Applying multidisciplinary methods to forensic casework in North Carolina.

A multidisciplinary approach in the investigation of unidentified decedents employs the use of a variety of scientific approaches. This approach is applied in casework in North Carolina, USA and has led to successful identifications using anthropological analysis and population affinity estimation using 3D-ID, investigative genetic geneaology (IGG), and isotopic analyses. Results from one scientific approach can help to inform the others, providing more information about the decedent, and thus enhancing the investigation. This case report outlines three cases from North Carolina that combine each of these scientific approaches and serve as examples of collaboration in a multidisciplinary approach. Key points: Anthropological analyses including population affinity using 3D-ID can be used in conjunction with isotopic analyses in estimating geographic origin.Results from anthropological and isotopic analyses can help to narrow down or direct IGG.Multidisciplinary collaboration in the investigation of unidentified decedents enhances the investigation.

Age assessment in unaccompanied minors: assessing uniformity of protocols across Europe.

Age assessment of migrants is crucial, particularly for unaccompanied foreign minors, a population facing legal, social, and humanitarian challenges. Despite existing guidelines, there is no unified protocol in Europe for age assessment.The Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) conducted a comprehensive questionnaire to understand age estimation practices in Europe. The questionnaire had sections focusing on the professional background of respondents, annual assessment numbers, requesting parties and reasons, types of examinations conducted (e.g., physical, radiological), followed protocols, age estimation methods, and questions on how age estimates are reported.The questionnaire's findings reveal extensive engagement of the forensic community in age assessment in the living, emphasizing multidisciplinary approaches. However, there seems to be an incomplete appreciation of AGFAD guidelines. Commonalities exist in examination methodologies and imaging tests. However, discrepancies emerged among respondents regarding sexual maturity assessment and reporting assessment results. Given the increasing importance of age assessment, especially for migrant child protection, the study stresses the need for a unified protocol across European countries. This can only be achieved if EU Member States wholeheartedly embrace the fundamental principles outlined in EU Directives and conduct medical age assessments aligned with recognized standards such as the AGFAD guidelines.

Predictors of successful treatment of respiratory distress with aerosolized calfactant.

INTRODUCTION: Predictors for successful aerosolized surfactant treatment are not well defined. OBJECTIVE: To identify predictors for successful treatment in the AERO-02 trial and the AERO-03 expanded access program. METHODS: Neonates receiving nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) at the time of first aerosolized calfactant administration were included in this analysis. Associations between demographic and clinical predictors to need for intubation were examined using univariate testing and multivariate logistic regression analyses. RESULTS: Three hundred and eighty infants were included in the study. Overall, 24% required rescue by intubation. Multivariate modeling revealed that the predictors of successful treatment were a gestational age ≥31 weeks, a respiratory severity score (RSS) of <1.9, and <2 previous aerosol treatments. CONCLUSION: Gestational age, number of aerosols, and RSS are predictive of successful treatment. These criteria will help select patients most likely to benefit from aerosolized surfactant.

Investigating the Timing and Extent of Juvenile and Fetal Bone Diagenesis in a Temperate Environment.

It is well understood that intrinsic factors of bone contribute to bone diagenesis, including bone porosity, crystallinity, and the ratio of organic to mineral components. However, histological analyses have largely been limited to adult bones, although with some exceptions. Considering that many of these properties are different between juvenile and adult bone, the purpose of this study is to investigate if these differences may result in increased degradation observed histologically in fetal and juvenile bone. Thirty-two fetal (n = 16) and juvenile (n = 16) Sus scrofa domesticus femora subject to different depositions over a period of two years were sectioned for histological observation. Degradation was scored using an adapted tunneling index. Results showed degradation related to microbial activity in both fetal and juvenile remains across depositions as early as three months. Buried juvenile remains consistently showed the greatest degradation over time, while the blanket fetal remains showed more minimal degradation. This is likely related to the buried remains' greater contact with surrounding soil and groundwater during deposition. Further, most of the degradation was seen in the subendosteal region, followed by the subperiosteal region, which may suggest the initial microbial attack is from endogenous sources.

Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal-Modern Human Interbreeding.

Ancient DNA from, Neandertal and modern human fossils, and comparative morphological analyses of them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between these lineages and the introgression of Neandertal genes into modern human genomes. Despite substantial increases in our knowledge of these events, the timing and geographic location of hybridization events remain unclear. Six measures of facial size and shape, from regional samples of Neandertals and early modern humans, were used in a multivariate exploratory analysis to try to identify regions in which early modern human facial morphology was more similar to that of Neandertals, which might thus represent regions of greater introgression of Neandertal genes. The results of canonical variates analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis suggest important affinities in facial morphology between both Middle and Upper Paleolithic early modern humans of the Near East with Neandertals, highlighting the importance of this region for interbreeding between the two lineages.

Recent Advances in Forensic Anthropological Methods and Research.

This Special Issue, "Recent Advances in Forensic Anthropological Methods and Research", with thirteen articles covers a wide range of highly diverse topics within forensic anthropology [...].

Identifying Blunt Force Traumatic Injury on Thermally Altered Remains: A Pilot Study Using Sus scrofa.

In forensic scenarios involving homicide, human remains are often exposed to fire as a means of disposal and/or obscuring identity. Burning human remains can result in the concealment of traumatic injury, the creation of artifacts resembling injury, or the destruction of preexisting trauma. Since fire exposure can greatly influence trauma preservation, methods to differentiate trauma signatures from burning artifacts are necessary to conduct forensic analyses. Specifically, in the field of forensic anthropology, criteria to distinguish trauma from fire signatures on bone is inconsistent and sparse. This study aims to supplement current forensic anthropological literature by identifying criteria found to be the most diagnostic of fire damage or blunt force trauma. Using the skulls of 11 adult pigs (Sus scrofa), blunt force trauma was manually produced using a crowbar and flat-faced hammer. Three specimens received no impacts and were utilized as controls. All skulls were relocated to an outdoor, open-air fire where they were burned until a calcined state was achieved across all samples. Results from this experiment found that blunt force trauma signatures remained after burning and were identifiable in all samples where reassociation of fragments was possible. This study concludes that distinct patterns attributed to thermal fractures and blunt force fractures are identifiable, allowing for diagnostic criteria to be narrowed down for future analyses.

Ethical dilemmas in skeletal collection utilization: Implications of the Black Lives Matter movement on the anatomical and anthropological sciences.

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has brought to the public eye longstanding issues of social and racial injustice which have permeated the experiences of individuals of African ancestry in the United States and abroad for centuries. Motivated by a desire to disassemble a framework of systemic racism, the BLM movement has infiltrated numerous social and political arenas including the sciences, demanding change. The impact of the BLM movement is evident in the attention recently garnered by protests of museum skeletal collections' acquisition and handling of African/African American human remains. It is from this vantage point that we explore the ethical issues pervasive within United States skeletal collections and forensically relevant issues surrounding the unclaimed decedents of marginalized populations; colonial/imperial ideological formations, which construct and sustain power differentials in anatomization; and conceive of a path forward that prioritizes personhood.

Technical Note: The Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) Map of Identified Osteological Collections.

Identified (documented) osteological collections represent an important resource in the development of forensic anthropology standards and methods as well as a precious tool for learning and training of practitioners. Even though the number of papers presenting identified collections worldwide increases, many of the collections have still not been divulged to the scientific community in sufficient detail to ascertain their exact number. The Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) therefore developed a tool that goes beyond sporadic publications: the FASE Map of Identified Osteological Collections, which is freely accessible and continuously updated and revised. The online map is available at http://forensicanthropology.eu/osteological-collections/. The map of skeletal collections was created in 2017 and currently displays information on 153 identified osteological collections (43 of them categorized as contemporary) located in 41 different countries. This article offers a short analysis of the type, geographical location and content of the collections included in the map. The aim of this article and the map as such is to provide a useful resource to facilitate research planning and teaching in forensic anthropology and related disciplines.

The need to incorporate human variation and evolutionary theory in forensic anthropology: A call for reform.

In 1992, Norm Sauer called for a language shift in which practitioners would move away from the socially loaded term "race" and replace it with the less provocative term "ancestry." While many heeded the call and moved towards ancestry in their research and reports, the actual approach to research and analysis did not change. In response to this change, there was a large growth in ancestry estimation method development in the early decade of the 2000s. However, the practice of ancestry estimation did not adequately incorporate evolutionary theory in interpretation or trait selection and continued with little critical reflection. In the past decade, there has been an increase in ancestry validation methods with little critique of the "race" concept or discussion of modern human variation or reference samples. To advance, forensic anthropologists need to reckon with the practice of ancestry estimation as it is currently practiced. We are calling for another reform in the axiom focusing on evolutionary theory, population history, trait selection, and population-level reference samples. The practice needs to abandon the terms ancestry and race completely and recalibrate to an analysis of population affinity. Population affinity is a statistical approach based on the underlying population structure that would allow the understanding of how microevolutionary forces act in concert with historical events (e.g., colonization, the Transatlantic Slave Trade, etc.) to shape modern human variation. This is not to be confused with geographic ancestry that all too often can be perceived as interchangeable with social race and as an affirmation of the biological concept of race. It is time to critically evaluate the social and scientific implications of the current practice of ancestry estimation, and re-frame our approach to studying and analyzing modern human variation through a population structure approach.

Ancestry Studies in Forensic Anthropology: Back on the Frontier of Racism.

One of the parameters forensic anthropologists have traditionally estimated is ancestry, which is used in the United States as a proxy for social race. Its use is controversial because the biological race concept was debunked by scientists decades ago. However, many forensic anthropologists contend, in part, that because social race categories used by law enforcement can be predicted by cranial variation, ancestry remains a necessary parameter for estimation. Here, we use content analysis of the Journal of Forensic Sciences for the period 2009-2019 to demonstrate the use of various nomenclature and resultant confusion in ancestry estimation studies, and as a mechanism to discuss how forensic anthropologists have eschewed a human variation approach to studying human morphological differences in favor of a simplistic and debunked typological one. Further, we employ modern geometric morphometric and spatial analysis methods on craniofacial coordinate anatomical landmarks from several Latin American samples to test the validity of applying the antiquated tri-continental approach to ancestry (i.e., African, Asian, European). Our results indicate groups are not patterned by the ancestry trifecta. These findings illustrate the benefit and necessity of embracing studies that employ population structure models to better understand human variation and the historical factors that have influenced it.

Strengthening the role of forensic anthropology in personal identification: Position statement by the Board of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE).

In this position statement, the Board members of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) argue that forensic anthropology methods can be used as means of personal identification, particularly in situations with limited availability of traditional identification methods (i.e. dactyloscopy, odontology, and molecular genetic analysis). This statement has been issued taking into account the international migration crises related to thousands of deaths worldwide, in which the utility of these traditional means of identification has been sporadic to non-existent. The statement is however not limited to deaths related to the migration crises, as similar problems may occur in fatalities en masse such as in natural disasters and armed conflicts, and on a smaller scale in cases of homeless or otherwise socioeconomically disadvantaged persons. The number of reports on personal identification based on sound anthropological methodology is increasing in the scientific literature. However, more research is needed to develop evidence-based standard operating procedures and statistical frameworks. It remains essential to raise awareness among forensic practitioners, law enforcement, and judiciary professionals on the utility of forensic anthropology in cases where it can provide sufficient information for identification.

Faces Divulge the Origins of Caribbean Prehistoric Inhabitants.

The origins of the first peoples to colonize the Caribbean Islands have been the subject of intense debate for over 30 years. Competing hypotheses have identified five separate migrations from the mainland with a separate debate concerning the colonization of The Bahamas. Significant differences in the facial morphology of the pre-Columbian inhabitants of Hispaniola and Cuba led to the present study of Lucayan skulls from The Bahamas. The goal was to determine which group the native Lucayans more closely resembled to resolve this long-standing dispute. The results indicate that they are related to groups from Hispaniola and Jamaica and not to Cuban inhabitants. This study clarified the larger picture of Caribbean migrations and supports evidence for a Carib invasion of the Greater Antilles around AD 800.

Patterns of ovarian cancer and uterine cancer mortality and incidence in the contiguous USA.

The main objective is to investigate the geographical variation in ovarian cancer and uterine cancer mortality, and to test associations between some risk factors and these cancer types in the contiguous US for mortality and for incidence. The modern disease surveillance software SaTScan™ was used for a spatial cluster analysis to assess any observable geographical variation in ovarian and uterine cancer mortality rates and to identify and test for spatial clusters with elevated relative risk. The analyses were first completed using age adjusted cancer rates for ovarian cancer and for uterine cancer. The cancer data was then adjusted for the risk factors (or covariates) obesity rate, smoking rate, urban, poverty rate, college education rate, race, opioids mortality rate, and for arsenic intake from well water rate. All used data for cancer mortality were for 2000-2014 while incidence data were for 2011-2015. There exist seven significant mortality clusters of ovarian cancer, with large clusters in NW, NE and SE of the US, and there exist two large mortality clusters of uterine cancer in NE and Central US. Most risk factors studied for mortality and for incidence were significant at significance levels much lower than 0.05 for either of the two cancer types, except race for ovarian cancer mortality and arsenic for ovarian incidence. This study has identified several important factors, and these findings could be used for a more effective search for cancer prevention for uterine and ovarian cancer. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY: The accuracy of the data could not be controlled as data were downloaded from websites. While the mortality data was complete, the incidence data had counties with missing data. The data were obtained at the county resolution. No data were available on women who had one type of cancer and then had the second type of cancer later in life. Only purely spatial clusters were studied and no temporal analysis was done.

Complex Nature of Hominin Dispersals: Ecogeographical and Climatic Evidence for Pre-Contact Craniofacial Variation.

Coordinate data analysis of ancient crania from the New World reveals complexity in interpretation when addressing ancient population dispersals. The results of this study generally support a geographic patterning for the New World; however, it also revealed a much more complex and multifactorial mechanism shaping craniofacial morphology that should be considered when investigating ecogeographic models for hominin dispersals. We show that craniofacial variation is not the result of a single mechanism but is a much more complex interaction of environmental and microevolutionary forces.

Morphology of the Homo naledi femora from Lesedi.

OBJECTIVES: The femoral remains recovered from the Lesedi Chamber are among the most complete South African fossil hominin femora discovered to date and offer new and valuable insights into the anatomy and variation of the bone in Homo naledi. While the femur is one of the best represented postcranial elements in the H. naledi assemblage from the Dinaledi Chamber, the fragmentary and commingled nature of the Dinaledi femoral remains has impeded the assessment of this element in its complete state. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Here we analyze and provide descriptions of three new relatively well-preserved femoral specimens of H. naledi from the Lesedi Chamber: U.W. 102a-001, U.W. 102a-003, and U.W. 102a-004. These femora are quantitatively and qualitatively compared to multiple extinct hominin femoral specimens, extant hominid taxa, and, where possible, each other. RESULTS: The Lesedi femora are morphologically similar to the Dinaledi femora for all overlapping regions, with differences limited to few traits of presently unknown significance. The Lesedi distal femur and mid-diaphysis preserve anatomy previously unidentified or unconfirmed in the species, including an anteroposteriorly expanded midshaft and anteriorly expanded patellar surface. The hypothesis that the Lesedi femoral sample may represent two individuals is supported. DISCUSSION: The Lesedi femora increase the range of variation of femoral morphology in H. naledi. Newly described features of the diaphysis and distal femur are either taxonomically uninformative or Homo-like. Overall, these three new femora are consistent with previous functional interpretations of the H. naledi lower limb as belonging to a species adapted for long distance walking and, possibly, running.

The Status of Forensic Anthropology in Europe and South Africa: Results of the 2016 FASE Questionnaire on Forensic Anthropology.

One of the goals of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) is to map the existing education and practice opportunities in the field of forensic anthropology in order to support the development of the discipline and to optimize the training courses provided by the Society. To address this goal, an online questionnaire was sent to European and South African practitioners of forensic anthropology and related disciplines in 2016. The results of the questionnaire showed that the status and roles of forensic anthropologists vary depending on the national legal systems, education, and employment status of the practitioners. Despite the fact that the expertise of forensic anthropologists has been increasingly requested in a variety of investigations and the spectrum of tasks has become broader, including identification of living persons, specialized education in forensic anthropology is still restricted to a few graduate and postgraduate programs in European countries and to annual FASE courses.

Bone Mineral Density Adult Age Estimation in Forensic Anthropology: A Test of the DXAGE Application.

Estimating age-at-death of individuals represented only by skeletonized human remains is a fundamental aspect of forensic anthropological casework. Recently, several researchers have proposed that bone mineral density (BMD) is a useful predictor of age-at-death in forensic contexts. Navega et al. (JFS 63(2):497-503) developed an online application called DXAGE for calculating age-at-death from BMD parameters. This study tests the utility of DXAGE by utilizing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). BMD data from a female subsample (n = 470) of the NHANES 2007-2008 dataset were analyzed, and the relationship between predicted age and real age was examined. Inaccuracy was 14.25 years, and bias was -7.20 years. Results show that there is a weak correlation between predicted and actual age (r = 0.47) using the DXAGE application. While BMD data are potentially useful for predicting age age-at-death, the DXAGE application should be used cautiously in forensic anthropological contexts.