Anthropology Flashcards
Study of humans, human biology,and human culture
Anthropology
What do anthropologists do?
Skeletal recovery, skeletal analysis, personal identification, Circumstances of death, as well as homicides,suicides, and huge accidents
Searching the area and recording evidence, archaeological recovery,and collecting evidence
Skeletal recovery
Questions to be asked when searching a crime scene
Is the remains bone, Is it human remains, are the remains forensic, are they recent?
What can be mistaken for bones?
Wood, White plastic tubing, porous stone, pottery
What is most commonly misidentified as human bones?
deer,bear,pig,dog,cow,and horse bones
What is one main lesson learned in anthropology?
Never assume anything!
State of preservation, body modifications, personal belongings or artifacts, location of remains, condition; color; and shape of remains.
Time period indicators
Two steps in skeletal analysis
One or more individuals and what did they look like?
Determined by searching for multiples
One or more individuals
Biological profile, sex determination, age estimation at death, ancestry or race, saturation estimation
What they looked like
Use of the pelvic bone or skull to biological gender
Sex determination
Age range of subadults or or adults.
Age estimation
Unique skeletal traits or dental records used to determine identification
Personal identification
Used to inform the public in the rebuilding of face
Facial reconstruction
Damage present, Occurred before or after death, cause of damage
Circumstances of death
Healing
Antemortem
No healing, consistent colouration
Perimortem
Cracked, different colouration
Postmortem
What are some trauma classifications?
Blunt force, sharp force and projectile and gun shot
The identification of human remains in a medico-legal context, Focused on the skeleton remains to determine age, gender, race and other conditions.
Forensic Anthropology
Gender, age at death, race, height, other class-level info
Biological profile
What are some scenarios in forensic anthropology?
Graves, Fire damage, Mass graves and mass disasters, global identity of victims of war,and human rights atrocities.
Forensic anthropologists tend to not quantify the strength of an osteological identification
Mohan and Daubert Standards towards anthropologists
