NCJ Number
224711
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 53 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2008 Pages: 1040-1043
Date Published
September 2008
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Since current standards for age-at-death estimation from the pelvis are based on Americans of European and African ancestry, this study tested the Suchey-Brooks pubic symphysis aging method and the auricular surface method originally developed by Lovejoy et al. on a large sample of known sex and age from the Sassari collection housed at the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Bologna, Italy.
Abstract
The study found that the Suchey-Brooks pubic symphysis scoring technique performed well for the youngest age interval (17-29). For the 30-39 age group, measures of inaccuracy were off by 7-10 years; however, bias was especially low for males; female ages were overestimated by up to 6 years. After age 40, ages for both sexes were underestimated. Since the ventral rampart of the pubic syphilis fuses by age 35, this leaves only degenerative changes afterwards, which are much more difficult to interpret and are likely to show considerable variation because of lifestyle, environment, and the genetics of the population. Lovejoy et al age estimation method by using the auricular surface overestimated ages of individuals up to 39 years by approximately 1-4 years. Ages for middle and older adults were underestimated. These findings confirm the view that a single standard of pelvic development for populations of different origins is inappropriate; population models are required. The Sassari collection used in this study consists of 606 complete well-preserved skeletons of individuals who died in the first half of the 20th century and were exhumed from municipal cemeteries. The cemetery registers provide the sex, age, and date of death of most individuals and in many cases their date of birth and occupation. For this study, age-at-death was documented for 253 females and 312 males. 3 tables, 4 figures, and 22 references