Wild boar - age at death estimates: the relevance of new modern data for archaeological skeletal material. 1. Presentation on the corpus. Dental and epiphyseal fusion ages

The purpose of this paper is determining of skeletal age with an archaeozoological perspective. A 48 wild boar skeletons sample (Sus scrofa L.) constitutes the basis for this study. Dead animals (vehicle injured) have been collected in the Oise département, north of Paris. Age has been estimated on the basis of dental eruption and dental wear, with comparison of two ageing methods. Results on epiphyseal fusion ages are presented and compared to dental ages and to other data. It appears that our corpus, even yet incomplete, is actually reliable to debate the timing of epiphyseal fusion process. We also underline the relevance and limits of this study for an archaeozoological application.