Depending upon the degree of completeness of skeletal remains certain lands and amounts of information pertaining to personal identification can be obtained. Race, sex and age can be estimated with a high accuracy, provided that the cranium and some postcranial parts of anatomy are available. Computer application of discriminant analysis can assist substantially in estimating race and sex when visual inspection leads to equivocal results. The osteon count method can estimate the age at the time of death with a high accuracy. The living stature and weight can be estimated with regression formulae. Positive personal identification is possible when the skeletal remains exhibit idiosyncratic features in bones due to trauma or congenital anomaly. Dentition provides the most reliable evidence for positive personal identification. Both idiosyncratic bone features and dentition can lead to positive personal identification only when clinical and radiographic records are available for matching up with the postmortem examination. © 1977, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved. © 2016 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.