人类学学报 ›› 2023, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (01): 75-86.doi: 10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2022.0058cstr: 32091.14.j.1000-3193/AAS.2022.0058

• 研究论文 • 上一篇    下一篇

年龄鉴定的转换分析法及其在月家庄墓地人骨中的应用

李楠1,2,3(), 孙战伟4, 赵艺蓬4, 何嘉宁2,3(), 凌亮优2,3, 成芷菡2,3, 冉智宇2,3   

  1. 1.国家文物局考古研究中心,北京 100013
    2.北京大学考古文博学院,北京 100871
    3.北京大学中国考古学研究中心,北京 100871
    4.陕西省考古研究院,西安 710054
  • 收稿日期:2021-12-22 修回日期:2022-02-26 出版日期:2023-02-15 发布日期:2023-02-20
  • 通讯作者: 何嘉宁,副教授,主要从事旧石器时代考古学、人类骨骼考古学研究。E-mail: hejianing@pku.edu.cn
  • 作者简介:李楠,博士,馆员,主要从事人类骨骼考古学、古病理学研究。E-mail: linan1991@pku.edu.cn
  • 基金资助:
    中国博士后科学基金面上项目(2021M690210);国家社会科学基金项目(20BKG035);国家社会科学基金重大项目“刘家洼芮国都邑遗址考古资料整理与研究”(20&ZD253)

Transition analysis as an age estimation method and its application to the skeletons of Yuejiazhuang cemetery

LI Nan1,2,3(), SUN Zhanwei4, ZHAO Yipeng4, HE Jianing2,3(), LING Liangyou2,3, CHENG Zhihan2,3, RAN Zhiyu2,3   

  1. 1. National Centre for Archaeology, Beijing 100013
    2. School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    3. Center for the Study of Chinese Archaeology, Peking University, Beijing 100871
    4. Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology, Xi’an 710054
  • Received:2021-12-22 Revised:2022-02-26 Online:2023-02-15 Published:2023-02-20

摘要:

转换分析是一种基于贝叶斯统计的人骨年龄鉴定新方法,具有综合多种年龄标志物、不受参考样本影响、适用于老年个体等优势。本文将其用于陕西洛川月家庄墓地人骨年龄鉴定并与传统方法进行对比。结果表明,两种方法构建出的人群死亡年龄结构、生存过程有显著差异:转换分析得到的最高寿命、平均死亡年龄明显高于传统方法,更多个体可存活至中老年。两种方法鉴定出的年龄差值受样本保存状况、年龄阶段的影响,存在结构性差别。转换分析是人骨年龄鉴定方法的重大创新,使鉴定过程标准化、鉴定误差定量化。未来需使用一些年龄已知的个体开展更多验证研究,以评估该方法对我国人骨样本的适用性及不同软件间的差异。

关键词: 人骨, 年龄, 转换分析, 月家庄, 墓地

Abstract:

The method to produce accurate and precise age-at-death estimates from skeletal remains is crucial for both forensic and archaeological analyses. Despite decades of efforts, all the currently available aging methods are experience-based and unable to generate satisfactory results. The Transition Analysis (TA) developed by Boldsen and his colleagues is an advanced method of estimating age from skeletons based on Bayesian statistics. It can combine multiple skeletal indicators of age, avoid the effect of age mimicry, and allows the ages of elderly people to be estimated more precisely. Although TA has been well received by foreign researchers, we still knew little about this method and seldom adopted it in China. The Yuejiazhuang cemetery is located in Luochuan, Shaanxi Province, and dated to from the mid-Warring States Period to the unification of the Qin Dynasty. It’s the northernmost large public cemetery of Qin people ever found in the Shaanxi region. Altogether 304 skeletons were recovered during the archaeological excavation in 2020. We used both the TA and the traditional methods to estimate the ages of skeletons excavated from the Yuejiazhuang cemetery and made a comparison of the results. The data showed that both age-at-death distributions and survival processes are remarkably different. The maximum lifespan and the average age of death obtained by the TA method are much higher, thus indicating that more adult individuals could survive into their middle and old age. These two methods generate completely different age structures of death, which will definitely affect our understanding of the past, such as people’s age perception, intergeneration relationships, family size, and social structure. Besides, the target sample’s preservation and age structure also have a great impact on the age differences estimated by the two methods. When the skeletons are poorly preserved or the individuals are relatively young, the age differences between the two methods become smaller. In conclusion, the TA method represents the most recent and significant development in the skeletal age estimation approaches, which standardizes the observation process and quantifies errors. However, TA is not yet perfect and still needs to be modified. All kinds of TA software so far provide only one algorithm and users can’t choose mathematical models according to their requirements. Wide age intervals and systematic age-estimation bias still exist, particularly for individuals in the youngest and oldest portions of adulthood. No human bones from China are included in the reference sample of TA. Therefore, more validation studies using known-age skeletal collections are needed in the future to evaluate TA’s performance on Chinese samples.

Key words: skeleton, age, Transition Analysis, Yuejiazhuang, cemetery

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