Forensic Anthropology

Forensic Anthropology

• Definition: An applied area of physical anthropology

• Role: To assist law enforcement agencies in a medico legal context

General Goals

• 1. Establish biological profile: age, sex, race, height

• 2. Determine time since death – (PMI- post mortem interval)

• 3. Examine remains for signs of trauma

• 4. Establish positive identity

Who do they work with?

• Police Departments• Sheriff’s Offices• Office of the Attorney General• Coroner’s offices• FBI• ATF• Private individuals

Estimating Age• Skull features

• Dentition

• Epiphysial fusion of long bones

Skull Features…• The cranium (the skull minus the

lower jaw bone, or mandible)

• consists of 28 bones. (6 unpaired bone, and 8 paired bones, plus 3 ear bones on each side)

• Some bones are paired, which means there is a left and right one, and some bones are unpaired, meaning there is just one.

• Neonate – Newborn = first 28 days after birth• The mandible is more commonly known as the lower jaw bone. • It is the strongest bone of the face • The mandible is two separate bones (left and right) that fuse together to

form one bone.

DENTITION

• Teeth can be divided into maxillary (upper) and mandibular (lower)

• There are four different categories of teeth: incisors, canines, premolars, and molars.

• Adults will usually have a total of 32 teeth. 

• The function of each tooth is different.  Incisors are designed for cutting, canines are pointed for tearing, and premolars and molars are designed for grinding and reducing food.

The Hyoid

• Small, horn-shaped bone that supports the tongue, and gives attachment to many muscles in speech.

• This bone is of particular interest to forensic anthropologists as it is commonly broken in cases of strangulation.

• Unfused hyphoid. This fuses at about 35 years of age.

Long Bones• Humerus - your upper arm

bone

• Ulna/Radius - your lower arm bones

• Femur – your thigh bone. It is the largest of all bones

• Tibia & Fibula - two bones that make up your lower leg– tibia is known as the shin bone,

and it is the second largest bone in the body

Radius & UlnaHumerus

FEMUR Fibula & Tibia

Determining Sex

• Skull features

• Pelvic Bone Characteristics

• Analysis of Femur

• Dentition

A baby's skeleton has 350 bones, but many of these fuse to give an adult a total of 206 bones.  A man's skeleton has broader shoulders than a woman's, a longer ribcage, and a pelvic girdle for walking/running.  A woman's skeleton has the same bone complement as a man's but is slightly smaller and less robust, with a wider pelvic opening to assist childbirth.

Skull Features

FEATURE MEN WOMEN

Cranial Mass Blocky & MassiveDeeper

Rounder & Tapers at the Top

Brow Ridge Margin is rounder & dull Margin is sharper

Zygomatic Bone More Pronounced Less Pronounced

Mandible (lower jaw)

Square Shaped Rounded Shape

Supercilary Arch More Pronounced & larger

Less Pronounced & smaller

Pelvic Bone Characteristics

• The innominate bones are irregular in shape– AKA: Hip Bone– the large bone in the hip,

consisting of the ilium, the ischium, and the pubic bone.

• They are the best means of determining the SEX of a skeleton

FEMALE MALE

Analysis of the Femur

• Typically longer in men

• Women’s bones stop developing around 18

• Men’s bones develop until about 21

• Men have more bone mass

Determining Race

• Caucasoid characteristics: Oval eye orbits, Narrow nasal opening

• Negroid characteristics: square eye orbit, greater breadth at nose, protruding teeth

• Mongoloid: in between the two. Native Americans have “shoveled” teeth.

RACE IS THE HARDEST TO IDENTIFY

Caucasoid

American Negroid

Native American

Determining Time Since Death

• Decay of epidermis and/or skeleton

• Articulation & scattering of remains

• Material Remains??•Clothing•Objects

Postmortem Interval - PMI

• Antemortem trauma: Before death

• Perimortem trauma: at or around the time of death

• Post mortem trauma: after death

Femur with animal chew marks on either end

Cause of Death• Can be homicide, suicide, accidental, natural, and unknown

• Easier with a fleshed body and often very difficult with flesh and organs gone

• Look for things like depressions and indentations caused by blunt trauma, lead fragments, etc.