Research In Forensic Anthropology

Question 1

What is traditional research based on?

Answer 1

The analysis of skeletal material using direct observations and measurements

Question 2

What are the devised experiments used for traditional research?

Answer 2

Taphonomy and BFT/SFT

Question 3

What is an example of Taphonomy?

Answer 3

Body farm

Question 4

What is an example of BFT/SFT?

Answer 4

Using animal bones

Question 5

What are some issues using traditional research?

Answer 5

Undocumented specimens create circular argument

Archaeological specimens

Limited population time

Question 6

What are the issues with devised experiments?

Answer 6

Only looking at one area, one set of parameters so can’t extrapolate

Poorly designed experiments

It is n=1 so it is not statistically significant

Question 7

What is taphonomy?

Answer 7

The study of how organisms decay and become fossilised

Question 8

What causes potential errors when undertaking age estimations?

Answer 8

Individual variation

Variation caused by the influence of external conditions

The method used to undertake age estimation