The recording of age at death is an important aspect of zooarchaeological analysis as it provides evidence about a variety of research questions, spanning from the origins of domestication to husbandry strategies.

Age estimation based on tooth eruption and wear is a commonly used method to establish the age at death of archaeological populations. However, this approach has its limitations. It relies on the principle that tooth wear rate is relatively constant in different populations but, since no method has ever been developed to quantify the rate of wear, such an assumption has never been fully verified. As a consequence, the extent to which variable speeds of wear in different populations may affect age estimations is still unknown. To clarify this bias and offer transparency into the issue, the development of a method to assess wear rate in archaeological teeth is of paramount importance. In this paper, we propose a simple system that allows such an assessment to be undertaken. The system has been developed for pig mandibular/lower teeth but can also be extended to other species.

The methodology is then tested on several English Late Medieval and Early Modern pig assemblages which represent ideal case studies as they cover a historical period when extensive changes in pig dietary regimes occurred.

The evidence reassuringly suggests that differences in wear rates between these periods were not substantial, which bodes well for the comparability of kill-off patterns. However, comparisons with several outgroups indicate that the potential range of wear rates is much greater than attested in our core case study. Wild boars and prehistoric pigs, in particular, appear to wear their molars more slowly. Caution is therefore needed and it is suggested that tooth wear rates (TWR) and average wear rates (AWR) should routinely be calculated when tooth-based age profiles are analysed.

死亡年龄的记录是动物考古学分析的重要方面，因为它提供了有关各种研究问题的证据，涉及从驯化的起源到饲养策略等各个方面。

基于牙齿萌出和磨损的年龄估计是确定考古种群死亡年龄的常用方法。但是，这种方法有其局限性。它基于这样的原理：在不同人群中牙齿磨损率相对恒定，但是，由于尚未开发出量化磨损率的方法，因此从未完全验证这种假设。结果，不同人群中不同的磨损速度可能影响年龄估计的程度仍然未知。为了弄清这种偏见并为问题提供透明度，开发一种评估考古牙齿磨损率的方法至关重要。在本文中，我们提出了一个简单的系统，可以进行这种评估。

然后，该方法论在几种英国中世纪晚期和现代早期猪群上进行了测试，它们代表了理想的案例研究，因为它们涵盖了猪饮食结构发生重大变化的历史时期。

令人放心的证据表明，这两个时期之间的磨损率差异不大，这预示了销毁模式的可比性。但是，与几个外部群体的比较表明，潜在的磨损率范围比我们的核心案例研究所证明的要大得多。尤其是野猪和史前猪，其磨牙的磨损似乎更慢。因此需要谨慎，建议在分析基于牙齿的年龄特征时应常规计算牙齿磨损率（TWR）和平均磨损率（AWR）。