Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Age Estimation With Decision Trees: Testing The Relevance Of 94 Aging Indicators On The William M. Bass Donated Collection, Kevin Benjamin Dominic Hufnagl

Doctoral Dissertations

Anthropologists have been estimating ages-at-death of skeletons for a long time. A variety of different age indicators has been studied and age estimation methods have been developed in an attempt to standardize the process. Even with all the work that has gone into developing age estimation methods, age estimation of mature skeletons is still very imprecise. This research investigates various age indicator definitions and their performance on an elderly skeletal sample. Using 176 individuals from the William M. Bass Donated Collection curated in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, data were collected on age indicators gathered …