Refinements of two methods for the histomorphometric determination of age in human bone.

The methods of Kerley (1965) and Thompson (1978, 1979) for the microscopic deter mination of age at death have been tested on the femora, tibiae and fibulae of 24 skeletons of known sex and age taken from the osteological collection of the Institute of Anthropology, Department of Biology, of the University of Padua, Italy. The results were compared with the data provided in liter ature. Some methodological refinements were carried out ? i. e. the evaluation of the histological age-dependent variables per square unit, an increase in the number of fields examined, a valuation of the number of histological structures instead of the surface area that they occupy ? to produce a re gression equation for the femur with a S. E. of ? 3.93 years.