Age Estimation From Stages of Epiphyseal Union in the Presacral Vertebrae Hugo F.V. Cardoso 1,2 * and Luis Rı´os 3 1 Museu Nacional de Histo ´ria Natural, Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia and Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua da Escola Polite ´cnica 56/58, 1250-102 Lisboa, Portugal 2 Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade do Porto, Jardim Carrilho Videira 4050-167, Porto, Portugal 3 Comisio ´n Docente de Antropologı´a, Departamento de Biologı´a, Facultad de Ciencias, C/Darwin 3, Universidad Auto ´noma de Madrid, Madrid 28049, Spain KEY WORDS skeletal age; vertebral maturation; posterior probabilities of age; Lisbon collection ABSTRACT The presacral vertebrae have various secondary centers of ossification, whose timing of fusion can be used for age estimation of human skeletal remains up to the middle to the latter third decade. However, detailed information about the age at which these secondary centers of ossification fuse has been lacking. In this study, the timing of epiphyseal union in presacral vertebrae was studied in a sample of modern Portuguese skeletons (57 females and 47 males) between the ages of 9 and 30, taken from the Lisbon documented skeletal collection. A detailed photographic record of these epiphyses and the age ranges for the dif- ferent stages of epiphyseal union are provided. Partial union of epiphyses was observed from 11 to 27 years of age. In general, centers of ossification begin to fuse first in the cervical and lumbar vertebrae, followed by cen- ters of ossification in the thoracic region. The first cen- ter of ossification to complete fusion is usually that of the mammillary process in lumbar vertebrae. This is usually followed by that of the transverse process, spi- nous transverse process, and annular ring, regardless of vertebra type. There were no statistically significant sex differences in timing of fusion, but there was a trend toward early maturation in females for some ver- tebra or epiphyses. Bilateral epiphyses did not show statistically significant differences in timing of fusion. This study offers information on timing of fusion of diverse epiphyseal locations useful for age estimation of complete or fragmented human skeletal remains. Am J Phys Anthropol 144:238–247, 2011. V V C 2010 Wiley-Liss, Inc. This study documents the age variation in the timing of fusion of the secondary centers of ossification in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar vertebrae and provides comparative data and readily available information to aid in the age estimation of adolescent and young adult skeletons. We were motivated by the relative paucity of detailed information concerning the age at which the various epiphyses of the spine fuse, as well as by the op- portunity to use a relatively large collection of fully iden- tified human skeletons of the relevant age range. Beyond the study of other age indicators from the presacral spine, such as the morphometrics of the fetal vertebra (Ko ´sa and Castellana, 2005) or the size and shape of osteophytes in the mature and old adult spine (Stewart, 1958; Snodgrass, 2004; Watanabe and Terazawa, 2006), the literature has shown few studies dealing with the fusion of secondary ossification centers in the vertebral column. Apart from anatomical texts, which report a ba- sic outline of the age ranges and broad patterns of devel- opment and fusion (e.g., Scheuer and Black, 2000), the only studies that provide fusion times are those carried out by McKern and Stewart (1957) for the thoracic verte- brae, Buikstra et al. (1984) for the cervical vertebrae, Albert and Maples (1995), and Albert et al. (2010) for thoracic and first two lumbar vertebrae. One other study (Veschi and Facchini, 2002) also provides fusion timing for vertebral epiphyses, but here no detailed data can be found for each individual vertebra and secondary center of ossification since they have all been pooled. McKern and Stewart (1957) document the timing of union in the annular rings of the vertebral bodies and the spinous process, while Buikstra et al. (1984), Albert and Maples (1995), and Albert et al. (2010) provide fusion times for the annular rings of the vertebral bodies. Due to limitations and specificities in their own samples, union data provided by McKern and Stewart (1957) and Buikstra et al. (1984) are truncated inferiorly at the age of 17 years, and these studies included only males and females, respectively. Because Albert and Maples (1995) utilized vertebral specimens mostly col- lected during autopsy, their study was necessarily re- stricted to annular rings. Although McKern and Stew- art’s (1957) study included the entire vertebral column, data were pooled from different vertebrae, and thus fusion times are not discriminated by vertebra number. Albert et al. (2010) have also pooled data from the differ- Additional Supporting Information may be found in the online version of this article. Grant sponsor: Universidad Auto ´noma de Madrid (Programa de Movilidad de Personal Joven Investigador). *Correspondence to: Hugo F.V. Cardoso, Museu Nacional de His- to ´ria Natural, Departamento de Zoologia e Antropologia and Centro de Biologia Ambiental, Universidade de Lisboa, Rua da Escola Poli- te ´cnica 56/58, 1250-102 Lisboa, Portugal. E-mail: hfcardoso@fc.ul.pt Received 18 January 2010; accepted 21 July 2010 DOI 10.1002/ajpa.21394 Published online 24 September 2010 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com). V V C 2010 WILEY-LISS, INC. AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 144:238–247 (2011)