The Anthropology Lab at the University of Montana is regularly consulted by law enforcement agencies throughout the state of Montana on cases suspected to involve skeletal human remains. In this paper, how specifically Forensic Anthropology contributes to these cases is examined. Cases submitted to the UM Lab for analysis between the years of 1971 and 2004 are followed up and the agencies involved are asked specific questions regarding each case. Agencies responded to questions regarding 97 of the UMs 238 total cases. Results of this study show that of those cases containing contemporary human remains about 18% were identified after the UM performed their analysis, and about 60% had not been identified. With modern day forensic technology advancing at such a rapid rate, this paper aims to show that in Montana, Forensic Anthropology is a tool that has become less useful in its ability to assist in determining an unknown decedents identification, while being most useful in determining if a case in question is one that involves contemporary human remains to begin with.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:MONTANA/oai:etd.lib.umt.edu:etd-07202006-142543 |
| Date | 26 October 2006 |
| Creators | Byrne, Ana M. |
| Contributors | William Prentiss, Randall Skelton, David Strobel |
| Publisher | The University of Montana |
| Source Sets | University of Montana Missoula |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-07202006-142543/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Montana or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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