Importance Of Forensic Anthropology

Forensic anthropology is the physical or biological studies of a human skeleton. The purpose of a forensic anthropologist is to discover secrets hidden in bones. Forensic anthropologists are trained physical anthropologists. The difference between the two are the amount of knowledge involved in forensic anthropology. In forensic anthropology science, biology, and culture are applied to the legal process.

Forensic anthropology is a subfield of physical anthropology that aims to assist in the identification of human remains and to help determine what happened to the remains (Ubelaker, 2006). A forensic anthropologist is able to aid law enforcement by narrowing down the list of possible victims. This subfield of anthropology consists of several processes and a vast list of duties that are important in providing positive identification.Even though forensic anthropology dates back many years, major advancements in this field are still being made today.

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

How can the age of a body be estimated using bones? What are some of the different areas of the body that may give an indication of age?

After that they “analyze bones to determine the victim's biological profile” as it is said in “What is Forensic Anthropology” by R.U. Steinberg.

Description: Forensic Anthropologists helps to study the skeletal systems of people to determine the sex, ethnicity, and distinct characteristics of the dead skeleton they are studying.

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.

“This is my lab and what we do is study bones,” states Kari Bruwelheide in her video entitled “30,000 Skeletons”. Out of all three resources, “Puzzles of the Chesapeake” by Sally Walker, “Forensic Anthropology” by an unknown author, and “30,000 Skeletons” by Smithsonian Education, but presented by Kari Bruwelheide, “30,000 Skeletons” is by far better at explaining the role of an anthropologist. It is unbeatable because it is a video and Kari Bruwelheide has personal experience of being a forensic anthropologist. A forensic anthropologist is a scientist that studies human remains, or in another word, skeletons, to try to find out information.

The age of the victim was determined by several bones of the body, including the

Your Work: Forensic anthropologists work with professional organizations to identify disaster victims. They analyze skeletal and badly decomposed human remains. They will try to assess the age, sex, ancestry, stature, and unique features of the skeleton. They will frequently work with forensic pathologists, odontologists, and homicide investigators. Their goal is to be able to match the skeleton with a missing person or victim.

As a forensic anthropologist, Brennan main focus is to assist law enforcement agencies with her knowledge to inspect skeletons. Her main motive in this case was to determine individual 's age, sex, time of death, and physical condition from their skeleton remains. It is extremely crucial that Brennan diagnoses the skeleton remains accurately, as the legal investigation greatly depends on it. Brennan refers to multiple biological anthropology methods while she was assessing

Especially with identifying the demographic characteristics of the bones, and it was made a point that even though Dr. Brennen knew approximately what the sex, age, ancestry, and stature of the remains were, they were not completely certain, because of the intermediate traits that were indistinguishable. No tests for the demographic characteristics are 100% accurate. They can give you a good estimate but will not be exact. Estimating sex using the skull is only 90% effective, while using the os coxa is 96%. But, it is better to use the entire skeleton, if it is available. In Dr. Brennen’s case, she did not always have the complete skeleton; the privy remains only provided her with the os coxa, and not the skull or hands, which could have been used in identification of the victim. Dr. Brennen, however, did not describe using the os coxa for sex estimation, just the skull. And another thing that is not very accurate is her using histology as a method for determining the sex of the individual. Histology is not used often and is very time consuming and expensive to

How they tell the age of the victim is they go through a process called Ossifications and it is when the cartilage changes and fuses bones in the body.When babies are born they have 300 bones in their while adults have 206 and that is when they are fused together.Another way that anthropologists tell how old the victim was by how smooth the joints are because

Forensic science is a broad term that refers to the use of science or technology in a court room environment. Forensic science plays an important role in modern popular culture; the police procedural is highly dependent upon cutting-edge forensic science. Moreover, many people are aware of the impact of DNA testing on the modern criminal justice landscape. However, forensic science actually predates many modern scientific advances; almost as long as there have been controversies, there has been some type of forensic science.

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.