life
 PASSALACQUA • AGE-AT-DEATH ESTIMATION FROM THE SACRUM 259

Osteoarthritic Auricular Apical Lipping (Apical Changes)

Osteoarthritic auricular apical lipping refers to the osteophytic
activity which occurs around the rim of the sacral auricular surface.
Lipping is common in older individuals but may not be directly
influenced by age (see Discussion). Females tend to show more
extreme degrees of apical growth than males, especially at the ante-
rior apex. The presence of auricular apical lipping is defined here
as the depression or extension of the narrow rim which appears
around the auricular surface (Fig. 6).

Vertebral Ring Fusion and Absorption (S1 Ring Fusion)

Vertebral ring fusion and absorption are scored by the degree of
fusion or absorption between the superior vertebral epiphysis and
the vertebral body (Fig. 7). This is noted for either the first sacral
vertebra or a sacralized fifth lumbar vertebra in this study.

Coccygeal Fusion
Coccygeal fusion is the fusion of the coccyx to the last sacral
vertebral body.

Results
FIG. 5—Examples of presence (A) and absence (B) of billows on the
sacral auricular surface. General Description of Age-Related Morphological Changes of
the Sacrum
These stages are general descriptions of morphologies with typi-
cal, but not statistically validated associated ages and are meant to
serve as guides to understanding the aging process in the sacrum,
not for generating age-at-death estimates. Furthermore, these
‘‘stages’’ are not equivalents to the following ‘‘phases,’’ which are
based on the sequential coding component system.

Stage 1 (<25 years)—The earliest discrete morphological

change noted was the fusion of the third and second sacral verte-
brae. At this time, the auricular surface has a billowy appearance
with no porosity. The auricular rim does not show any osteophytic
activity or lipping and the vertebral ring on the vertebral body of
S1 is unfused or fusing.

Stage 2 (20–30s)—Individuals in their 20s show fusion of the

auricular epiphysis that results in a sacral auricular surface that is
relatively smooth (billowing is lost). The second and first sacral
vertebrae become fused and the vertebral ring is fusing or com-
pletely fused to the body of S1.

Stage 3 (30–40s)—Individuals in their 30s typically exhibit

some degree of lipping around the auricular surface. In addition,
some microporosity and even macroporosity may be present. The
condition of the bone is still firm and solid; although it may be
becoming lighter, the overall quality is still good.
FIG. 6—Examples of absence (A) and presence (B) of osteoarthritic
auricular apical lipping. Stage 4 (40–50)—Enhanced levels of microporosity and auricu-
lar apical lipping are noted in individuals in the 40s. The overall
and are observable until a small plate-like epiphysis fuses to the condition of the bone will begin to deteriorate as the quality of
surface which occurs usually in mid to late teens (8). bone becomes lighter.
Granularity is a trait usually used in reference to the texture of
the auricular surface of the ilium (8,15,16). This trait was omitted Stage 5 (>50)—The final stage of descriptive morphological
in this study due to the ambiguity and complexity of the trait. Bil- changes observed in the sacrum is seen in individuals over the age
lowing is only found in the sacral auricular surface before the of 50 years. At this time, the S1 vertebral ring will become
fusion of the auricular epiphysis, afterwards the topography is gen- absorbed, and macroporosity may be present on the auricular
erally smooth or lacking undulations (Fig. 5).
260 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES

FIG. 7—Examples of incomplete (A), complete (B), and absorbed (C) sacral vertebral body fusion. Special notice should be paid to the most anterior area,
as these changes are often the most pronounced.

TABLE 1—Revised trait character states. TABLE 3—Original and revised phases, unique codes, and description of
traits present.
Second and Third Sacral Segment Vertebral Fusion (S2 ⁄ S3 F)
1 = Incomplete fusion. Refers to any lack of fusion, particularly located Original Revised
on the anterior body or lateral alae (Figs. 2A and 2B). Phase Phase Code Trait Appearance
2 = Completely fused (Figs. 2C and 2D).
First and Second Sacral Segment Vertebral Fusion (S1 ⁄ S2 F) 1 1 1111111 No porosity, lipping, or complete fusions
1 = Incomplete fusion (see above) (Figs. 2A and 2C). 2 2 2211211 S2 ⁄ S3 fusion complete, auricular
2 = Completely fused (Fig. 2D). plate fused, S1 ring fused
Microporosity (Micro) 3 3 2221211 S1 ⁄ S2 fusion complete
1 = No Microporosity is present. 4 4 2222211 Lipping present on apex
2 = Microporosity is present (Fig. 3A). 5 4 2222221 Microporosity present, S1 ring unabsorbed
Macroporosity (Macro) 6 5 2222311 S1 ring absorbed, no porosity present
1 = No Macroporosity is present. 7 6 2222321 S1 ring absorbed with microporosity present
2 = Macroporosity is present (Fig. 3B). 8 6 2222322 S1 ring absorbed with macroporosity present
Surface Changes
1 = Billowing is present on the sacral auricular surface. Note the lack
of fusion between the sacral bodies (Fig. 4A).
2 = No billowing is present on the sacral auricular surface. The surface Component System Development
is generally smooth (Fig. 4B).
Apical Changes The results of the initial phase of study suggested that by includ-
1 = Apexes are sharp and distinct (Fig. 5A). ing both developmental and degenerative features in the analysis,
2 = Lipping and or irregularity is present at the apexes. The auricular the seven traits described above could be sequentially arranged to
surface is slightly depressed to the rim (Fig. 5B). reflect the differential timing of significant aging events. This
S1 Ring Fusion
1 = Incomplete Fusion. No border on ring. May show a cracked indicated that clearly defined morphological changes could be used
appearance on anterior surface where ring will fuse (Fig. 6A). to create a significant age sequence. The order of appearance of
2 = Fused. Raised border present on anterior aspect of ring with each trait within the seven-digit code was calculated to maximize
epiphysis completely fused to vertebral body (Fig. 6B). the Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient of the code with age
3 = Absorbed. Border no longer raised from surface. The ring has a
flattened and ⁄ or compressed appearance (Fig. 6C).
(Table 2).

Methodological Analyses
surface. Additionally, degeneration of many of these features will Based on the similarities in mean age and the overlap in confi-
be observed and the quality of the bone may become very thin and dence intervals for both phases 4 and 5 as well as phases 7 and 8,
light. t-tests were performed to assess the inter-group mean differences.
Results indicate that, even before Bonferroni correction, the mean
Trait Development ages of these phases are not significantly different. Thus, phases 4
and 5 and phases 7 and 8 were collapsed into phase 4 and phase 6
Initial results demonstrated that in most cases, the intermediate respectively, creating a system of six revised phases. Table 3 pre-
trait stages did not contribute significantly to the accuracy or preci- sents the original and revised phases with their associated code
sion of the age estimates, as reflected in even a slightly lower scores and trait descriptions to illustrate the coding process and
Spearman correlation of trait combination with age when intermedi- how the code is affected by changes in trait scores.
ate stages were taken into account (r = 0.63; p < 0.001) than when To test for significant differences between left and right sides of
the traits were mostly coded as binomial variables (i.e., on a pres- the sacrum, a t-test was conducted. Results showed no significant
ence–absence basis) (r = 0.70; p < 0.001). Furthermore, analyses of differences between left and right scoring. Consequently, whenever
coccygeal fusion data did not find a significant correlation with age there was a discrepancy between sides, the older side was favored
(a-level = 0.05). These results significantly simplified the scoring (28).
system and served to reduce inter-observer error. Thus, all age esti-
mation was based on the revised character states in Table 1.
Sample Testing
TABLE 2—Sacral trait order in the new coding system. The coding system was developed independently on both Euro-
pean American males (n = 152) and females (n = 90) from the
S2 ⁄ S3 Surface S1 ⁄ S2 Apical S1
Hamann-Todd Collection and then tested on independent Bass col-
Trait Fusion Changes Fusion Changes Fusion Microporosity Macroporosity
lection samples. For European American males, the method proved
Coding 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 accurate (93.3% correct) for all phases when tested on the Bass
order sample (n = 160). These samples then were pooled into one
 PASSALACQUA • AGE-AT-DEATH ESTIMATION FROM THE SACRUM 261

is a robust indicator of forensic age-at-death which appears to have

no sex or ancestry specific biases.
Auricular surface apical lipping, vertebral ring absorption, micro-
porosity, and macroporosity are all secondary degenerative aging
functions and therefore act differently from developmental pro-
cesses (25). The process of degenerative aging actually is a slow
accumulation of bony changes which occur as a function of envi-
ronmental and genetic interactions on a much more complex level
than those of development. This is directly reflected in the wider
age ranges after development has ceased (here, phases 4–6). During
development, the changes with age are much more regulated by
genetic processes; for instance, the fusion of the sacral bodies
occurs in a very consistent and reliable pattern with S2 ⁄ S3 fusion
occurring before S1 ⁄ S2 fusion in over 99% of the final pooled
sample. Furthermore, the breakdown of sacral body fusion by age
class is fairly consistent with the original results obtained by McKern
FIG. 8—Final age distribution of pooled subsamples. and Stewart (5).
While auricular surface microporosity tends to occur at youn-
ger ages than macroporosity, when considering variation in tim-
TABLE 4—Age estimates by phase. ing for both macro- and microporosity final age ranges are
nearly identical. This therefore requires the collapsing of the last
Mean 68% 95% Median Min Max
Phase Age Range Range n S Age Age Age Inaccuracy two phases into one (phase 6). The etiology of auricular porosity
is not well understood but it may result from subperiosteal irrita-
1 16.11 13–16 9–23 19 3.38 17 10 24 2.63 tion or stress or microtrauma due to mechanical stresses. Simi-
2 23.05 20–26 17–29 22 3.05 23 19 29 2.6
3 27.96 19–37 10–46 56 9.23 26.5 16 71 6.6 larly, lipping to the apexes of the auricular surface and
4 45.39 31–45 16–75 142 14.89 43.5 18 93 12.09 absorption of the first sacral vertebral disk are likely arthritic in
5 50.82 36–67 21–81 66 15.09 47.5 24 96 12.39 origin and probably linked to activity patterns, as well as physi-
6 62.79 49–77 35–91 328 14.04 63 30 97 11.57 cal stressors. Again, while correlated with age they are degenera-
tive aging features, not direct features of aging; thus these
European American male sample. The same analyses were con- criteria produce wider age ranges than developmental traits.
ducted using the European American females from the Hamann- These features can be used to determine adult chronological age
Todd (n = 89) and Bass collections (n = 89). This too proved accu- in a general sense, but remain inaccurate and imprecise. While
rate (98.5% correct). The samples then were pooled into one Euro- this may be a function of the character states being too robust
pean American female cohort. The new European American male to detect more fine morphological changes, the current attempt
method then was applied to the European American female sample at quantifying degenerative features found the presence–absence
to test for sex differences. Again, the method was accurate (96.7% scales to be more applicable. Finally, the ‘‘older’’ sacral auricular
correct) and the samples were pooled into one European American surface should always be favored in analyses when discrepancies
sample. Finally, the European American sample was tested on the occur. The more advanced configuration should be more accurate
African American male (n = 76) and female (n = 68) samples from because to express an older set of traits, this region must have
the Haman-Todd collection, the method proved 96.3% correct and passed through the ‘‘younger’’ morphologies (phases) making the
99.1% correct, respectively. All the groups were then pooled, creat- older side the more accurate indicator of age at death (as dem-
ing one final method (n = 634, Fig. 8) consisting of a six-phase onstrated in 28).
system. All phase data and associated descriptive statistics are
presented in Table 4.
Conclusions

Discussion It was found in this study that scoring traits on a presence–

absence basis rather than the assessment of multiple character states
The sacrum can be used for both developmental and degenera- significantly increased the correlation to chronological assessments
tive age-at-death predictions. The descriptive stages of age progres- to age. This may be best explained by the reduction in inconsis-
sion presented here are to be used as guides in understanding tency of trait scoring resulting in a significant reduction in inter-
general morphological changes over time and not as categorical and intraobserver error. It may also be related to a greater amount
phases for age-at-death estimation. Only the phase method based of variability in the duration of certain trait stages.
on binomial character states has statistically determined confidence The results of this study clearly indicate that the sacrum can be
intervals and is suitable for unknown age assessment. Based on the used for generating forensically significant age-at-death estimates.
character states of the presented traits as well as their usage in the This method utilizes seven developmental and degenerative traits
sequential coding component system, several points of discussion which are assessed through presence–absence scoring. By present-
are relevant. ing both one and two standard deviation ranges of error, the
The presented traits are not independent, and tend to appear in method has utility in both bioarchaeological and forensic anthropo-
regular combinations. Using the coding method, eight different logical settings.
phases were observed more often than apparently random or epi- This method is similar to other forensic-based age estimation
pathological combinations or traits. T-tests confirmed that there methods in that it is best suited for inclusion with multiple age
were no significant differences between two sets of phases, thus marker methods and not as a stand-alone technique. This is vital to
reducing the eight-phase system to a six-phase system. The result forensic age estimation and is a common theme for most
262 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES

forensically applied methods. While the confidence intervals of all 14. Ritz-Timme R, Cattaneo C, Collins MJ, Waite ER, Shultz HW, Kaatsch
methods must be set at two standard deviations (95% probabilities), HJ, et al. Age estimation: the state of the art in relation to the specific
demands of forensic practice. Int J Legal Med 2000;113:129–36.
these ranges are far too wide to be of much use in providing a pos- 15. Buckberry JL, Chamberlain AT. Age estimation from the auricular sur-
sible match from a missing persons list. All of the age estimation face of the ilium: a revised method. Am J Phys Anthropol
methods based on skeletal attributes available should be used in 2002;119:231–39.
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