Guidelines for statistical usage in age-estimation technics [Guide d'utilisation des statistiques dans les techniques d'évaluation de l'âge].

Résumé

Most papers concerned with age-estimation technics contain procedural or statistical errors or omissions that hinder efforts to evaluate their accuracy and hence their worth. Eight common problems are cited: (1) reconciliation of variability in counts of annuli within an individual, (2) lack of known-age material, (3) inadequate statistical treatmentand, for regression analysis, (4) heteroscedasticity, (5) non-linearity, (6) confusion over the identity of the dependent variable, (7) assessing accuracy of the technic, and, (8) confidence limits. Recommendations are given to avoid these problems and to improve the quality of future age-estimation literature.