고고학 유적에서 출토된 대규모인골집단의 성, 연령 추정결과에 대한신뢰도 검증

Abstract

Sex and age estimation is an essential part of reconstructing the biological profiles of unidentified skeletal remains and of investigating the demographic composition and mortality patterns of past populations. However, in most cases, it is nearly impossible to determine the actual sex and age at death of skeletons from archaeological sites. For this reason, much effort has been made to devise the methods to estimate the sex and age at death of the archaeological skeletal remains, and the accuracy of which has been a topic of vigorous debate. However, little attention has been paid to the issue of the reliability or consistency of the estimates within a researcher and between researchers. The goal of the present study is to test the reliability (i.e., intra- and inter- observer consistency) of the sex and age estimates of archaeological skeletal remains. In this study, the Imdang skeletal collection housed at the Yeungnam University Museum, the largest archaeological skeletal collection in Korea, dating to the Three Kingdoms Period, were analyzed. A total of 259 individuals were examined for sex and age estimation three times by the first author, and some of these were randomly selected and reexamined by the second author. The consistency of the sex and age estimates within a researcher and between researchers was then evaluated by appropriate statistical methods. For sex estimates, Fleiss kappa and Cohen’s kappa were used to assess the intra- and interobserver consistency, respectively. The consistency of the age estimates within a researcher and between researchers was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha and the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC), respectively. The results of this study indicated a high level of consistency in the sex and age estimates both within a researcher and between researchers. Thus, the estimates can be judged as being highly reliable. In any research, involving skeletal remains, it is critical to verify that sex and age estimates are reliable and reproducible. This study presents standardized procedures to assess the reliability and consistency of sex and age estimates of archaeological skeletal remains. Without reliability and consistency in these estimates, any results from further analyses using such estimates would be difficult to justify. In this regard, it appears necessary for researchers to recognize the significance of testing the reliability and consistency of sex and age estimates prior to performing further analyses using untested methods. The methodology presented in this study is expected to be used for the purpose of reliability and consistency tests by researchers who want accurate analyses of skeletal materials in the future.