Bridget Algee-Hewitt

This workshop will host a group of distinguished international researchers in the areas of biological and forensic anthropology for 4 full days of intensive discussion, debate, and resolution on skeletal age estimation for juveniles and adults. Participants have been selected based on their ability to enrich the theories, methods, and practices of age estimation. Their research engages new data acquisition technologies and non-traditional anatomical indicators of age, improves upon conventional visual scoring and phase/stage matching techniques, extends age-at-death methods to age determination for the living, applies more intensive computational methods and mathematical models for forensic identification and paleodemographic inference, and is concerned with developing appropriate standards and useful methods for typically understudied geographic areas and underserved populations that are of special concern, whether because of increased demographic representation, issues of human rights or humanitarian crises. This workshop will provide a forum to identify the specific needs of the field, to disseminate the new and corrective approaches presented by each invited expert, and to define a path forward for skeletal age estimation. It will also motivate participants to create a set of publishable recommendations that address the challenges identified over the course of the meeting and offer potential solutions.