•Correspondence to:

www.cmj.hr Aim To comparatively test nine co mmercially available short tandem repeat (STR)-multiplex kits (PowerPlex 16, 16HS, ES, ESI17, ESX17, S5 [all Promega]; AmpFiSTR Identi-filer, NGM and SEfiler [all Applied Biosystems]) for their effi-ciency and applicability to analyze ancient and thus highly degraded DNA samples. Methods Fifteen human skeletal remains from the late medieval age were obtained and analyzed using the nine polymerase chain reaction assays with slightly modified protocols. Data were systematically compared to find the most meaningful and sensitive assay. Results The ESI, ESX, and NGM kits showed the best over-all results regarding amplification success, detection rate, identification of heterozygous alleles, sex determination, and reproducibility of the obtained data. Conclusion Since application of these three kits enables the employment of different primer sequences for all the investigated amplicons, a combined application is recom-mended for best possible and – most importantly – reli-able genetic analysis of ancient skeletal material or other-wise highly degraded samples, eg, from forensic cases