Age at death in cattle: methods,older cattle and known-age reference material

Abstract

New work is presented regarding the estimation of age at death in cattle based on the teeth. For younger cattle, before all the teeth are fully in wear, mandible stages are based on the eruption events, subdivided using wear on the most recently erupted tooth. For older cattle, a method of study using the position of the cement-enamel junction and the root arch of the molar teeth is presented. These are used to define summary mandible stages for older cattle. In order to suggest the ages at which the mandible stages occur, studies were made using reference material of known age at death at the Julius Kühn Museum, Halle, Germany (88 records), and two smaller collections in the UK (6 records). Further reference data were obtained from study of the literature (42 data points) (Jones and Sadler 2012). The results are presented using standard summary methods and the more detailed mandible stages.