NCJ Number
121243
Journal
Canadian Society of Forensic Science Journal Volume: 22 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1989) Pages: 147-157
Date Published
1989
Length
11 pages
Annotation
Objective criteria are provided for a fairly close approximation of chronological age in living individuals when age is unknown and is needed.
Abstract
A reasonable estimate of age may be of crucial importance to the physician or police investigator. Observation of specific criteria were made on 49 cadavers representing an "old" group (60 years and over) and on 39 dry skulls, representing a "young" group (adults up to 50 years whose sex and age were evaluated by standard methods). Cadavers were examined for age-related features of the endocranium including hyperostosis frontalis interna, middle meningeal grooves, arachnoid granulation pits, cranial thickness, and endocranial suture obliteration. Strong differences appeared in the endocranial surface of the skull between the "young" and "old" samples. In the latter, the coronal, sagittal, and lambdoid sutures were completely obliterated, the grooves and pits for the middle meningeal artery and arachnoid granulations were generally deep, and in 70 percent of the females over age 70 hyperostosis frontalis interna was present. In sharp contrast, 39.1 percent of males and 18.7 percent of females in the "young" group presented complete endocranial sutural closure. There was no hyperostosis frontalis interna (both sexes), while middle meningeal grooves were deep in 8.7 percent of females and the arachnoid pits were deep in only 4.3 percent of males. All these age-related features of the skull as well as changes in the cancellous tissue of long bones, development of osteophytes in the vertebral column, ossification of costal cartilages, and other characteristics of the biological process of aging, may be observed in radiographs and applied to the estimation of age among living adults. 1 table, 4 figures, 20 references. (Publisher abstract)