In recent years, the field of archaeological dermatoglyphics has sought to use the ridges of ancient fingerprint impressions to infer demographic information about their creators. Although such a pursuit is inherently challenging, a recent method used in publications (the “Age-Sex Identification Matrix'' approach) relies on flawed assumptions that produce unacceptably inaccurate results. Among other issues, basic mathematics, the literature cited as ostensibly supporting this method, and even the authors’ own published data contradict fundamental assumptions underlying their approach. The two types of fingerprint measurements used in the Age-Sex Identification Matrix approach as proxies for age and sex respectively—mean ridge breadth (distance per ridge) and ridge density (ridges per distance)—are reciprocal values that are not independent. Additionally, in opposition to the methodological thesis of this approach, the previous studies cited in support of this method demonstrate, on the contrary, that both age and sex vary with both mean ridge breadth ridge density. The published data used in this method also highlight the non-independent nature of the two measures. We caution other researchers to disregard the results of these studies until the data are re-analyzed with a more accurate methodology. Finally, we offer a methodology from the field of Bayesian statistics as an alternative that is able to disentangle the effects of age and sex on fingerprint ridge measurements.

中文翻译：

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对于古代指纹来说，平均脊宽度和脊密度讲述了同样的故事：对人口重建的“年龄-性别识别矩阵”方法的批判


近年来，考古皮纹学领域一直试图利用古代指纹印记的脊线来推断其创造者的人口统计信息。尽管这种追求本质上具有挑战性，但出版物中最近使用的一种方法（“年龄-性别识别矩阵”方法）依赖于有缺陷的假设，会产生令人无法接受的不准确结果。除其他问题外，基础数学、表面上支持这种方法的引用文献，甚至作者自己发表的数据都与他们的方法背后的基本假设相矛盾。年龄-性别识别矩阵方法中使用的两种指纹测量值分别作为年龄和性别的代表——平均脊宽度（每个脊的距离）和脊密度（每个距离的脊）——是不独立的倒数值。此外，与该方法的方法论论文相反，之前引用的支持该方法的研究表明，相反，年龄和性别随平均脊宽度、脊密度而变化。该方法中使用的已公布数据也凸显了这两种措施的非独立性。我们告诫其他研究人员不要忽视这些研究的结果，直到使用更准确的方法重新分析数据。最后，我们提供了一种贝叶斯统计领域的方法作为替代方案，能够消除年龄和性别对指纹脊线测量的影响。