Abstract
Morphological changes of the pubic symphysis provide an important means of estimating age at death in the adult skeleton. Today, the most widely used method of symphysial aging is the three-component system devised by McKern and Stewert for males and modified by Gilbert and McKern for females. Examination of the published data for both sexes reveals that the relationship of total symphysial score with predicted age and observed standard deviations can be expressed by a set of simple linear and polynominial equations. This approach is more statistically efficient since it uses the total data base rather then independently treated data subsets in predicting age from total symphysial score. It has the added advantage of providing a simple method of predicting symphysial age on small computers or programmable calculators.
