Theoretical and methodological considerations on the estimation of age in bone remains using the pubic symphysis

This paper aims to explore the methodological considerations that are implicit in the process of estimating the age at death in human skeletal remains. For this, some reflections are presented in relation to biases, the use of standards and the representation of populations. In the first place, it will be discussed what age estimation means at a theorical level, and later we focus on the pubic symphysial standard which had been largely used in the field of forensic anthropology, to understand mainly who are represented in it. Based on this, it is proposed to establish a weighting strategy for age estimation methods that contributes to the identification process in forensic cases and that allows to promote the robustness of bioanthropological findings in such a transcendental task.