1. Local Standards or Informative Priors in Applied Forensic Anthropology? Lyle W. Konigsberg, Ph.D. University of Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee

2. 95% Ranges (Katz & Suchey)

3. Problems With Using Percentiles of Age 1) Percentiles are estimates that may require standard errors. 2) Percentiles give an incomplete description. 3) Percentiles depend both on the biology of aging and on the demographic composition of the reference sample.

4. Phase I

8. Phases V & VI

10. Reference Samples SampleN Korean War (KIA)232 L.A. Forensic737 Korean War (POW)126 Terry Anatomical422 Kosovo (M & F)226

11. Korean War Dead Transitions

12. Cumulative Probabilities

13. “Universal Weights” (Likelihood)

14. Phase V & VI

17. Transition I/II

18. Transition II/III

19. Transition III/IV

20. Transition IV/V+

21. Phase I Posterior

22. Phase II Posterior

23. Phase III Posterior

24. Phase IV Posterior

25. Phase V & VI Posterior

26. Survivorships

30. Prior Age-at-Death Distributions

31. Phase I Posterior

34. Phase II Posterior

37. Phase III Posterior

40. Phase IV Posterior

43. Phase V & VI Posterior

46. Conclusions 1) It is possible for Lyle to give a paper showing absolutely no equations! 2) For large representative reference samples, use survivorship within each phase.

47. Conclusions, cont. 3) For Bayesian analyses use an appropriate prior.

48. Age-at-Death Distribution

49. Conclusions, cont. 4) If “appropriate” reference material is not available, it may be possible to use information from large “generic” samples.

50. Acknowledgements Dr. Nicholas Herrmann Dr. David Hunt Erin Kimmerle Dr. Daniel Wescott Dr. Judy Suchey National Science Foundation (SBR-9727386)