New perspectives in forensic anthropology

Abstract

A critical review of the conceptual and practical evolution of forensic anthropology during the last two decades serves to identify two key external factors and four tightly inter-related internal methodological advances that have significantly affected the discipline. These key developments have not only altered the current practice of forensic anthropology, but also its goals, objectives, scope, and definition. The development of DNA analysis techniques served to undermine the classic role of forensic anthropology as a field almost exclusively focused on victim identification. The introduction of the Daubert criteria in the courtroom presentation of scientific testimony accompanied the development of new human comparative samples and tools for data analysis and sharing, resulting in a vastly enhanced role for quantitative methods in human skeletal analysis. Additionally, new questions asked of forensic anthropologists, beyond identity, required sound scientific bases and expanded the scope of the field. This environment favored the incipient development of the interrelated fields of forensic taphonomy, forensic archaeology, and forensic trauma analysis, fields concerned with the reconstruction of events surrounding death. Far from representing the mere addition of new methodological techniques, these disciplines (especially, forensic taphonomy) provide forensic anthropology with a new conceptual framework, which is broader, deeper, and more solidly entrenched in the natural sciences. It is argued that this new framework represents a true paradigm shift, as it modifies not only the way in which classic forensic anthropological questions are answered, but also the goals and tasks of It has been two decades since the publication in these pages of an influential article by Mehmet Yas ar Is can (Is can, 1988) discussing the then current and future state of forensic anthropology. In that article, Is can reviewed the key trends and landmarks in the development of forensic anthropology during the 1970s and 1980s, highlighting the main problems potentially threatening the future development of the field. Much of the article is devoted to a rather comprehensive review of developments in the construction of the basic biological profile from skeletal tissues (age, sex, stature). Very little discussion was devoted to the relevance of crime scene evidence, and there was no discussion relative to estimates of postmortem interval and reconstructions of events surrounding the death. Clearly, issues beyond the laboratory-derived observations of the bones themselves were not considered to fall under the purview of what a forensic anthropologist did at that point in time. Is can did stress the need for research aimed specifically at forensic anthropology applications, which at the time were hampered by inappropriate sample materials and strategies, poor analytical standards, and the lack of specific training of forensic anthropology practitioners. He indicated that the common source of many of the problems within forensic...

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