Section 3:
In this Section you will learn to
Identify the Purpose of the Data Set Used for Skeletal Analysis
How are the data used in forensic skeletal analysis and
in prehistoric / historic skeletal analysis?
Forensic Anthropology Skeletal Biology
- To assess identification
- Compare features of contemporary skeletal remains to data collected from known contemporary people
- To determine information about a past population
- Data are gathered and analyzed and reported or compared with other skeletal findings across time and space
- Uses modern data to try to accurately establish id for one person
- Skeletal remains provide data information in and of itself
- Uses modern data to get an idea of an unknown
- Goal: identify - unique
- Unique to individual
- Goal: pattern
- Lifeway profile for a population
- Identify age, sex, stature, ancestry, pathology for ID
- See if bones are consistent with suspected ID
Overall cemetery population:
Paleodemographic Information:
- how many people?
- what ages are people living to?
- high mortality: young or lots of people dying
- low mortality: older or less people dying
- morbidity: state of health; are most people healthy or sick? men or women; young vs. old; social status
1 step:
Identification: measures lead to age, sex, ancestry, stature, pathology to make ID2 steps:
1. ID profile
2. Make comparisons across whole population
The difference in the data set used in skeletal analysis is how the data are used. Forensic anthropology analyses data are used to make a single identification. Skeletal Biology analyses data are used to paint a picture of a past lifeway regardless of the individual
