Carbon-14 Dating In Anthropology

Forensic scientists can identify the body through dental records, DNA samples or if the fingers are intact, fingerprints.

Imagine that you have been called to an area where bones have been found. What would you do at this spot to help you better understand what happened?

The CCA police department began analyzing evidence that was collected in an abandoned building at the Lowry campus on 6th Ave and Alton way. The building was abandon and boarded up five years ago, but it showed signs of forced entry. During the Investigation of the scene, CCA police officers found a human skeleton. The skeletal remains were found dressed in what appeared to be a bloody t-shirt and jeans. No identification was found yet but one of the officers brought a theory to this case about a Caucasian woman name Sarah, who went missing five years ago last seen in Aurora and they assumed Sarah could be skeleton in the abandon building.

There were many factors that lead t the discovery of the skeleton owner’s gender, ethnicity, height, and age.

There are many things to do when you find a dead person's bones and have called the police. According to the text in “Dead men talking: Solving Crimes Through Science” by David Kohn you should “take a look at the crime scene and say, ‘What does this scene tell me?’” Which also means to look around and see if there is any evidence to what how the person's bones got there. It may sound dumb, but when they do this they get a lot of hints to what might have happened. So when I went to look around I saw that the dirt didn't have any grass growing on top of which meant that the bones were buried recently.

The distribution of skeletal remains tell the scientists how long the bones or individual has been there. The most challenging part for me would have to be finding the little pieces of the puzzle, the missing link or where the body originally was.

Forensic anthropologist examine skeletal remains for elements of a skeleton that can give clues to the person it belongs to. The Kennewick man’s skeleton was found in surprisingly good condition meaning the damage to the skeleton was done in his life, not due to deterioration. The skeleton showed a projectile point lodged in his hip, five broken ribs that did not properly heal, two small dents in his skull, and a bum shoulder. These wounds show an insight to the lifestyle

On July 28, 1996, two young men discovered a skull of a man, which was exposed by erosion, on the bank of the Columbia River near Kennewick, Washington. The police were called to investigate and that was when the rest of the skeleton was found. This skeleton was soon named “Kennewick Man,” although the Native American Indians referred to the skeleton as “The Ancient One.” According to the Smithsonian’s top physical anthropologist, Doug Owsley, this was one of America’s most important skeletons. It was an exceptionally rare discovery and for its age, it was one of the most complete skeletons ever found. Scientists said it could provide an extraordinary insight into America’s early inhabitants. Doug Owsley says that Kennewick Man is causing scientists to rethink how humans first came to this continent. After a long process of both controversy and scientific research, conclusions were eventually made about the Ancient One about who he was and where he came from.

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it still make a sound? If God created the earth and no one was around to see it, did it still happen? The answer to both of these questions is yes. Because of the Bible, we know that God created the earth in a literal 6, 24 hour days about 6,000 years ago. Many Christian think God may have used evolution and creation but that is not a viable theory. Methods such as Carbon Dating cannot be trusted because they have been proven inaccurate over and over again. Because radiocarbon dating is inaccurate, the literal Genesis account of creation is the one and only viable answer to where this world came from.

With the use of DNA Analysis, we can find the correct identification of the missing person by narrowing the information down to a single individual. For DNA analysis, we first had to obtain samples from both the skeletal remains (SKE2/SKE1) and samples from the two missing persons whom we narrowed down to (MP1/MP2). We then added the DNA to four test tubes with two different restriction enzymes to cut segments at certain patterns it recognized. We initially used two different restriction enzymes because there could be a slight possibility that if only one was used, the two missing persons DNA results after inserted into the gel electrophoresis chamber could show up the same. This would result in having the same amount of fragments as well as

Organic archaeological specimens, matter that was once living, such as bone, shells, skins, fibers, wool, etc., are all dated by use of radiocarbon dating (anything that once lived). The radiocarbon dating process measures the Carbon-14 isotopes within the organic material being examined. This method measures the radioactive emissions from the once living matter, comparing its activity with the equilibrium level of living things, a measurement of the time elapsed can be made. The radioactive isotope within the artifact will help determine the objects age.

Estimating the age at time of death from an unidentified individual’s remains is an important factor of forensic anthropology. There are certain standard processes and procedures that are employed in the lab to help determine the age as well as other biological profile data. In young adults, bone and tooth maturation are often used to roughly estimate the age of the body. In adults, the deterioration of bones is used to predict the age of the unknown body.

Levels of accuracy considered suitable for an archaeological context are likely to be too low for a forensic situation, since legal implications are more significant (Scheuer, 2002). Setting that aside, many chapters have been utilised by forensic anthropologists, for example Chapter 3 -Documentation of Sex Differences and Age Changes in Adults- to classify age and sex of human remains for a given forensic case. This would contribute to part of the biological profile of the human remains as previously mentioned. Here determining the age and sex of the human skeletal remains is done through a scoring system based on observations of morphological features. Many of these scoring systems, including those used for cranial suture closure (Meindl and Lovejoy, 1985; Mann, Symes and Bass, 1987; Todd and Lyon, 1924, 1925a, 1925b, 1925c), cranial morphology (Acsádi, and Nemeskeri, 1970) and others (e.g. Phenice, 1969) are founded on samples from skeletal collections and historical excavations. Komer and Grivas (2008) showed that skeletal collections do not accurately represent living or decedent populations from which they were sourced and are subject

When faced with an unknown set of remains it is a difficult task to establish an age for the individual. The sex and the ethnic origin of the deceased can usually be determined reasonably easily just by observing key characteristics in the bone structures; however working out the age is usually done by giving just a rough estimation, instead of a specific age. This is due to the fact that as age increases, the range for a correct estimation widens and identification becomes even harder.

When we think of history, we think of important people, places, cultures, events, and much more. The backbone of history rests on its chronology. It gives us the "when" of basic analysis. It gives us a frame of reference, the order of things. Before having an "absolute" way of determining dates, history was based in guesses and assumptions. Many attempts were made to organize the dates of the past. Some of these attempts were made by geologist. Geologist used the idea of "stratigraphic succession" (Renfrew, 1973) which is based on the "principle that when successive layers or strata are observed in position, the underlying ones are the earliest." (Pg. 23 Renfrew, 1973) By setting the layers in