Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
They point out that an anomalous pubis may be incorrectly scored using McKern and Stew-
art's component method because the aging guidelines can be rather rigid. For example, if an
anomalous pubic symphysis fails to form a ventral rampart it will not be aged at more than
29 years. If one understands the overall general chronological changes in the pubic
symphysis, then Todd's stages can be applied more successfully than component methods.
Beginning in the late 1970s, much of the research on the pubic symphysis can be attributed,
at least in part, to Judy Suchey (
Suchey, 1979
;
Suchey et al., 1979, 1988
;
Katz and Suchey, 1989
;
Brooks and Suchey, 1990
;
Suchey and Katz, 1998
). She used large samples of known individ-
uals from California to test previous methods and develop new methods in an effort to
increase the reliability of the pubic symphysis as an indicator of age-at-death.
In 1986, Katz and Suchey published the results of a large study of male pubic symphyses.
They point out considerable problems with the samples and techniques of both
Todd (1920,
1921)
and
McKern and Stewart (1957)
. For example, the actual ages of the sample originally
used by Todd (now in the Hamann-Todd Human Osteological Collection
3
) were mostly
estimated and rounded to the nearest 5 years while the cadavers were being prepared for
dissection. Only three individuals had legal documentation of birth date, casting some doubt
on real age information. Todd also removed certain individuals from the study if their
morphology and age did not fit the chronological standard he had established, thus
removing a great deal of variability. The McKern and Stewart method also does not encom-
pass much human variation because it was developed on Korean War dead and thus con-
sisted of mostly European American males in their early twenties who were born prior to
World War II.
The sample used by Katz and Suchey consisted of 739 males autopsied at the Department
of the Chief Medical Examiner-Coroner, County of Los Angeles. Age-at-death ranged from
14 to 92 years, with individuals from a diverse background (birthplaces in 32 countries).
Suchey scored all of the pubic symphyses according to the Todd and the McKern and Stewart
methods. Her observed ranges were much wider than those reported in the original studies.
Her results support earlier studies (
Brooks, 1955; Meindl et al., 1985
) finding that the Todd
system systematically over-ages, especially individuals under 40 years of age, and that
neither the Todd nor the McKern and Stewart system can account for the sum total of human
variation, especially in older phases. After a variety of analyses Katz and Suchey proposed
a modified Todd method, where the ten phases were reduced to six phases (now referred
to as the Suchey
e
Brooks
4
method,
Figure 3.2
).
Subsequently,
Katz and Suchey (1989)
focused on the question of whether or not ancestry
differences exist in the morphology of the pubic symphysis.
Todd (1921)
noted minimal
ancestral differences and
Meindl et al. (1985)
found ancestry to be insignificant in their
analysis of pubic symphyseal aging.
Katz and Suchey (1989),
however, used their own large,
multiancestral, known-age sample (n
704) to test ancestral differences between “White,”
“Black,” and “Mexican” groups. While the authors conceded that there was no morphological
feature of the pubic symphysis that allowed the assessment of ancestry, they did find that
¼
3
This collection is curated by the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio.
4
While the method is known as the Suchey
e
Brooks method, the publications are
Katz and Suchey (1986)
and
Brooks and Suchey (1990)
.
