Abstract
This pilot study examines the impacts of taphonomic alterations on dentition from skeletal remains buried for a brief period in southwest Florida, as well as the analysis of skeletal age at death. The Lamendin method examines the periodontitis, root transparency, and root height of single-rooted dentition to estimate skeletal age at death (Lamendin et al., 1992). Taphonomy refers to the environmental changes that occur from death to discovery. Florida's subtropical climate makes the application of scientific aging studies from northern climates imprecise due to regional differences in soils, moisture, humidity, pH, temperature, fauna, and vegetation. The goal of this research is to gain a better understanding of the taphonomic alterations that occur to the dentition of individuals interred in southwest Florida and to examine the propensity for change via the Lamendin and colleagues’ method (1992). De Angelis et al. (2015) found increased error rates when applying the Lamendin method to buried remains after examining a cemetery population in Milan, suggesting possible negative implications for the applicability of the methods to forensic casework conducted in geographic locations that vary from the original study. Earlier studies reported error rates when applying Lamendin to archaeological samples, again highlighting that geographic location and the substrate within which buried remains may impact the utility of the method (Megyesi et al., 2006). In general, these studies suggest the need for further research on the application of the Lamendin method to buried human remains from various geographic locations. In this exploratory study, I used the Lamendin method to estimate the skeletal age of human anatomical donation remains excavated from the Buckingham Environmental Forensics Facility (n = 31). The remains evaluated were interred for less than five years and have known ages. I used a control sample (n = 21) consisting of human remains anatomical donations from the collection at the Human Identity and Trauma Analysis Laboratory. The control sample was not interred and had a known skeletal age at death. I use a Munsell soil color chart (Munsell, 2009) to observe taphonomic color changes in the dentition. I analyzed the soil data collected from each burial, including pH, soil moisture, and temperature, to calculate averages and compare the findings to identify any similarities among the burials that may affect dental aging. Key words: Dentition, Taphonomy, Age Estimation