Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology

Soren Blau, Douglas H. Ubelaker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781315528915
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

With contributions from 70 experienced practitioners from around the world, this second edition of the authoritative Handbook of Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology provides a solid foundation in both the practical and ethical components of forensic work. The book weaves together the discipline's historical development; current field methods for analyzing crime, natural disasters, and human atrocities; an array of laboratory techniques; key case studies involving legal, professional, and ethical issues; and ideas about the future of forensic work--all from a global perspective. This fully revised second edition expands the geographic representation of the first edition by including chapters from practitioners in South Africa and Colombia, and adds exciting new chapters on the International Commission on Missing Persons and on forensic work being done to identify victims of the Battle of Fromelles during World War I. The Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology provides an updated perspective of the disciplines of forensic archaeology and anthropology.

1
Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology

Moving Forward

Soren Blau and Douglas H. Ubelaker

Since the first publication of this volume in 2009 the disciplines of forensic anthropology and archaeology have continued to develop, albeit at different rates depending on the context. While some countries lack formalised recognition of the disciplines and therefore make limited use of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists in domestic context, other countries have sought to bring the disciplines into the mainstream through the formalisation of accreditation of practitioners, development of structured university courses, and increased support for detailed research. Following the expanded use of forensic anthropologists and archaeologists in the mid-1990s in postconflict locations, the role of the disciplines in international contexts (for example, international criminal tribunals) in locating, recovering, recording, and analysing physical evidence to prosecute major human rights abuses involving mass killings is now well established.

The media continue to feed the public’s continued fascination with “forensic” subjects. A glance at the television guide on any night provides more than one show involving death, foul play, bodies, and forensic investigations. Moving beyond simulations of death and dead bodies, reality TV facilitates depictions of dissection of a human cadavers¹ (Chan 2002; Goeller 2007) and decomposition of human bodies (Carvajal 2004; Deans & Plunkett 2004). Living in a time that has been described as “the postmortem condition” (Whitehead 1993), students of forensic anthropology and archaeology must have an accurate understanding of the role that forensic anthropologists and forensic archaeologists play in investigations and a solid foundation in both the practical and ethical components of the disciplines.

Forensic anthropology has been diversely defined by practitioners as:

• “that branch of physical anthropology, which, for forensic purposes, deals with the identification of more-or-less skeletonized remains known to be, or suspected of being, human” (Stewart 1979: ix);
• “a multidisciplinary field combining physical anthropology, archaeology and other fields of anthropology with the forensic sciences, including forensic dentistry, pathology and criminalistics” (İşcan 1981: 10);
• “a subdiscipline of physical anthropology that applies the techniques of osteology and biomechanics to medicolegal problems” (Reichs 1998a: 13);
• “an applied branch of biological anthropology whose scientists analyze skeletal remains for both legal and humanitarian purposes” (Walsh-Haney & Lieberman 2005: 121);
• “the identification of the human, or indeed the remains of the human, for medico-legal purposes” (Black 2006);
• “the application of knowledge and techniques of physical anthropology to problems of medicolegal significance” (Ubelaker 2006: 4);
• “the application of physical anthropology to the forensic context” (Cattaneo 2007: 185);
• “the field of study that deals with the analysis of human skeletal remains resulting from unexplained deaths” (Byers 2011: 1).

These definitions range from the broad to the specific and reflect the complexity of the discipline and the diverse applications of forensic anthropology (İşcan & Loth 1997; Cattaneo 2007). Although all definitions acknowledge the importance of the legal aspects of the work, practitioners have moved from examinations of "more-or-less skeletonized" remains (Stewart 1979: ix) to those that involve the living person (Black, Aggrawal, & Payne-James 2010). The contributions to this volume reflect the wide-ranging applications of forensic anthropology.

Forensic archaeology is defined as the application of archaeological principles and techniques within a medico-legal and/or humanitarian context involving buried evidence. Since the late 1907s and early 1980s, when the potential of archaeology to augment the utility of evidence recovered from a crime scene was recognised (for example, Morse, Crusoe, & Smith 1976; Skinner & Lazenby 1983), we have seen reminders of why anthropologists need archaeologists (Owsley 2001), discussion about the future of forensic archaeology in forensic science (Scott & Connor 2001), and a series of journal articles and textbooks detailing technical aspects (such as Killam 1990; France et al. 1992; Hunter et al. 2001; Hunter & Cox 2005; Dupras et al. 2006; Cox et al. 2008; Hunter, Simpson, & Sturdy Colls 2013; Rufell, Pringle, & Forbes 2014).

In North America archaeology has typically fallen under the general umbrella of “anthropology,” and in Latin America there is no distinct division between the disciplines. But in Britain, and now increasingly in the United States, professionals are pushing to distinguish archaeology and anthropology as separate disciplines. The distinct yet heavily connected contributions made by the two disciplines to forensic investigations are illustrated in this book.

Since the increasing formalisation of forensic anthropology in many countries various publications have examined the history of its development (for example, Snow 1982; İşcan 1988, 2000, 2001; Reichs 1992; Rodriguez 1994; Reichs 1998a; Ubelaker 2000, 2004, 2006), current status (such as France: İşcan & Quatrehomme 1999; United Kingdom: Black 2000; Hungary: Susa 2007; Turkey: Gülec & İşcan 1994; Europe in general: Hunter et al. 2001; Kranioti & Paine 2011; Latin America: İşcan & Olivera 2000), as well as new perspectives (Cattaneo 2007; Dirkmaat et al. 2008). General textbooks have also appeared (for instance, Stewart 1979; Morse, Duncan, & Stoutamire 1983; Krogman & İşcan 1986; Reichs 1998b; Burns 1999; Cox & Mays 2000; Klepinger 2006; Schmitt, Cunha, & Pinheiro 2006; Komar & Buikstra 2008; Medina 2008; Pickering & Bachman 2009; Byers 2011; Dirkmaat 2012; Christensen, Passalacqua, & Bartelink 2014; Delabarde & Ludes 2014), along with a wealth of peer-reviewed journal articles (too numerous to list) demonstrating and critiquing technical methodologies, particularly as related to the refinement and development of population-specific techniques (for example, İşcan & Shihai 1995; Jantz & Jantz 1999; Ross & Konigsberg 2002; Dayal, Steyn, & Kuykendal 2008; Bassed et al. 2011; Franklin et al. 2012, 2014), and papers detailing case studies (such as Rathburn & Buikstra 1984; Steyn, Meiring, & Nienaber 1997; Fairgrieve 1999; Komar 2003; Steadman 2003; Brickley & Ferllini 2007). Until recently (for example, Groen, Márquez-Grant, & Janaway 2015; Ubelaker 2015) at the regional level publications typically dealt separately with forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology (such as Cox & Mays 2000 in Britain; Steadman 2003 in the United States). This second edition of Handbook of Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology aims to provide the reader with an updated, comprehensive work that includes a compilation of histories and current states of the disciplines from several different (although unfortunately not totally representative) parts of the world, a summary of updated technical aspects of analyses, and examples of current practice (case studies).

To demonstrate the scope of the disciplines, this volume brings together contributions from a diverse range of highly experienced forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology practitioners from different countries.

1. All authors from the first edition were invited to revise and update their chapters for this second edition, and the majority accepted.²
2. Authors chose to either update their chapter alone or to enlist coauthors, some of whom are well established and others who are up and coming in their fields. In two cases (Chapters 2 and 8) the original authors suggested entirely new authors and chose not to be included in the second edition.
3. Four new chapters are included in the second edition. The contributors present descriptive and critical evaluations of standard techniques in addition to discussing new methodologies.³

Organisation

The book is divided into five sections that cover the depth and breadth of forensic anthropology and archaeology. Part I, History of the Disciplines, provides overviews of the development and current state of forensic anthropology from different regional perspectives, including European (British—Gaille MacKinnon and Karl Harrison; Italian—Cristina Cattaneo; French—Tania Delabarde and Eric Baccino; and Spanish—José Prieto); North and South American (Douglas Ubelaker, Mark Skinner, Kristina Bowie, Luis Fondebrider, Angélica Guzmán, and César Sanabria Medina); Australian (Denise Donlon); Indonesian (Etty Indriati); and South Africa (Maryna Steyn, Ericka N. L’Abbé, and Jolandie Myburgh). These contributions include historical perspectives detailing the contributions made by early practitioners in each context, discussions about the development of education, training, and accreditation, and presentations of case studies illustrating some of the strengths and weaknesses in approaches to casework and research in different regions. Part I illustrates the different ways in which the discipline has developed and reflects diverse social and political contexts.

The level of detail of information that the forensic anthropologist can provide—whether relevant to differentiating human from nonhuman, commenting on the postmortem interval, assisting with identification and/or forming an opinion about skeletal trauma—is fundamentally determined by the condition and the preservation of the remains. It is, therefore, fundamentally important that complete and accurate recovery of skeletal remains (regardless of their condition and preservation), and information on their associations with one another and other items, are undertaken at a crime/disaster scene. Such recovery relies on controlled excavation employing archaeological techniques. Part II, Forensic Archaeology, thus details current practices in forensic archaeology with a focus on methodologies employed in the search, location, and recovery of various types of evidence associated with crime and disaster scenes.

Thomas Holland and Samuel Connell outline traditional methods, including surveying and testing (probing, coring, and limited excavation), as well as covering remote sensing techniques (including resistivity, magnetometry, and ground-penetrating radar). Paul Cheetham and Ian Hanson discuss the importance of involving archaeologists in the excavation and recovery of human remains, detailing the skills required. They outline the important notion that there is no “normal” way to excavate a site and that the key concept is to be flexible and to adapt to each unique scene. The ability to select appropriate field methods and therefore obtain results has important legal implications, which are also considered.

Part III, Forensic Anthropology, includes 15 revised chapters that provide information about the fundamental types of analyses undertaken by forensic anthropologists. The contributors provide a background to techniques employed by practitioners and discuss the advantages and limitations of specific methodologies. Dawn Mulhern provides a comprehensive discussion about what is often the initial responsibility of the forensic anthropologist: to determine whether the remains are human or nonhuman. Gross, microscopic, chemical, and biomolecular approaches are detailed.

Shari Forbes and Kimberly Nugent examine one of the more challenging aspects of forensic anthropology—determination of the postmortem internal. They provide an insight into the history of attempts to determine time since death from the analyses of skeletal remains detailing morphological, chemical, immunological, and radioisotopic analyses. The potentially significant effects of environmental conditions on estimating time since death are also considered.

John Byrd and Bradley Adams examine how forensic anthropologists manage cases of commingled remains, a problematic aspect of many anthropological analyses on both small and large scales. They consider the effects of field recovery techniques in dealing with commingled remains and then detail the techniques used to sort such remains, including visual pair-matching, articulation, size and shape comparison, robusticity, taphonomy, and DNA analysis. Another important aspect of dealing with commingled remains includes quantification. Byrd and Adams outline two main techniques: minimum number of individuals (MNI) and most likely number of individuals (MLNI). Finally, they discuss ethical considerations associated with managing commingled remains.

The development of a biological profile involves providing information about deceased individuals when they were alive from analyses of their skeletons. A biological profile i...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Series page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Use of Images of Human Remains
• Contributors
• 1 Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology Moving Forward
• Part I History of the Disciplines
• Part II Forensic Archaeology
• Part III Forensic Anthropology
• Part IV The Crime and Disaster Scene Case Studies in Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology
• Part V The Professional Forensic Archaeologist and the Forensic Anthropologist
• Index