This thesis explores the extent to which forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology are utilised within Great Britain and to what extent they aid, or do not aid, medico-legal investigation of death. Chapter One introduces the topic and considers the need for an exploration of these issues. In Chapter Two, the differences between the American and British situations are examined and an explanation for the differences proposed, based on the development of the academic ‘parent’ disciplines during the last century. Chapter Three explores issues around accreditation and registration in the UK. The role of the courts in maintaining standards of expert evidence is examined. National and European schemes are considered. After considering the practitioners in this way, Chapter Four looks at the methods, and how the practitioners’ experience informs their choice of method. One specific topic for each discipline is discussed in depth and the complexity of choice illustrated. The difficulty in assessing the full scope for use of forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology are detailed in Chapter Five, with the marked lack of available research data. The problems inherent in media-derived data are considered. The scope for use of the two disciplines is discussed and illustrated with examples from the Media Derived Case List In Chapter Six, a complex multiple-burial multiple-murder case is discussed; and interviews across one police force area are discussed. These illustrate the use and usefulness of forensic archaeology in practice. Conclusions are drawn in Chapter Seven, and radical recommendations are made.

Since the beginning of the 21st century, the deaths of migrants have become a regular occurrence in southern Arizona where an average of 170 bodies are recovered from the desert each year. This dissertation examines the causes and effects of death and disappearance along the U.S.-Mexico border, seeking to address the contradiction present in the fact that thousands of people have died or disappeared in one of the world’s most heavily surveilled landscapes. It interrogates the ways in which the dead, the missing, and their families are simultaneously erased and exposed in a biopolitical process that has powerful implications beyond the space of the borderlands. The observations for this dissertation are drawn from nearly a decade of both ethnographic research and applied humanitarian assistance in the field of forensic human identification, primarily at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner, in Tucson, Arizona. Although the majority of migrant fatalities have been determined by the medical examiner to be accidental, resulting from exposure to the elements or unknown causes, a historical analysis reveals the violent nature of these deaths and disappearances, which are a structured result of U.S. border and immigration policies. From their homes to their destinations, migrants in the Americas face a particular kind of structural violence and social invisibility that is revealed when they disappear at the border. This disappearance is then made more thorough by the structured lack of access for families of the missing to services to assist them in their search. Practices of care, whether occurring within families of the missing and dead, during the desert crossing itself, or in the forensic work to identify the dead, powerfully contest the invisibility and erasure experienced by migrants in the Americas today.

Ancestry assessments in bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology are best analyzed with population-specific methods. Through population-specific ancestry methods, the generalized Native American/Asian ancestry category can be better refined to reflect the diversity of Native American and Asiatic people. Individuals from modern (~1900 to present) Seminole Native American and Japanese populations, housed at The Ohio State University and Jikei University in Tokyo, respectively, reflect a relatively unbiased population sample, as demographics range from juveniles to adults, with both sexes being equally represented. This broad sampling of individuals from the Florida Seminole group and the greater Tokyo region enables researchers to explore the degree of variation between the Seminole and Japanese groups, as can be demonstrated osteologically. Dentitions are an ideal candidate to measure intra-population variability due to heritabilities of both their tooth size and dental morphological characteristics within populations. In an attempt to better understand the variation between Native American and Asian populations, observations of Seminole and Japanese-specific dental morphology and tooth dimensions were recorded from 281 individuals using the Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System (ASUDAS) and mesiodistal and buccolingual measurements, respectively. Significant differences, indicated by a p-value ≤ 0.05, were identified between the Seminole and Japanese groups in the analysis of morphological dental traits and odontometrics. Nineteen statistically significant morphological traits that differed in expression between the two sampled groups were identified, with eight traits being more present in the Seminole group than the Japanese group, whereas eleven traits being more present in the Japanese group than the Seminole group. Linear regression (LRA) and discriminant function analyses equations were developed from three sets of odontometric datasets; the raw, unaltered collected data, the general measurement mean dataset which supplements missing variables, and the ancestry-specific measurement mean data set which supplements missing variables. Both the linear regression and discriminant function models demonstrated success in classifying the Seminole and Japanese groups. The LRA equations presented classification rates higher than chance (81.5-90.4%). Twenty-three DFA equations were developed, ranging in successful classification rates of 61.5% to 100.0%. The ancestry-specific measurement mean dataset performed the best in both the LRA and DFA models. The results of this study indicate that morphological trait observations and odontometric analyses can be useful tools in the differentiation of Native American and Asian populations, as differences between subgroups of these populations (Seminole and Japanese) were identified. These differences are likely due to the homogeneous and insular composition of both sampled populations. Further analysis of the statistically significant morphological traits identified in the current study and continued testing of more subpopulations of Native American and Asian populations will not only aid in ancestry estimations in forensic and bioarchaeology research, but also in the cessation of grouping Native American and Asian individuals under one category.

This study examines the possible correlations between vertebral osteoporosis, spondylolysis, spondylolisthesis, Schmorl’s nodes, vertebral osteoarthritis, osteophytosis, and laminal spurs. Further, this study examines the effects of sex, age, ancestry, and occupation on the vertebral pathologies. A total of 238 individuals (54 African Americans and 184 randomly selected European Americans) from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, were analyzed. Vertebral pathologies and anomalies were assessed using visual morphometric scoring methods outlined in previous research. It is hypothesized that positive correlations exist between osteoporosis and other vertebral pathologies and a positive correlation exists between vertebral pathologies and strenuous occupations. It is also hypothesized that there is a difference in the prevalence of vertebral pathologies between European American and African American ancestries due to African Americans generally showing higher bone mineral density than European Americans (Aloia 2008). The results of this research demonstrate numerous relationships: females are correlated with more severe osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, and spondylolisthesis, while males correlate with Schmorl’s nodes; European Americans are correlated with osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, osteophytosis, and Schmorl’s nodes, while African Americans are correlated with laminal spurs; individuals 40 years or older are correlated with osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, Schmorl’s nodes, and laminal spurs; and lastly, labor intensive occupations (i.e., construction worker) are correlated with osteoarthritis, osteophytosis, and Schmorl’s nodes, all with p-values less than 0.05. The majority of the pathological conditions also correlate with each other, for example, osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. This research demonstrates how pathological conditions correlate with sociodemographic risk factors and with other pathological conditions, which can help with the identification process of skeletal remains in archaeological and forensic contexts.

A Antropologia Forense desempenha um importante papel nas Ciências Forenses e, apesar de não consistir em um método primário de identificação humana, ou seja, só a sua execução não basta para conferir identidade a um indivíduo questionado, é um método auxiliar trivial para reduzir o universo de suspeitos a serem analisados na busca da identidade. O objetivo desse trabalho foi analisar a acurácia e aplicabilidade do software AncesTrees, desenvolvido por Navega et al. (2015), em um conjunto de medidas cranianas de uma amostra brasileira. Em uma amostra constituída por 114 crânios identificados, originários de duas coleções osteológicas localizadas no estado de São Paulo, predominantemente composta por indivíduos brancos (59), seguido por negros (35) e pardos (20), foram realizadas 25 diferentes medidas craniométricas que foram alocadas no AncesTrees em dois algoritmos diferentes, sendo que um deles foi utilizado em três configurações distintas, com diferentes grupos ancestrais integrando o modelo. O software teve desempenho superior na estimativa de indivíduos brancos, chegando a 73% de acurácia neste grupo e 66% no grupo de indivíduos negros. Indivíduos classificados como pardos apresentaram inconstância na classificação ancestral, sendo classificados majoritariamente como Europeus. No geral, a combinação mais precisa do AncesTrees foi no algoritmo ancestralForest com apenas os grupos Europeu e Africano integrando o algoritmo, chegando a 70% de acerto. Conclui-se que a aplicabilidade desse software no Brasil é frágil, devido à alta carga de miscigenação da população, sendo necessária a criação de uma base de dados antropométricos mais representativa do povo brasileiro / Forensic Anthropology develops an important role in Forensic Sciences. Although it is not a primary method of human identification, that is, its execution alone is not enough to establish an identity to a questioned individual, it is a trivial secondary method, to reduce the universe of suspects to be analyzed by the primary ones. The objective of this research was to analyze the accuracy and applicability of the software AncesTrees, developed by Navega et al. (2015), in a set of cranial measurements of a Brazilian sample. In a sample consisted of 114 identified skulls, coming from two osteological collections located in the São Paulo State, predominantly composed of white individuals (59), followed by blacks (35) and admixed (20), 25 different craniometric measurements were performed and allocated to AncesTrees in two different algorithms, one of which was used in three different configurations, with different ancestral groups integrating the model. The software had superior performance in the estimation of white individuals, reaching 73% accuracy in this group and 66% in the black individuals\' group. Individuals classified as admixed showed inconstancy in the ancestral classification, being classified mainly as European. Overall, the most accurate combination of AncesTrees was in the ancestralForest algorithm with only the European and African groups integrating the algorithm, reaching 70% accuracy. It is concluded that the applicability of this software in Brazil is fragile, due to the high admixing load of the population, and it is necessary to create a more representative anthropometric database of the Brazilian people

A Antropologia Forense desempenha um importante papel nas Ciências Forenses e, apesar de não consistir em um método primário de identificação humana, ou seja, só a sua execução não basta para conferir identidade a um indivíduo questionado, é um método auxiliar trivial para reduzir o universo de suspeitos a serem analisados na busca da identidade. O objetivo desse trabalho foi analisar a acurácia e aplicabilidade do software AncesTrees, desenvolvido por Navega et al. (2015), em um conjunto de medidas cranianas de uma amostra brasileira. Em uma amostra constituída por 114 crânios identificados, originários de duas coleções osteológicas localizadas no estado de São Paulo, predominantemente composta por indivíduos brancos (59), seguido por negros (35) e pardos (20), foram realizadas 25 diferentes medidas craniométricas que foram alocadas no AncesTrees em dois algoritmos diferentes, sendo que um deles foi utilizado em três configurações distintas, com diferentes grupos ancestrais integrando o modelo. O software teve desempenho superior na estimativa de indivíduos brancos, chegando a 73% de acurácia neste grupo e 66% no grupo de indivíduos negros. Indivíduos classificados como pardos apresentaram inconstância na classificação ancestral, sendo classificados majoritariamente como Europeus. No geral, a combinação mais precisa do AncesTrees foi no algoritmo ancestralForest com apenas os grupos Europeu e Africano integrando o algoritmo, chegando a 70% de acerto. Conclui-se que a aplicabilidade desse software no Brasil é frágil, devido à alta carga de miscigenação da população, sendo necessária a criação de uma base de dados antropométricos mais representativa do povo brasileiro / Forensic Anthropology develops an important role in Forensic Sciences. Although it is not a primary method of human identification, that is, its execution alone is not enough to establish an identity to a questioned individual, it is a trivial secondary method, to reduce the universe of suspects to be analyzed by the primary ones. The objective of this research was to analyze the accuracy and applicability of the software AncesTrees, developed by Navega et al. (2015), in a set of cranial measurements of a Brazilian sample. In a sample consisted of 114 identified skulls, coming from two osteological collections located in the São Paulo State, predominantly composed of white individuals (59), followed by blacks (35) and admixed (20), 25 different craniometric measurements were performed and allocated to AncesTrees in two different algorithms, one of which was used in three different configurations, with different ancestral groups integrating the model. The software had superior performance in the estimation of white individuals, reaching 73% accuracy in this group and 66% in the black individuals\' group. Individuals classified as admixed showed inconstancy in the ancestral classification, being classified mainly as European. Overall, the most accurate combination of AncesTrees was in the ancestralForest algorithm with only the European and African groups integrating the algorithm, reaching 70% accuracy. It is concluded that the applicability of this software in Brazil is fragile, due to the high admixing load of the population, and it is necessary to create a more representative anthropometric database of the Brazilian people

Estimation of age is a crucial step for the identification of unknown individuals. Age is commonly assessed through macroscopic analytical methods based on the gross-examination of age degenerative changes in the skeleton. The choice of the methods relies on the taphonomic condition of the human remains and/or the skeletal element that is available. In cases of very fragmented bones, microscopic techniques remain one of the few approaches to estimate age. Thus, many histological age estimation methods have been developed for different bones and on different samples in the last forty years. Numerous intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence bone remodelling rates and have shown to affect the accuracy of histological aging methods. The present study investigates rib thin-sections from two Mediterranean samples, aiming to explore the applicability and reliability of histological methods in estimating age within these samples. Standard ribs were obtained from males and females (N = 88, Mean age = 60, SD = 17.90) from two samples, Cretans (Greece) and Greek- Cypriots (Republic of Cyprus). The costal elements were processed histologically according to standard protocols and thirteen raw and composite histomorphometric parameters (frequency number of intact and fragmentary osteons, total osteons, osteon population densities - including OPD(I) and OPD(F) - cortical area, total area, endosteal area, relative cortical area, osteon area, osteon perimeter and osteon circularity) were assessed. Intra- and inter-observer errors were examined. Due to the fragmented nature of the costal elements, sampling error was calculated as a means to explore whether the histological variables vary among six different topographical locations along the rib length. A validation study was carried out by applying four existing histological age prediction equations on the entire dataset and on the sub-datasets (sex and samples separately) in order to verify whether population-specific formulae are required for the Mediterranean samples. The relationship between the histological variables and age, as well as sex and samples, was determined through several statistical tests. Lastly, simple and multiple regression analyses were performed testing all possible combinations of variables. The best models ii were finally selected according to prediction power and goodness of fit indicators. The results from intra- and inter-observer errors indicated that most of the histological parameters achieved high levels of repeatability. The preliminary outcome from the sampling error pilot study suggested low variability among the six thin-sections from each rib. According to the validation study, three of the four age prediction equations resulted in high underestimation of age, indicating that population-specific formulae are needed to provide more accurate age estimates. Most of the histological variables showed a statistically significant correlation with age with some differences observed by sex and by sample. Forty-one models were generated concluding that osteon densities along with rib and osteon measurements formulae produced the most accurate results. The best model generated from the entire dataset included OPD and osteon circularity with a standard error of the estimate of 10.45 years. When sex and samples were separated, the best model selected included OPD and osteon perimeter producing a standard error of the estimate of 8 years for Cypriots. This research demonstrates that quantitative bone histology is a feasible method to estimate age on the Mediterranean samples obtaining errors rates that are in accordance with macroscopic ageing techniques. Inter-population variation in remodeling rates is suggested; however, the inclusion of other bones presenting different remodelling dynamics (such as femora) is recommended to further explore this hypothesis. This study contributes to the creation of population-specific standards for Cretans and Cypriots.

In situations of mass disaster (1), which include airline crashes (2), terrorist attacks (2), large fires (3), and mass homicide (4), the human remains are often damaged beyond recognition (5). In these cases, bones and teeth are potentially the only acceptable source of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA (6). Previous studies have evaluated a plethora of techniques to purify DNA from hard tissue, but there is no consensus on the optimal process by which to extract and purify DNA from these samples. Not only are hard tissue samples difficult to process, in many cases the samples are subjected to extreme environmental conditions, such as high temperature. Thus, there is interest in obtaining information on DNA quality from samples exposed to high temperatures (7). This work hopes to fill the gap by: 1) optimizing a DNA extraction protocol from hard tissue; and 2) measuring the degree to which the DNA is degraded in an effort to link the quantity and quality of the DNA recovered to the outer appearance of the tooth. To accomplish this, individual teeth were burned in a furnace at 100 °C, 200 °C, 300 °C, 400 °C, 500 °C, and 600 °C for 10, 20, and 30 minutes. The optimal extraction procedure utilized Amicon® Ultra-4 Centrifugal 30K filter devices and the QIAGEN MinElute Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) Purification Kit. Samples were quantified using the Quantifiler® Trio quantification kit to obtain the quantity and quality metrics. After heat exposure, each tooth was photographed and subsequently given a color designation or value: light yellow to beige teeth were assigned a value of 1; dark yellow to orange were assigned a value of 2; brown was assigned a value of 3; shiny black was assigned a value of 4; and black to light gray teeth were assigned a value of 5. Both carbonization and the early stages of calcination were observed. The mass of DNA per mass of tooth was determined by examining quantitative PCR (qPCR) results for both a large and small autosomal fragment. The degradation index, or DI, was also calculated from qPCR measurements. The results demonstrate a strong correlation between the quantity of DNA recovered, the quality of the DNA obtained, and the designated color value. The highest recovery rates were obtained from teeth assigned a color value of 1 (unaltered beige) or 2 (yellow to orange). These teeth were exposed to either room temperature, 100 °C or 200 °C. At temperatures exceeding 300 °C, the amount of DNA recovered drastically decreased and was inconsistent. Some of the samples subjected to temperatures at and above 300 °C resulted in no quantifiable DNA. In contrast, the DI results suggested that when the teeth were subjected to temperatures ≤ 100 °C, the quality of the DNA was good, wherein the DI value was approximately 1. At 200 °C, the temperature began to impact the DI value, which increased with time to the point where a DI was no longer able to be calculated because the large autosomal fragment could not be detected. In conclusion, the current work compares five different methods of DNA extraction to establish a best practice extraction procedure for these difficult samples. Furthermore, this work suggests that examination of the tooth’s appearance can be used to deduce whether successful DNA recovery is likely. In summary, the results demonstrate that when the tooth sample was assigned a color value of 1, the quantity and quality of the DNA obtained was high. Once the color value of the sample rose to 2, the quantity and quality of DNA varied greatly and the probative value of the sample was diminished. Samples that exhibited large color changes or had begun the calcination process resulted in no recoverable DNA.

Cancer is currently the second most common cause of death in the U.S. with over 600,000 people expected to die from cancer this year alone. The diagnosis of cancer steadily increased through most of the 20th century due to a rise in tobacco usage, causing a relatively recent growth in cancer research. In the past several decades, treatments for cancer have been rapidly changing and advancing, and it is vital to understand how these medications affect the human skeleton. Presently, little research has been conducted on how medications alter the human skeleton and impact the biological profile. One of the primary side effects of drug and radiation-based treatments for a neoplasm is cancer treatment-induced bone loss (CTIBL), which may impact the expression of sexual dimorphism in morphological traits. It is hypothesized that CTIBL would decrease the robusticity of sexually dimorphic nonmetric traits and skew the ordinal scores towards gracile. A total of 178 individuals with documented cancer and/or treatment and 178 individuals without documented cancer from the William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, were assessed following conventional sex assessment standards for the skull and os coxa. These methods presented by Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994), Klales et al. (2012), and Walker (2005) were applied to the os coxa and Walker’s (2008) method for the skull. The individuals ranged in age from 26 to 97 years and included 350 European Americans, two African Americans, one Asian/Polynesian, and three Native Americans. The control group was designed to parallel the experimental group by demographic information including sex, ancestry, and age-at-death. The experimental group was also subdivided into two groups that included individuals that underwent chemotherapy and/or radiation (drug subgroup) and individuals who only underwent surgery as a form of treatment (surgery subgroup). Thirty-six randomly selected individuals were also rescored to test for intraobserver agreement. IBM’s Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to calculate Chi-Square, ANOVA, ANCOVA, and Cohen’s Kappa analyses. The Chi-Square and ANOVA analyses were used to determine if there was any statistically significant relationship between cancer treatment status and the scores of the morphological traits. The results indicated no significant relationship between cancer treatment status and the trait scores (p > 0.05) for all analyses except for the Chi-square analysis of the glabella for females in the pooled sample (p=0.047) and the ANOVA analysis of the ventral arc in the surgery group when sex was not considered (p=0.010). It is possible that these traits are affected by cancer treatment status. However, it is more likely that these results were due to natural variation between the control and experimental groups. Intraobserver agreement was calculated using Cohen’s Kappa analysis. Intraobserver agreement ranged from fair to substantial with most traits indicating moderate intraobserver agreement. Some possible confounders of the study include the unknown duration of cancer treatments, the use of a history of cancer as a proxy for cancer treatment, not knowing when the individual underwent cancer treatment before death, and the assumption that the individuals included in the sample were accurately documented. Cancer Treatment-Induced Bone Loss may only affect bone mineral density as opposed to the expression of sexually dimorphic traits as many of these visually assessed traits are sites of muscle attachments. Though CTIBL does not appear to affect morphological sex assessment, further research should be conducted on the possible effects of CTIBL for other components of the biological profile.

Of the 206 bones that compose an adult skeleton, only a select few are used in the estimation of sex and age. The best indicator of the sex of an adult skeleton is derived from several morphological features of the pelvis. In addition to the pelvis, characteristics of the sacrum, long bones, and skull have been used to estimate sex in adult remains. The most accurate indicators of age-at-death at the present time are related to features of the pubic bone, the auricular surface of the ilium, and the sternal end of the fourth rib. The current project assesses the utility of the sternum for estimating age and sex using two current methods. The two methods in question are those of Bongiovanni and Spradley (2012) for the estimation of sex and Sun et al., (1995) for the estimation of age. The data gathered at the Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal Collection for this study is used to assess the validity and accuracy of the two different methods utilizing a North American population differing from that of Bongiovanni and Spradley (2012). Results showed a high congruence with the results of Bongiovanni and Spradley (2012) in which an overall classification rate of 81.1% was achieved. The cross-validation classifications for males and females were 79.9% and 83.6% respectively and an overall classification rate of 86.7% was achieved using total sternal length (TL). Results also demonstrate that the mean values of sternal index conform to Hyrtl's Law, however the range of values largely overlap, and demonstrates the law's unreliability for sex estimation. Results showed a lack of congruence with the Sun et al., (1995) method reaching a classification rate for exact age estimates of 14.4%. Overall, the utility of the human sternum for sex estimation seems promising and practically simple. The utility of the human sternum for age estimation merits further research into methods that might provide higher classification rates, however, at this time no methods seem worthwhile.