Forensic anthropologists apply their expertise in physical anthropology to legal investigations. Their work includes identifying human remains, estimating age, sex, stature and ancestry to create a biological profile. They also analyze trauma to determine cause and manner of death. Forensic anthropologists help in mass disasters by separating and identifying commingled remains. They also use their archaeological skills to locate buried evidence at crime scenes. Anthropometry, the systematic measurement of the human body, is another tool used for individual identification in forensic investigations.

1. Scope of Forensic
Anthropology
Tapeshwar Bhardwaj
M.Sc. Forensic Sciences (3rd Sem)
R. No.: 1668
FORENSIC
ANTHROPOLOGY

2. Contents
• Introduction
• What Do Forensic Anthropologists Do?
• Scope of Forensic Anthropology.
• Anthropology in Homicidal Cases.
• Anthropology in Mass Disasters.
• Forensic Archaeology
• Anthropometry

3. Introduction
• Application of all the aspects of
Anthropology in a legal settings/or in
courts of law.
• Includes all the subfields of Anthropology
viz. :
– Biological, or Physical
– Linguistic
– Cultural
– Archeological

4. • Forensic Anthropologists Frequently works
with:
• Forensic Pathologists
• Forensic Dentists
• Homicide Investigators
• Mass Disaster Investigators
What Do Forensic
Anthropologists Do?

5. • Their work with law enforcement personnel is:
• Scene Search
• Excavation and Recovery
• Questions of Identification
• Cause of Death
• Manner and Mode of Death
• Estimation of Time Since Death
What Do Forensic
Anthropologists Do?

6. Medical Examiner
Forensic
Anthropologist
Police
Working with Police and
Medical Examiner

7. Main Goal : Biological Profiling
• Includes
– General Description
– Sex of Decedent
– Age of Decedent
– Ancestry/Race of Decedent
– Stature of Decedent
– Assessment of Trauma (Ante-, Peri-, Post-Mortem)
–Pathologies Noted
–Identification of Living Person

8. Scope of Forensic Anthropology
• The routine scope of this discipline is the
identification of:
– Skeletonized Remains
– Badly Decomposed Cadaver
– Unidentified Human Remains
– Ageing of Individuals
– Mass Disaster and Homicide Victims
– Discrimination of Commingled
Skeletons or bones

9. Scope of Forensic Anthropology
in Homicide Investigation
• Forensic Anthropologists are trained physical anthropologists
who apply their expertise to solve cases of homicides by
Identifying:
– Race
– Sex
– Age
– Stature
– Ethnicity
– Culture
– Religion
– Caste
– Possible career and/or behavior
– Ante-, Peri- and Postmortem injuries
– Time Since Death
– Facial Reconstruction (2D and 3D)
}In Some Cases

11. Case Study
• Adolph Luetgert was a prosperous sausage manufacturer whose
business was beginning to fail.
• Luetgert claimed that his wife had run off with another man, but a
search of his factory led to a foul smell at the bottom of a large vat.
• There, two of his wife’s rings, a corset stay, and several small bones
were found; thus Luetgert was accused of killing his wife.
• George Dorsey was the first expert forensic analyst to receive a
doctoral degree in anthropology by Harvard.
• He was assigned to the Luetgert case and revealed his findings to the
court.
• Among the bones, rings, and corset stay were other pieces of
evidence that made the case a win for Dorsey.
• This case acquired national recognition and for months, the sale of
sausages had fallen as it was rumored that pieces of Luetgert’s wife
was mixed in with the product.

12. Scope of Forensic Anthropology
in Mass Disasters
• Whether a result of human or natural
circumstances, a disaster is likely to involve a
range of extreme forces such as:
• Heat (burning),
• Impact (G-force, wave)
• Crushing (structure collapse)
• Explosion,
• Freefall (impact) and/or
• Environmental influences (temperature; humidity;
water—warm, cold, salt, fresh; carnivore/rodent
activity)

13. • Disasters resulting in mass fatalities commonly present a
range of differentially preserved remains that may
include bodies and/or body parts that are:
– Intact
– Fairly intact
– Decomposed Fragmentary
– Commingled
– Burned or cremated
– Partially burnt
– Distorted
– Buried
– Or a combination of several of these states of preservation.

14. Phases of Disaster Victim
Identification
• Phase 1- The Scene
– Identifying the presence of skeletal remains.
– Identification of the spatial temporal relationships
between the bodies and associated evidence.
– Position of Body
– Number of Individuals
– Establishing if there are more than one individual
present (Commingled Remains)

15. • Phase 2- The Mortuary
• Separation of osseous and non-osseous remains.
• Separation of human and non-human bone material.
(Anthropologists were required to distinguish human from nonhuman remains in the
New York September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre where many
restaurants were located in the area of the destruction)
• Separation of recognizable vs. non-recognizable
fragments that require DNA analysis. (Retrieval and
identification of soft tissue fragments in the 2002 Bali incident, especially from
individuals thought to be at the epicenter of the explosion, contributed to the
identification of many of the deceased)
• Separation of Commingled Remains.
• Analysis of small fragments of bone from any region in
the body.
• Siding to left and right of skeletal fragments.
• Analysis of cross-sections of bone in soft tissue masses.
• Analysis of incinerated remains with no soft tissue.

16. • Evaluation from Phase 2 enables the forensic
anthropologists to:
– Determine the minimum number of individuals
present.
– Establish a biological profile (Race, sex, age, stature
etc.) of individuals.
– Provide an opinion on ante-, peri- and post-
mortem traumas.
• Phase 3- Ante-mortem Data Collection
• Phase 4- Reconciliation or Opinion Formation

17. Case Study
• 11 September 2001- Attackers from Al-Qaeda attacked World Trade
Center and The Pentagon.
• Casualties- 2996 and 19 Hijackers
• Weeks after attacks death toll rised to 6000
• Only 1600 individuals were identified.
• The medical examiner collected over 10,000 unidentidied bone and
tissue fragments.
• More of the bone fragments still found in 2006 when workers
planned to rebuild Deutsche Bank.
• In 2010, a team of anthropologists and archeologists found 72 more
bones from Fresh Kills Landfills.
• Identification process is still going on.
• On March 20, 2015, 1,640th Victim was identified and there are still
1,113 victims who have not been identified.

18. Forensic Archaeology
• Archaeology or archeology, is the study of human activity in the
past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material
culture and environmental data that has been left behind by past
human populations, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts
(also known as eco-facts) and cultural
landscapes (the archaeological record).
• Forensic Archeology is the application of this study in legal setting
or in courts of law.
• Forensic archaeologists are employed by police and other agencies
to help locate evidence at a crime scene using the skills normally
used on archaeological sites to uncover evidence from the past.
• Forensic Archaeologists are employed to locate, excavate and record
buried remains, the variety of such targets is large and each case is
unique in its requirements (hence the need to use an experienced
professional forensic archaeologist).

19. • However whilst the types of target that forensic
archaeologists are asked to investigate are diverse the
most common can be generally grouped as follows:
– Buried small items or personal effects from a victim of crime, which
may be used to corroborate a statement or contain other evidential
value. This group includes evidence buried by a perpetrator of a crime
to hide their involvement (e.g., weapons, money, mobile phones, etc.)
– Potential gravesites, forensic archaeology attempts to locate and
recover any human remains whilst also recording all evidence in
association with the remains to reconstruct events that took place prior
to the burial of the victim or victims.
– The grave may be sought as part of an investigation of an unsolved
crime or may in some rare cases result from information gained from
an individual already convicted of the crime in the absence of a grave.

20. – Surface body disposals where a recent victim has been concealed under
fallen walls, tree branches, rubbish etc. In this case the application of
archaeological stratigraphic recording to the removal of the layers of
material concealing the victim can be of great evidential value. The
collaboration of a forensic archaeologist, entomologist and forensic
botanist in cases of this sort can allow very detailed reconstructions of
the timing of the disposal and have in previous cases been decisive in
proving a death was not accidental but an intentional criminal act.
– Mass graves, usually as part of an international organisation's
investigation (e.g. the United Nations) where the recovery of remains is
focused on both evidential recovery for future indictments (e.g. The
War Crimes indictments in the International Criminal Court) and the
identification of individuals remains for surviving relatives which may
form a crucial role in reconciliation and breaking the cycles of violence
that can continue to occur over generations in such conflicts.
– Civil cases involving buried evidence (e.g. locating former fence lines

21. – Excavating a grave under archaeological conditions can provide
valuable evidence on the time and circumstances of burial, the manner
of death, and the tools and techniques used for interment.
– Associated disciplines can aid in the fine detail from such
investigations, for example the analysis of pollen, plant remains and
ash from within a grave by a forensic botanist may allow the
reconstruction of the environment a victim has been in prior to their
burial in the grave. Similarly a Forensic Entomologist may help with
the analysis of insect remains to determine the time of day or year a
victim was buried.

22. Anthropometry
• Anthropometry (from Greek ἄνθρωπος anthropos,
"man", and μέτρον metron, "measure") refers to the
measurement of the human individual.
• It is an early tool of physical anthropology.
• It has been used for identification, for the purposes of
understanding human physical variation,
in Forensics and in various attempts to correlate
physical with racial and psychological traits.
• First applied in Forensics by Sir Alphonse Bertillion in
1883 and called his system Bertillonage.
• Anthropometry involves the systematic measurement of
the physical properties of the human body, primarily
dimensional descriptors of body size and shape

23. Applications
• In Forensic Anthropology
– In osteological analysis age, stature, ancestry, and
sex of the skeletal remains are first determined.
– The investigator may find evidence regarding
cause and manner of death; however, when flesh is
still found on the bone, the stage
of decomposition is noted and time since death
may be more effectively narrowed.
– A range is also applied to stature based on the
length of long bones, applied to a specific
mathematical equation.
• In Forensic Odontology

24. References
• http://journalstar.com/news/state-and-regional/nebraska/jury-in-murder-case-gets-lesson-in-
forensic-anthropology/article_63acb0b1-320f-5c62-af2f-2f6054c4779f.html. August 15, 2015
• Stanojevich V (2012) The Role of a Forensic Anthropologist in a Death Investigation. J Forensic
Res 3:154. doi:10.4172/2157-7145.1000154
• Heskins J(1989). The Role of Forensic Anthropology Mass Disaster Resolution Aviation, Space,
and Environmental Medicine. July, A60
• Andrade, Mariano (August 25, 2011). "Scientists still struggle to identify 9/11 remains".Discovery
News. Agence France Presse. Retrieved August 15, 2015
• Lemre, Jonathan (August 24, 2011). "Remains of WTC worker Ernest James, 40, ID'd ten years
after 9/11". New York Daily News. Retrieved August 15, 2015
• Cuza, Bobby (June 11, 2011). "9/11 A Decade Later: DNA Matching Efforts To Continue At WTC
Site". NY1. Archived from the original on 2014-09-20. Retrieved August 15, 2015
• "Mom of 9/11 victim: Identified remains 'finally put everything to rest'". CNN. Retrieved August
15, 2015.