A Companion to Forensic Anthropology

Dennis Dirkmaat

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781118255414
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Physical Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

A Companion to Forensic Anthropology presents the most comprehensive assessment of the philosophy, goals, and practice of forensic anthropology currently available, with chapters by renowned international scholars and experts.

• Highlights the latest advances in forensic anthropology research, as well as the most effective practices and techniques used by professional forensic anthropologists in the field
• Illustrates the development of skeletal biological profiles and offers important new evidence on statistical validation of these analytical methods.
• Evaluates the goals and methods of forensic archaeology, including the preservation of context at surface-scattered remains, buried bodies and fatal fire scenes, and recovery and identification issues related to large-scale mass disaster scenes and mass grave excavation.

PART I

Introduction and Brief History of Forensic Anthropology

CHAPTER 1

Forensic Anthropology: Embracing the New Paradigm

Dennis C. Dirkmaat and Luis L. Cabo

INTRODUCTION: THE ENTITY

It seems only natural that a volume devoted to a particular area of scientific expertise would start with a chapter aimed at providing some sort of general overview and definition of the field. This requirement would appear even more relevant in the present volume, as many experienced forensic anthropologists may have trouble identifying some of the areas covered in the book as part of their everyday work, or even as remotely related to the discipline that went by the name of forensic anthropology when they were growing their academic or professional teeth. Just a few decades ago, most practicing forensic anthropologists would likely have protested even the suggestion of including in the picture many of the subjects that are presented in this volume as well-established, integral parts of forensic anthropology.

These differences in the conception of the field go beyond the methodological discrepancies derived from the logical substitution of old with new techniques. The 1970s forensic anthropologist traveling forward in time would most likely realize right out of the time machine the relevance of gaining a better understanding of DNA analysis, for example, as the subject directly relates to victim identification, the classical goal of forensic anthropology. But forensic archaeology? Really? How does that relate to victim identification, and wouldn’t it be a job for the police anyway? And what about trauma analysis? Didn’t we grow up reciting every night in our bedtime prayers that “the forensic anthropologist cannot discuss the cause and manner of death”? And they even want to look at the weapon too, as if you did not have tool-mark analysts for that.

Some modern physical anthropologists equally may be troubled by the view of the field presented in this book. Wasn’t forensic anthropology supposed to be just a direct application of physical anthropology techniques and, hence, once you knew your human osteology and general physical anthropology, you were ready to take on forensic cases? What is all this nonsense about soft tissue, postmortem intervals, scene investigation, or (brace yourself) paleopathology not providing a valid foundation for trauma analysis?

It is not possible to make sense of these apparent betrayals of the sacred principles and teachings of our forensic forefathers without taking a look back at the origins and development of the discipline of forensic anthropology. As Dickensian heroes, scientific fields usually rise from humble origins and goals, often even from necessity, gaining momentum, complexity, and scope as the pages are turned, before we can come to meet the wise, mature, and successful individuals who greet us from the closing paragraphs of the novel. The character cannot be encapsulated in any single snapshot, taken at a particular moment in time, or by its current state, but we can understand it fully only as its personality unfolds during personal encounters and acquaintances, traumatic or enlightening episodes, obstacles, successes, and setbacks. In other words, scientific disciplines do not evolve from their definition, but are defined by their evolution.

As a matter of fact, if we had to look for a Fagin or an Ebenezer Scrooge in our story, it would probably be some stubborn, almost religious historical adherence to a self-inflicted, very restrictive, and initial definition of forensic anthropology: to wit, as a strictly applied laboratory field, devoted solely to aiding in victim identification. In a sense, the story that we will uncover in the remaining pages of this chapter (and we may even dare say in the remaining chapters of this book) is mainly that of the struggle to grow beyond this classic definition, climbing the conceptual ladder from the humble origins as a technical, applied field, to the heights of a fully grown scientific discipline, with interests far more diverse than just victim identification. In our view, also as with Dickens’ novels, this story is fortunately one of success, even if (spoiler alert) it doesn’t exactly end with our 2 m, 100 kg Tiny Tim ice skating along the streets of old London.

It could not be any other way as, to a large extent, ours is also mostly an American story, and we all know that those always end happily. Although modern forensic anthropology definitely is not just an American enterprise, given that Europe and other areas of the world have made very important contributions to the history of the field, it is in the USA where the story has presented a more linear, consistent narrative. The story of American forensic anthropology is not based only on somehow isolated individual contributions, but rather characterized by an actual continuity along a well-defined tradition of research and professional practice. It can be stated rather confidently that forensic anthropology was born and took its first and more important steps in the United States of America; maybe not necessarily as a concept, but at least as an actual professional field, with a cohesive, constant, and independent body of practitioners, rather than as an additional task for other professionals, such as forensic pathologists. Forensic anthropology, though often presented as a relatively young discipline given its formal configuration and recognition in the 1970s, has a rich history in the USA, spanning most of the twentieth century.

And here is where the Dickensian parallels end. We might talk of humble origins in relation to the initial scope of the field but, as will be discussed below, when it comes to practical terms, our hero, like Darwin in Dickens’ time, was born into a quite healthy and wealthy intellectual household. The participants in the early development of the field were some of the premier physical anthropologists of the day. Much of what we know about human skeletal variation and how to determine all aspects of the biological profile (age, sex, stature, ancestry) for physical anthropological purposes arose from the initial consideration of human bones from forensic contexts by these pioneers and their direct descendants, in their efforts to solve forensic identification issues (Kerley 1978). Thus, forensic anthropology is no stunted child (neither ignorance nor want) crusted with scabs and stooped with rickets, taking arms against a sea of troubles with a stomach bloated from malnutrition. Ours would be more of a coming-of-age story, starring the wealthy kid who becomes a somewhat spoiled and self-centered teenager, lounges through college and, in the end, recovering from alcoholism, becomes a leader of men: once again, an American story.

Because we must admit that there was actually quite a bit of lounging after formally defining the field in the 1970s, and a period of relative stasis in which minimal research was conducted that was directly applicable to the analysis of skeletal remains in forensic contexts (Snow 1973). Few cases were referred to the forensic anthropologist, and the answers proposed to most forensically relevant questions relied on old analytical methods derived from outdated skeletal samples. Career and state were at stake, and change was required. In the late eighties İs̨can even warned that “this entity can stagnate or even self-destruct if the direction of future research is not carefully planned” (İs̨can 1988a: 222)

In the following sections, the history of the field will be reviewed, mostly from an American perspective. As the story unfolds, you will see the character grow and mature, shiver as outrageous fortune throws new slings and arrows in its path, mostly in the shape of legal rulings and the development of other fields, and rejoice when characters like forensic taphonomy, forensic archaeology, or trauma analysis come to the rescue. It is clear now that forensic anthropology is moving away from fulfilling İs̨can’s prophecies of stagnation and self-destruction. In fact, the discipline is witnessing a revitalization derived from a “new conceptual framework” (Little and Sussman 2010: 31) in philosophy, composition, and practice.

This shift transpired because of a variety of factors, but primarily resulted from: (1) a critical self-evaluation of discipline definitions and best practices; and (2) strong outside influences from DNA, federal court rulings, and Congress-mandated assessments of the forensic sciences. At one time faced with extinction because of the “threat” posed by the ability of DNA to provide quick and precise personal identifications of unknown skeletons, the field has re-emerged in the last 10 years as a robust scientific discipline, able to stand on its own because of the realization of unique strengths, perspectives, and research goals. In other words, by looking outside the (packaging) box, a stronger forensic anthropology was developed. Of course, the job is not finished completely and our hero still is to face many new challenges in the future, but it is good just to be alive.

FIRST, A BIT OF HISTORY: THE EARLY YEARS

It is suggested that forensic anthropology gained notoriety and acquired a face as a scientific discipline in the late 1930s, with the publication of Wilton Krogman’s series of articles in the FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (Krogman 1939a, 1943; Krogman et al. 1948). Krogman can be considered as the first renowned practitioner of endeavors with police that became known as “forensic anthropology.” He was a brilliant scholar, researcher, and academician who trained with the likes of Sir Arthur Keith, in Great Britain, and T. Wingate Todd, at Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio (Haviland 1994; Johnston 1989). Krogman later taught at the universities of Chicago and Pennsylvania. His research work was devoted largely to child growth and development, although he cultivated many other interests in human biology during his career. Even though a recognized expert on human identification, he was not contacted very frequently by police to assist in the construction of a biological profile for the unknown human skeletal remains that were brought to his laboratory (Haviland 1994). In this laboratory-based and episodic involvement in forensic cases, his profile is very similar to most of the other “practitioners” of the day, prior to the 1970s. Before Krogman’s time, the history of the field had been written mostly by the contributions of diverse “anatomists-morphologists-anthropologists” (Kerley 1978: 160), who conducted research on variation in the human skeleton, which aimed at answering questions that at times arose in forensic settings (Pearson and Bell 1919).

Although he might have attained higher celebrity status, Krogman was not alone. The aforementioned T. Wingate Todd, as well as Aleš Hrdlička, Earnest Hooton, and a few other renowned physical anthropologists of the first half of the twentieth century also provided human identification services intermittently for the police (Kerley 1978); Hrdlička perhaps more than any other physical anthropologist of the day. Working out of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC, he published little on the issue of human identification but consulted with police and, especially, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on a large number of cases, from 1936 until his death in 1943 (Ubelaker 1999). This relationship was continued by Hrdlička’s hand-picked successor, T.D. Stewart, although Stewart’s interest in medicolegal issues resulted in a number of important articles (Stewart 1948, 1951). Todd, on the other hand, found his forensic line of work promising enough to realize the value of constructing a significant collection of human skeletal remains, aimed at studying human variation and answering basic research questions. With this purpose, Todd started expanding a small collection that had been started by Carl A. Hamann, his predecessor at the Case Western Reserve Medical School. The results of Todd’s efforts came to form the basis of the Hamann–Todd Collection, the largest assemblage of modern human remains in the world, comprising more than 3300 individuals. Todd and his coworkers (including Montague Cobb and Krogman) used this collection to conduct basic research in human skeletal biology, notably that including age-related changes in the cranial sutures (Todd and Lyon 1924, 1925a, 1925b) and the pubic symphysis (Todd 1920, 1921a, 1921b). These studies have served as basic references and a starting point for the work of scores of researchers in many fields of anthropology, from forensic anthropology through bioarchaeology, and even paleoanthropology. The collection is housed currently at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, in Cleveland, Ohio, where it attracts a multitude of researchers from throughout the USA and beyond. Apart from its large sample size, the Hamann–Todd collection, under the wise supervision of Lyman M. Jellema, also may be considered one of the better-curated comparative samples of human skeletons in the world. Krogman worked in Todd’s laboratory from 1931 until 1938 (İs̨can 1988b; Krogman 1939b; Haviland 1994) and the forensic cases that came to the lab likely provided the stimulus for Krogman to start considering the broader applications of human skeletal biology to other disciplines, including medicolegal investigation.

As the Hamann–Todd collection was being amassed, William Terry, of Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, was collecting unclaimed and donated bodies used in anatomy classes at their medical school and other Missouri institutions. In 1941, Mildred Trotter took over from Terry and further increased the size of the collections. In 1967, the 1728 individuals that comprised the collection at that time were sent to the Smithsonian Institution for their continued curation and availability for research (Hunt and Albanese 2005).

Wars have helped to keep ‘forensic’ anthropologists employed and busy during the following decades. During World War II, Charles Snow, Mildred Trotter, and Harry Shapiro assisted in the identification of US war dead and even started collecting basic biological data from these war casualties (Stewart and Trotter 1954, 1955; Trotter and Gleser 1952). T. Dale Stewart, Thomas McKern, Ellis Kerley, and Charles Warren did the same during the Korean War (McKern and Stewart 1957; Klepinger 2006) and the Vietnam War (Stewart 1970; Ubelaker 2001). This eventually led to the formation of the US federal gov...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series page
• Title page
• Copyright page
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Notes on Contributors
• About This Book
• Acknowledgments
• PART I: Introduction and Brief History of Forensic Anthropology
• PART II: Recovery of Human Remains from Outdoor Contexts
• PART III: Developments in Forensic Osteology
• PART IV: Developments in Human Skeletal Trauma Analysis
• PART V: Advances in Human Identifi cation
• PART VI: Forensic Taphonomy
• PART VII Forensic Anthropology Beyond Academia
• PART VIII: Forensic Anthropology Outside North America
• PART IX: Ethics, Overview, and the Future of Forensic Anthropology
• Index