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Hidden Problems in Identifying Unknown Skeletons in the Southeastern United States (From Forensic Osteology, P 24-32, 1986, Kathleen J Reichs, ed. - See NCJ-103038)

NCJ Number
103040
Author(s)
L M Robbins
Date Published
1986
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Selected cases illustrate problems encountered by forensic anthropologists in identifying unknown skeletons found in the Southern and Southeastern United States.
Abstract
These cases involved remains plowed up by pigs in a field, washed from a river bank and subsequently reburied, uncovered during archeological surveys, used to verify the identity of a missing person, and used to substantiate a murder confession. In each of these cases, investigation was complicated by such nonbiological factors as kinship relations, political power in the community, artifact and animal bone found with the human bone, the soil composition and configuration in which the body was interred, and the effects of cultural practices such as tobacco chewing. The methodologies of the ethnographer, archeologist, ethnohistorian, archeologist, and physical onthropolist are used to solve such cases. By considering both biological and cultural dimensions, the forensic anthropologist is better able to provide law enforcement agencies with data pertinent to a case.