The estimation of age at death from human skeletal remains is a critical aspect in the reconstruction of a biological profile in both forensic and archaeological contexts. Moreover, both in forensic medicine and in the clinical setting, there is a growing demand by courts for appropriate estimations of age in living subjects suspected of being minors without documentation. In juvenile forensic cases, age estimation may rely on an evaluation of skeletal maturation, dental eruption or on tooth formation.Which of these do you think is the method most frequently used?
Which is arguably the most reliable method?
Why would this be?
Look carefully at the images of the child and try and work out how old it was.
2 comments:
I think that the child would be around 5-7 years old. As only the 1st permanent molars have erupted in both the maxilla and the mandible. Dental Eruption may be unreliable as teeth may have been lost by trauma, there may also be anomalies in eruption such as premature eruption or delayed eruption (downs syndrome). Tooth formation radiographicaly may give more information as unerupted developing tooth germs will be visible. I think that the most reliable method would be to take in considerations from the skeletal maturation, dental eruption and tooth formation rather than relying entirely on method.
Thanks for writing this.
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