Forensic Archaeology and Forensic Taphonomy: Basic Considerations on how to Properly Process and Interpret the Outdoor Forensic Scene.

Medicolegal death investigation requires a multidisciplinary approach to the collection of data from the crime scene to the autopsy table. Law enforcement processing of the indoor crime scene works extremely well for documenting evidence and producing reconstructions of past events. However, outdoor crime scenes require a new set of scene processing protocols - a need primarily derived from the wider array of natural agents, such as plants, animals, soil chemicals, or environmental conditions that will affect the evidence after burial or deposition outdoors. Forensic archaeology provides the principles, practices, and protocols for documenting and analyzing this type of evidence at a variety of outdoor and other complex crime scenes, including large-scale scene searches, surface-scattered remains, buried body features, fatal fires, and mass disaster scenes. Scene recovery protocols require 1) documentation of the context of the scene, including specific location, local flora and fauna, and geological, geographic, and environmental factors and conditions and 2) detailed notation of the spatial distribution of the evidence in order to establish association of evidence to other evidence and to a particular incident. The discipline of forensic taphonomy provides the techniques and conceptual framework to combine these scene-derived data with laboratory analysis of the biological tissues in order to build and test scientific hypotheses regarding the events surrounding death and deposition. The primary assessments resulting from a forensic taphonomic interpretation include scientific estimates of postmortem interval; whether and how remains have been moved, removed, or altered; and ultimately, whether there is an indication of human intervention.

Asymmetry of the os pubis: implications for the Suchey-Brooks method.

Studies of skeletal development frequently document populational incidences of bilateral asymmetry. Degenerative morphological skeletal changes, attributed to age related and irregular ossification, may also progress asymmetrically, either as the result of asymmetric biomechanical factors expressed over the lifespan, asymmetric expression of physiological processes, or progressive magnification of asymmetry acquired previously during development. This study illustrates the effects of bilateral asymmetry on age at death estimates obtained from human skeletal remains. The Suchey-Brooks method, which uses the pubic symphyseal face for age estimation (Katz and Suchey, Am J Phys Anthropol 69 1986 427-435), was selected for the study based on its widespread use. Asymmetry in the Suchey-Brooks symphyseal age phases was found in over 60% of a sample composed of 20th century White male individuals from 18 to 86 years of age (N = 130). However, results suggest that the presence of asymmetry does not compromise the accuracy of the Suchey-Brooks method if the morphologically older symphyseal face of an asymmetric individual is used to estimate age at death. In addition, weak directional asymmetry and a correlation between age and asymmetry were found. This suggests that a comparison of asymmetry in this area with that in other skeletal areas, where the factors originating and influencing asymmetry are better understood, may be useful in better understanding the biological processes which underlie the age markers used in the Suchey-Brooks method.

New perspectives in forensic anthropology.

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 forensic anthropologists, and their perception of what can be considered a legitimate question or problem to be answered within the field.