Past or present? Differentiating California prehistoric native American remains from forensic cases: An empirical approach

Abstract

The goal of this project is to provide additional data and statistical analyses for differentiating between prehistoric/historic Native American remains and modern forensic cases that may be potentially confusing. Forensic anthropologists often receive requests from local law enforcement to infer whether skeletal remains are of forensic or non-forensic significance. Skeletal remains of non-forensic significance are commonly of Native American ancestry, but the empirical methods common for determining Native American affinity from skeletal remains have not been established for California prehistoric/historic Native Americans. Therefore, forensic anthropologists working in California lack empirical methods for not only identifying prehistoric California Native American remains, but also differentiating them from modern/forensic populations whose skeletal attributes are similar. In particular, skeletal remains of Latin American US immigrants of indigenous origins are becoming more present in the forensic anthropological laboratory, and can exhibit the same suite of skeletal traits classically used to identify Native American affinity. In this article, we initiate an investigation into this issue by analyzing both craniometric and morphoscopic data using a range of statistical methods for differentiating prehistoric Northern California Native Americans from modern Guatemalan Maya. Our discriminant analyses results indicate that by using nine craniometric variables, group classification is 87% correct. In addition, seven morphoscopic variables can predict group classification correctly for 77% of the sample. The results suggest that it is possible to differentiate between our two samples. Such a method contributes to the efficient and empirical determination of temporal and geographic affinity, allowing for the repartriation of Native American remains to their tribes, as well as the accurate analysis of forensically significant remains.

Taphonomic Patterning of Cemetery Remains Received at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Boston, Massachusetts

“…The classification and processing of human skeletal remains received into a Medical Examiner office or similar setting are largely based upon their taphonomic state, including markers of previous burial or other depositional environments (including surface decomposition and dispersal in a forest or recovery from a marine environment) . The taphonomic alterations to bone caused by different depositional environments and the duration of deposition can be used to separate remains into the following categories : (i) recent remains, sometimes with associated soft tissue, that are of definite forensic interest; (ii) cemetery remains, whether recent or not, that likely do not represent criminal activity other than possible vandalism of burial sites; (iii) remains derived from historical/archaeological burials, which normally become the responsibility of state archaeological agencies ; (iv) remains likely derived from anatomical teaching, trophy, and/or ritual contexts, which probably have not been buried ; and (v) unknown remains that do not fit easily into any of the above‐mentioned categories.…”

Commentary on: Bethard JD, DiGangi EA. Letter to the Editor—Moving beyond a lost cause: Forensic anthropology and ancestry estimates in the United States. J Forensic Sci. 2020;65(5):1791–2. doi: 10.1111/1556‐4029.14513.

“…Contra to Bethard and DiGangi, these results highlight the strong concordance between genomic ancestry and self-reported race/ethnicity in the United States [14][15][16]. Further, ancestry estimation contributes to identifying medicolegal significance of skeletal material (i.e., historic or modern) and plays a role in repatriation efforts [17][18][19][20]. Forensic anthropologists are encouraged to contribute to databases dedicated to increasing reference samples so they better reflect society (i.e., Forensic Data Bank) and/or for assessing method accuracy (i.e., FADAMA).…”