Why is this lesson important?
How is osteology in forensic anthropology
similar or different to osteology in skeletal biology?This module covers the specialized application of human osteology to cases of legal importance, better known as forensic anthropology.
Thus far throughout the semester, you have gained an understanding of bone biology--how bones are formed, grow, and remodel, what the various bones are and their specific features, landmarks and morphologies. This information was then used to learn how to assess sex, age, ancestry, and stature of unknown remains. Most recently, you have been presented with the various ways in which pathology manifests on bone--from ancient diseases, traumas, cultural modifications, and nometric traits to contemporary types of trauma and nonmetric traits.
The purpose of the assessments and the meaningfulness of the information they provide will now be addressed. Bones are examined to assess identification, but the ways in which the identification information obtained from the bones varies in osteology, depending on the application: either a forensic case or a larger bioarchaeological interpretation.
In this module, we will explore how methods, techniques and observations of skeletal materials are used to answer questions of single individual identifications in forensic anthropology through a comparsion of what is done with skeletal materials in a more traditional skeletal biology study, where the biocultural reconstructions of past lifeways is the goal.