CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

The occipital bone grows from ossification centers that appear between the 7th and 8th week of the embryonic period. These centers produce the four parts of the occipital bone: squamous part, basilar part or basioccipital and two lateral parts or exoccipitals. The fusion of the four parts is complete at the age of 6 when the occipital bone acquire its definitive shape. Its development has been used to estimate age from human skeletal remains. Here we report the founding of a normal variant of the occipital bone and the early closure of the sutura intra-occipitalis anterior. This case was encountered in the skeleton of a neonate belonging to Prof. Dr. Rómulo Lambre skeletal collection deposited at the School of Medicine, University of La Plata. We have found a female skeleton of three days of life that presents a fusion of the left sutura intra-occipitalis anterior sticking together the basioccipital with the left exoccipital. The same individual has a developmental normal variant of the basilar part of the occipital, the formation of an independent ossification center in the anterior part known as basiotic bone. The recognition of the normal variants and the developmental anomalies are important in the reconstruction of population profiles and the individual characterization like the age estimation.

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