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important to the study of the people who lived during the Lapita period in the SouthPacific.
10.1016/j.jchb.2009.02.014
Silence of the limbs – Reinventing forensic anthropology
J. Kieser (Department of Oral Sciences, University of Otago, New Zealand),[email protected]
The Boxing Day Tsunami and its aftermath of mass mortality was met withunequalled international response, particularly in Thailand. The Australian and NewZealand DVI team was first on the ground and established the protocols followed bysubsequent teams from more than 25 nations. Experience in those early days hastaught us valuable lessons about the role and purpose of physical anthropology inidentifying the victims of mass disasters. These include the following: (1) a lack ofphysical anthropology protocols with INTERPOL; (2) integration of qualitycontrol; (3) entry of physical anthropological data into PLASSDATA; (4) awarenessof local issues and (5) a need and method for easy ageing of children.
10.1016/j.jchb.2009.02.015
The estimation of dental age in Maori, Pacific Island and European children
J. Kieser, R. TeMoananui, P. Herbison (Department of Oral Sciences,University of Otago, New Zealand), [email protected],H. Liversidge (Queen Mary University of London, UK)
The islands of New Zealand are populated by persons of European, Maori andPacific Island extraction. The purpose of this research is to quantify the levels ofdental maturation of each of these three populations, in order to obtain data thatwill be useful in forensic identification and age estimation. The sample consisted of1343 orthopantomographs (660 males, 623 females) of 477 Maori , 762 Europeanand 144 Pacific Island children between the ages of 3 and 14 years. Each radiographwas digitised and the stages of mineralisation of the seven left mandibular permanentteeth were assessed using the eight stages described by Demirjian (1985, Am. J.Orthod. 88, 433–438). Values for 1%, 3%, 5%, 50%, 95%, 97% and 99% confidenceintervals are listed for each maturity score. Intra-observer reliability was evaluatedusing Bland–Altman’s method on data from re-scoring one out of every 20radiographs and standard dental maturation curves were constructed for the threepopulations by means of a quantile regression method. Despite the fact that quantileregression analysis showed that across the age group investigated, there were
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Abstracts / HOMO—Journal of Comparative Human Biology 60 (2009) 239–290 247
differences between boys and girls, knowledge of the sex does not increase theaccuracy of the age estimate, simply because the magnitude of the error of ageestimation is greater than the difference between the sexes. Our analysis also showsthat population divergence is most marked after the age of 9 years, with a peakdifference seen at age of 10 years.
10.1016/j.jchb.2009.02.016
A stable isotope analysis of Lapita foetal and infant individuals
R. Kinaston (Department of Anatomy and Structural Biology,University of Otago, New Zealand), [email protected]
Studies of subadult diet can assist in the reconstruction of the relationshipsbetween health and diet within a population in addition to furthering theunderstanding of population demographics and dietary practices. The determinationof infant feeding practices within prehistoric Lapita populations by paleodietaryanalysis has never been previously undertaken. Worldwide, few studies haveexamined foetal and neonate individuals as a consequence of preservation,misidentification, or exclusion from burial grounds. A sample of seven Lapitainfant and foetal and four adult female individuals from the Efate island, Vanuatu,and four infants from the Uripiv island, Vanuatu, site have been analysed for carbonand nitrogen isotopes within the bone collagen. Using stable isotope analysis, thecurrent study investigates if it is possible to distinguish between stillbirth foetusesand breastfed infants who died soon after birth. Furthermore, the dietaryrelationship between three neonate and foetal burials and the respective adultfemales, in which they were buried in close proximity, will be analysed to test if it ispossible to discern a maternal relationship between infant and adult. As prehistoricPacific subadult growth rates are not known, the infants under investigation will beassessed by a number of age estimation techniques from other studies. Results will bepresented within this paper, as testing is currently underway.
10.1016/j.jchb.2009.02.017
Wading as a model for hominid bipedal origins and the so-called ‘‘aquatic ape
hypothesis’’
A. Kuliukas (Anatomy and Human Biology, University of Western Australia, Perth,Australia), [email protected]
One of the most important ideas in the mislabeled ‘‘aquatic ape hypothesis’’(AAH) has always been that wading is a plausible vehicle for our ape ancestors to
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Abstracts / HOMO—Journal of Comparative Human Biology 60 (2009) 239–290248
