The examination of skeletal remains to determine identity, ancestry, sex, age and cause of death in cases of legal interest, including remains that are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable, as in a plane crash. The subdiscipline gained recognition as a distinct field of forensic work in the 1940s, credited to Wilton M. Krogman, a student of the anatomist T. Wingate Todd.
Facts
What It ExaminesHuman skeletal remains, read for biological profile including age, sex, ancestry and stature, for signs of trauma, and for features that support identification of the dead. 1 Formalized YearDates to Thomas Dwight's 1878 essay The Identification of the Human Skeleton: A Medico-Legal Study; the discipline professionalized later, with the American Academy of Forensic Sciences anthropology section (1972) and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (1977). Known LimitationAge, sex, ancestry and stature estimates drawn from skeletal remains are statistical approximations with real margins of error, not certainties; a 2009 study found even favorable FORDISC classifications carried only a 1 percent confidence level. 2 Discipline
Discipline (category) Connections
Associated With
Source Wikipedia: Forensic art
Source Forensic Anthropology (Wikipedia)
Examines Within
Pioneered By
William M. Bass founded the Anthropology Research Facility ("the Body Farm") at the University of Tennessee in 1981, establishing systematic decomposition research as the basis of modern forensic anthropology.
Sources
1. National Institute of Justice: Forensic Sciences
2. Forensic Anthropology (Wikipedia)
History section
It was not until the 1940s, with the help of Todd's student, Wilton M. Krogman, that forensic anthropology gained recognition as a legitimate subdiscipline.
Associated With: Forensic Odontology, Introductory section
Along with forensic pathologists, forensic dentists, and homicide investigators, forensic anthropologists commonly testify in court as expert witnesses.
View the SourceSaferstein, Criminalistics: An Introduction to Forensic Science
Richard Saferstein, Pearson
Wikipedia: Forensic art
Associated With: Forensic Art, Forensic art / facial approximation sectionQuote, Associated With: Forensic Art, Forensic art / facial approximation section
The skill of facial approximation is closely associated and related to forensic anthropology in that an artist specializes in the reconstruction of the remains of a human body.
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