Hip bone male), and one or more for the Y-shaped piece at the bottom of the acetabulum. The centers appear in the following order: in the lower part of the ilium, immediately above the greater sciatic notch, about the eighth or ninth week of fetal life; in the superior ramus of the ischium, about the third month; in the superior ramus of the pubis, between the fourth and fifth months. At birth, the three primary centers are quite separate, the crest, the bottom of the acetabulum, the ischial tuberosity, and the inferior rami of the ischium and pubis being still cartilaginous. By
Petrous part of the temporal bone highly degraded, and contaminated by DNA from soil microbes. In 2015 it was found, surprisingly, that the petrous bone has remarkably high preservation of DNA. A 2017 study comparing DNA from different skeletal sites concluded that "The inner part of petrous bones and the cementum layer in teeth roots are currently recognized as the best substrates for (ancient DNA) research...Both substrates display significantly higher endogenous DNA content (average of 16.4% and 40.0% for teeth and petrous bones, respectively) than parietal skull bone (average of 2.2%)." Consequently, petrous bones are now the most widely-used skeletal site for the study of ancient