How can you tell if ancient skeleton is a child?

Question

The skeleton of a supposed human ancestor has recently been found and hailed as a child. How can you tell that the skeleton is that of a child. Or, from the other side of the coin, a dwarf ancestor was supposedly found in Indonesia, why was that not described as a child instead?

Answer 1

1. Through the teeth (commonly used and more accurate than counting the bones). Humans grow two sets of teeth. The first set (the "baby," "milk," "primary" or "deciduous" set) appears at about six months of age, although some babies are born with one or more teeth already visible. This stage is known as teething and can be quite painful for an infant. Human children have 20 milk teeth evenly distributed across the mouth's quadrants. Each quadrant of five teeth has a:

- central incisor
- lateral incisor
- cuspid (canine)
- first molar
- second molar

The second, permanent set of 28 teeth appears (erupts) between the ages of 6 and 12 years in the human dentition. The old set is pushed out of the jaw as the new set erupts. The third molars (the wisdom teeth) are the final teeth to erupt, usually around age 20. However, it is common for the wisdom teeth not to erupt at all; this is often the case in small jaws without room to support the extra teeth. It is possible, though rare, for a person to have fourth molars, and there have been instances where fifth molars have been present in the dentition.

You can visit this site to know the timeline for human tooth development: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tooth_development. From this site, you will know the approximate age of a skeleton.

2. Through number of bones (assuming that skeleton is intact and that body was not dismembered). At birth, all bones will have formed, but a newborn baby has more bones than an adult. On average, an adult human has 206 bones (according to Gray's Anatomy, but the number can vary slightly from individual to individual), but a baby is born with approximately 270 bones. The difference comes from a number of small bones that fuse together during growth, such as the sacrum and coccyx of the vertebral column. An infant is born with pockets of cartilage between particular bones to allow further growth. The sacrum (the bone at the base of the spine) consists of five bones which are separated at birth but fuse together into a solid structure in later years. Growing is usually completed between ages 12 and 14, at which point the bones have no pockets of cartilage left to allow more growth.

Answer 2

you can tell if a skeleton is a child by its bone structure.
if its is an adult it will have all its collar bones, some of these don't appear and fuse until we are 24 ish.
try looking at its teeth, does it have milk teeth, or any wisdom teeth.
dwarfism has characteristics of its own, legs, hands, arms will not be in proportion. also it will have a full set of adult teeth. also the head will be bigger than you would expect, a child's head becomes in proportion with the body as young as 3. it may even show signs (if female) that it has given birth. i suppose those would show that the hips have opened and widened to allow for child birth.
those are some of the ideas i had.
hope there of use.
Good Luck.

Answer 3

The descriptions of the ancient weapons you cite sound like meteors or comets impacting the earth. Some could be lightning. To suppose nuclear weapons would be to also suppose a civilization sufficiently advanced to have large quantities of electricity, huge mining operations, advanced electronics, and apparently some kind of missile delivery system. Basically, you would have to suppose an industrial base like the one we have had for the last 50 to 60 years. And then, somehow, that entire industrial civilization disappeared without a trace. Sounds pretty far fetched to me. Then, to simply say the ground is more radioactive in certain areas of the world and then immediately conclude that it is evidence of nuclear weapons is incorrect. Nuclear weapons leave specific radioactive isotopes in the residue. Isotopes like strontium-90, technetium-99, and iodine-129 would be found. While there are higher concentrations of naturally occurring radioactive elements like thorium and potassium, the specific daughter products of nuclear fission are absent. So, I'm sorry, but based on the limited research I have done into the issues you cite, I cannot conclude any evidence for ancient nuclear weapons.

Answer 4

There are a number of indicators from the remain that can be used to identify approximately the age of the subject. These are 1) the condition and number of the teeth, 2) the length of certain bones when compared to remains found in that geographical region from the same area, and 3) fusing of the plates of the skull and certain bones.

With teeth, the wear and tear from diet can indicate the approximate age of the subject, as the older the remains, the greater the wear on the teeth. A problem with this approach is the diet of the subject, as if it comes from a primarily carnivorous area, the wear would be greater due to the act of gnawing on bones and cracking them open to get at the marrow than would be the case from primarily vegitarian diet. Also, the number of teeth can be a good indicator of age, as some teeth only develop with age.

2) the length of the long bones of the arms and legs can also be a good indicator of the age of the remains when compared to results from other comparable remains.

3) The plates of the skull only fully fuse togehther around 5 years of age, and along with this other indicators are fusing of bones in the arms an legs, which occur over a longer timescale.

Taken together, these indicators can give a very good indication of the general age of the remains, and allow classification as child, adolesent or adult.

There arealso ways to sex remains (ie id them as male or female) using skeletal features, but the best method for id if the remins are in good condition is to extract DNA from the teeth. PCR can then be performed on the extracted DNA targeted at the amelogenin gene. the reason this is used as a target is that the gene is coded by diffenret lengths of dna in both males and females, (112bp in women and 114 in men). PCR is sensitive enough to amplify this gene under strict conditions, and the length of the gene can be determined by gel electrophoresis.

Technical i know, but hope that it helps.

Answer 5

An adult human has almost 100 fewer bones than a child because many bones (at birth) fuse into single bones as we age. Skulls are made up of many separate bones including a soft spot in infants that fascilitates passage through the birth canal. Growth creates "sutures" that sew the bones into a solid skull.

Answer 6

An adult dwarf would be more developed than a child. Probably teeth or any damage that has healed would give clues. I'm sure those clever scientist types have got their methods.

Answer 7

the ends of the long bones, such as your femur (thigh) have growth surfaces at each end, called epiphysus. these regions can be examined and age can be determined by the degree of calcification at the ends. this means that children will have softer ends to thes bones and this cartillage decays before the harder calcium enriched cartillage of real bone. i imagine there would be evidence to support this in both skeletons.

Answer 8

this is a guess OK but it might be on the scull where it hasn't grown together like an adult(fontanel) and with the long bones they can maybe tell if they didn`t finish growing and by which teeth came through

Answer 9

You can tell if the skeleton is a child, if it's been biting it's nails.

Answer 10

size and how far developed it is as parts of skull keep forming with growth.