Friday, June 29, 2007
After
yesterday’s activities, the next step is the analysis of the skeletal
remains that were recovered. In the morning we started with a lecture on
Forensic Anthropology from Dr. Sam Stout. He first discussed the
definition of forensic anthropology. He explained that it is an applied
area of physical anthropology and that it utilizes methods from
osteology, skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, and paleopathology when
recovering and identifying human remains. Forensic anthropology is
considered “science in the service of humanity.” Forensic
anthropologists work on many different types of cases, such as military
personnel missing in action, mass disasters, and human rights
violations, and mainly work on cases of medico-legal significance, but
can also be called to help in cases of historical significance. It is
important to note that what makes forensic anthropology forensic is the
potential to testify in court as an expert witness. Forensic
anthropologists are employed by academic institutions and some also work
for government agencies such as CILHI and AFIP.
 |
Dr. Stout also
informed us of the five major objectives of the field which are
(1) identify demographic characteristics, (2) identify the
nature and cause of traumatic injury, (3) provide and estimation
of postmortem interval, (4) use archaeological techniques to
locate and recover remains, and (5) Identify unique skeletal
characteristics to help better identify the remains. He went
into more detail and explained how to determine the sex,
biological ancestry, age at death, stature from specific bones
and bone characteristics.
In the afternoon,
we were able to look at numerous bones set up in several
stations so that we could practice determining the sex, age,
biological ancestry, and stature on an individual usually
specific skeletal elements. We learned quickly that these
determinations are not black and white but mostly somewhere in
between. Due to the fact that these characteristics are all
population specific, there are a lot of variables to account
for. Out last exercise presented us with a bag of bones and we
used skeletal measurements to determine the sex, biological
ancestry, and stature estimation of the decedent.
Student
measuring the cranium. |
|
After a full day of osteological analysis,
it’s fascinating to have seen the vast amount of information
that the skeleton can tell, and it’s exciting to think of what
the future may bring.
Students
analyzing subadult skeletal morphology |
Students
determining sex and biological ancestry |
The 2007 OSU/PAST Foundation Forensic
Archaeology Field School is sponsored by:
|
