_Age._--The first observations made on the igloo material were those as
to the individual ages of the bodies. Such observations are necessarily
rough, yet within sufficiently broad limits fairly reliable. The
criteria are principally the condition of the teeth and that of the
sutures. The possible error in such estimates is, experience has shown,
as a rule well within 10 years in the older and within 5 years in the
young adults or subadults.
One of the objects of these observations on the "igloo" material was
to get some further light on whether the remains were those of a group
that perished of an epidemic, famine, or some other sudden agency, or
whether they represented just burials. The age distribution of the dead
would differ considerably in the two cases.