I would like to interject just one small detail. With regards to how one
should date the age at death of an animal, the concensus seems so side with
dental attriction over epiphyseal fusion. But I am assuming that the teeth
that are actually scored are still set within the animal's mandible, so one
can get a tighter sequence of dental scores when looking at a row of teeth
(for example:M1, M2, M3). But what seems to be the standard practise when
there are VERY few teeth still within the mandible? The site I am working on
now has a lot of teeth, and a lot of mandibles, but just very few mandibles
with teeth! I would suspect that scoring isolated teeth would result in a
much wider suggested age at death (for example 2-6 years of age) as opposed
to a series of teeth still situated in the animal's jaw.
How would all of you deal with this situation?
Edward F. Maher
PhD Candidate
University of Illinois at Chicago
2000-2001 George A. Barton Fellow
(Albright Institute, Jerusalem, Israel)
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