What Does a Forensic Anthropologist Do?

Forensic anthropology is a branch of physical anthropology and modern forensic science. It applies theories and methods of physical anthropology and other related disciplines to study and solve the identification of personal characteristics involved in legal or judicial practice (legislative formulation, investigation, trial, etc.) Identification (such as race, gender, age, height, facial features, etc.) to provide evidence for case detection and trial. This subject is closely related to medicine (anatomy, histology, pathology), biology, zoology, archeology and other disciplines.

Forensic Anthropology

(Forensic Medicine Branch)

Forensic Anthropology is

(1) Morphological research methods: According to the morphological characteristics of bones, the morphology of bone specimens and samples are compared, and the species, race, age, gender, and height of bones are estimated. The principle is mainly applied to anatomy and organization. And anthropometric methods for individual identification of bones and bone fragments. When the morphological features of bones are damaged, the inspection materials shall be repaired according to archeological methods, and then the complete inspection of the repair shall be identified.

(2) Research methods of modern science and technology: The modern scientific and technological means of forensic anthropological judicial identification mainly refers to the application of DNA technology, computer technology, scanning electron microscopy, etc.

1. Morphological observation method : Through the observation of the morphology of various parts of the human body, we study the physical characteristics of humans in various eras and regions, such as skin color, hair color, eye color, eye shape, nose shape, mouth shape, ear shape, head shape, body shape, etc.

2. Anthropometrics : It is an important tool for physical anthropology research. It explores the characteristics, types, variations, and development laws of the human body by measuring the entire body and local measurements. Including skeletal measurement and living measurement.

3 Statistical methods: Statistics is the science of researching data collection, collation, analysis, and inference, and is an important means of understanding things. Statistical analysis is performed on the data obtained from morphological observation and anthropometric measurements in the study to determine the most representative values of human physical characteristics and the range of variation of physical characteristics, so as to provide scientific, medical, forensic, and manufacturing industries with scientific data. The study of statistics in physical anthropology often includes four steps: (1) designing (2) collecting data (3) collating data (4) statistical analysis data.

4. Chronometry: It is mainly to elucidate the history of human occurrence and development by dating the ancient human fossils and their remains. Utilizing the principle of constant decay of the nucleus of radioactive elements, the age of the fossils is inferred through the determination of the radioactive elements of the fossils. For the determination of the absolute age of human fossils, the commonly used methods include the 14C method, the potassium-argon method, the uranium-based method, the electron spin resonance method, the thermoluminescence method, the amino acid racemization method, and the like. For example, the 14C method is mainly used to determine the date of organic fossils with high carbon content such as trees and bones, and the potassium-argon method and uranium series method are used to determine the date of rocks.

5. Physiological methods: The use of physiological methods to study the physical characteristics of different races and different populations, such as the study of various blood types, fingerprint research, blood pressure measurement, and hemoglobin measurement, is of great significance to the study of human physique. For example, fingerprints have different distributions in different races. In yellow people's fingerprints, bow patterns are rare, and bucket patterns are more common. For black people, bow patterns are more common, and bucket patterns are more common. Less; in whites, the proportion of arched lines and bucket lines is similar.

Blood type has a clear relationship with race. Blood type is inherited to offspring in a simple and clear form, and will not be changed by the influence of the environment. Moreover, blood types are significantly different in different races. ABO blood types are distributed differently in different populations:

On average, 40% of Europeans have type O blood, 40% are type A, and 15% are type B. 5% is AB type.

American Indians are almost all type O blood.

Type B blood is higher in Asia. For example, Beijing, China, type O accounts for 30%, type A accounts for 25%, type B accounts for 35%, and type AB accounts for 10%.

6. Molecular biology methods: mainly used to study and explore the evolution of living things and the origin of humans. For example, research in molecular biology has proven that from the simplest virus to humans, the material basis for determining heredity is nucleic acid, and uses the same set of genetic codes A, T, G, and C; in addition, all proteins in the organism are composed of 20 Amino acid composition. In the past, differences in proteins, such as serum enzymes, were used to study genetic relationships between species and human populations. With the development of molecular biology technology, it has been developed to study the evolution of organisms and the origin of humans at the genetic level.