A Comparative Study of Two Methods for Age Determination Using Nubian Dental Sample

Master's Thesis from the year 2010 in the subject Pedagogy - Science, Theory, Anthropology, Cairo University (Institute of African Research and Studies), language: English, abstract: Estimation of adult skeletal age-at-death is not only one of themost important identifying features for an unknown individualbut also one of the most difficult to achieve especially among old adults.

It has been demonstrated that when applied an aging method to independent populations of known age at death, it proves less reliable than theresults obtained when applying the method to samples from the populationused to formulate the methods. Moreover most adult skeletal agingmethodologies involve placing a skeletal element into a phase category.

The purpose of the present study was to compare and evaluate two dentalmacroscopic age estimation criteria. Namely root dentine translucency (RDT)and dental root color measured as a mean value of the red, blue, and greencomponents of color (RGB). The sample consisted of 416 freshly extractedsingle rooted permanent teeth collected from 311 individuals referred to severaldentists and dental clinics in Kom Ombou district, south Egypt in the Nubianresettlement area. RDT and RGB were assessed using traditional (manual) andimage analysis quantification techniques.Analysis reveals that there is high linear correlation between both RDTand RGB values with age, with r = 0.951 and ¿0.985 respectively. Regressionanalyses yields a new set of equations to estimate age among Egyptian Nubianpopulation with high correlation values ranging from r = 0.90 to 0.97 and astandard error of the estimate ranging from ± 5.067 to ±2.996. The bestestimates were obtained by combining both RGB and RDT. Additionally, theanalysis has shown that sex of the individual don¿t affect age assessment.It was concluded that RDT and RGB can be used to assess age at deathwith high accuracy. Moreover, this technique can form a basis of practicalapplication in establishing age at death both in forensics and paleodemographic aspects.