Role of Teeth and Bones in Age Estimation

The dental age can be assessed among young children with greater accuracy. This is because many teeth are undergoing development and calcification simultaneously. However, after the early teens most teeth have calcified and erupted except for the third molars. This makes the third molar development the most important choice for age assessment from the late teens to the early twenties. Furthermore, the use of other biological indicators such as epiphyseal fusion, changes of the pubic symphysis, wrist bones and fusion of cranial sutures are not credible during these years. Therefore the third molars become most useful when there is a need to determine the juvenile or adult status of an individual when no valid document with the recorded age is available. Furthermore, this form of age estimation can be applied to assess the age of a patient suffering from amnesia, for license agreement and also specimens of forensic or anthropological importance.