Graduate Student, Department of Archaeology
Thesis Title: Extending the Life Course: Developing New Methods for Identifying the "Elderly" in the Archaeological Record
About
I am a third year PhD student at the University of Reading. My thesis focuses on our current inability to assess the age-at-death of skeletal individuals over the age of 45 years. Accurate skeletal age determination is essential in biological and forensic anthropology, palaeopathology and social archaeology, however many re-evaluations of the standard osteological ageing techniques have identified the consistent underestimation of skeletal ages. At present, it is impossible to confidently identify the “very old” (i.e. 50s, 60s, 70s etc.), even though documentary evidence informs us that people in past populations often lived well into their advancing years. I will develop morphological criteria to assess the age-at-death of aged skeletons by using and adapting standard osteological methodology, as well as newly identified skeletal regions that may be proven to display age-dependent morphological variation, with reference to individuals of known age. The ultimate goal is to develop ageing criteria that can be used by the rest of the osteological community.
