Ectocranial suture closure : a revisitation of Meindl and Lovejoy

In 1985, Meindl and Lovejoy presented a revised methodology for aging crania using ectocranial sutures. They stated that race and sex are do not affect the accuracy of their method and, several other researchers, as well point out that race and sex do affect other aging methods. I used visual and statistical means to resolve the issue of whether or not race and sex affected the accuracy of Meindl and Lovejoy's methodology in aging crania. This study examined 310 crania: 18 from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection housed in the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee- Knoxville, and 292 from the Robert J. Terry Collection housed at the Smithsonian Institution. Once scored, using Meindl and Lovejoy's ectocranial suture closure methodology (1985), the data were graphed by plotting the actual ages of the specimens against the composite scores given to the specimens based on the degree of ectocranial suture closure. Using SAS, I used a cumulative logistic regression model based on the proportional odds assumption to determine if the suture scores given are related to age, and whether sex and race affect the composite score given to crania. I also rescored all of the eighteen specimens from the Bass collection, and obtained rescored data from 106 specimens from the Terry Collection to test Meindl and Lovejoy's method in repeatability by using a Pearson Correlation. This study revealed that age is the only factor of those I tested (age, sex and race) that can accurately predict suture closure, and does indicate, by the Pearson Correlation, that the results of the test are repeatable by other observers.