[Estimation of age from skeletal material based on the degree of thyroid cartilage ossification].

Bone material estimation of an individual's age can in some cases be made by taking advantage of the degree and progression of thyroid cartilage ossification so long as the cartilage has remained preserved. X-ray pictures are taken to asertain the extent of the ossified parts of the thyroid cartilage to be compared with the proposed schema (Fig. 2). The estimated age is than charged with the value of the respective mean error of estimation (Tab. 1.). The method is simple and has stood the test of practice both in paleoanthropology and in forensic medicine to become another technique of estimating the age of unknown skeletal remains or unknown, particularly decomposed bodies.