Table of ContentsIntroductionVisual analysis of the skeletonBiological assessment of sex via the skullAssessment of ancestry via the skullAlternative methodsConclusionIntroductionSeason 8, episode 11: "The Archaeologist in the Cocoon", episode of the Bones series, begins with the discovery of a body wrapped in a cocoon. This cocoon hangs from a tree branch next to a man who was caught in the tree while skydiving, claims the victim is human. of the prominent brow bone as well as the sloping frontal bone found on the face of the body discovered in the cocoon. The remains were discovered after being left inside the cocoon for several days.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made trial. on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay The crime scene is set up to make it look like an accident with the inclusion of a wrecked car. The car turned out to be clean. There were no visible traces of blood spilled inside the vehicle, visible at first glance. After opening the car seats and examining the interior, it is discovered that they are completely soaked in blood. The vehicle is registered to Mr James Sutton, adventurer and archaeologist. By comparing medical records to x-rays of the victim's face provided by his doctor, the remains are ultimately identified as him. After speaking with the victim's wife and brother, it is discovered that the victim rented storage space and had brought an important find to the United States. Ancient bones were found in the storage unit. Once the bones were returned to the laboratory, it turned out to be the bones of a Neanderthal man, a homo sapiens woman and half homo sapiens, half a girl of Neanderthal. Showing that they cohabited in the cave they were found in, they were the first interspecific pair of their species. It is then discovered that Sutton was selling artifacts to a creationist who owned a museum but never actually placed the artifacts there. Upon learning that the victim was whipped because his wife's family was unhappy with their marriage, the victim's brother-in-law becomes the prime suspect. However, he is not the murderer. The killer turned out to be the victim's editor, who killed him because he published an article in a scientific journal and did not mention his name. She attacked him with a bookend, cutting his armpit and causing him to bleed to death. The episode ends with the story of the last moments of the ancient family whose bones were found by Sutton. The father died trying to protect his family, the mother died, and the daughter died of starvation. They all died curled up and that's how Sutton discovered them in the cave. Visual analysis of the skeletonDr. Brennan immediately determines that the remains are not only human, but also those of an adult Caucasian male by pointing out his prominent brow ridge and the angled frontal bone on the skull. As a professional forensic anthropologist, Dr. Brennan has a trained eye for looking for certain traits in human bones, such as in the face or pelvis, to determine biological sex and makes assumptions about these traits. In this episode, as in most episodes. , Dr. Brennan simply visually examines the bones to determine their biological profile. Regarding the human skull specifically for this article, it should be noted that biological sex determination and ancestry determination through visual assessment of the skull are two distinct techniques based on morphology but, due to their brief cross-interaction in the series and therelationship that skeletal remains have with spatial and temporal determination bias; This article will explore each method, at least in some detail. Biological assessment of sex via the skull The idea of ​​sexing skulls by visual analysis was first recorded by Broca in 1875 and Acsádi and Nemeskéri followed in 1970 by creating a digital system for assessing skulls of European ancestry, which the authors will expand in future published work to include different populations. It was Buikstra and Ubelaker (1994) who standardized skull visualization assessments. Walker (2008) expanded on these articles and data by digitizing their illustrations into diagrams and allowing volunteers not trained in forensic science or osteology to use that diagram to decide whether the remains were male or female. The diagram used contains a notation system alongside the labeling of the skulls. their mental eminence, their orbital margin, their glabellar zone, their nuchal zone and their mastoid process. All it takes for this method to work is the eye of a professional with training in skeletal anatomy and human osteology. “Physical anthropologists traditionally base their assessments of skeletal sex primarily on subjective visual assessments of sexually dimorphic features of the skull and pelvis (Walker, 2008). human skull to assume the sex of the remains and since it lacks initial quantitative data or anthropometric tools, it is a morphological method rather than a metric method. While Acsádi and Nemeskéri's 1970 work was originally based on a small sample of European ancestry/population, Walker adds to this by including "304 skulls of known age and sex from people of European ancestry European-American, African-American and English, as well as on an ancient Native American sample of 156 individuals (2008). » The small population or ancestry-based study The sample comes from the selection of skeletons from a church, a Smithsonian institution, and a natural history museum. Walker uses a wide geographic range of samples to remove any geographic bias from the method and enhance its precision (2008). Different periods of history and geographic regions cause different patterns of sexual dimorphism to vary greatly. Traits that are sexually dimorphic in one population may be much less so in another and this can change rapidly over a period of a few decades (Walker, 2008). Over time, biases can affect population sample sizes or steer criminal investigations in the wrong directions. direction. Despite the informal process of visually observing the skull with the naked eye, volunteers in Walker's study achieved high scores using the diagram originally created by Buikstra and Ubelaker and updated by Walker. The scores of modern human samples were close to those obtained with discriminant function analysis (DFA). Assessing Ancestry via the Skull Measuring the human skull can be traced back to the early days of anthropometry. But Dr. William W. Howell created the skull dataset that is still used today. Although the actual technique of assessing ancestry via the skull may be metric or non-metric, Howell's version was metric. Howells (1996) took sample measurements on a total of two thousand five hundred and twenty-four human skulls from twenty-eight different populations for males and females. twenty-six for women. Howells collected these samples between 1965 and 1980. The sample in Howells' (1996) study wasof two thousand five hundred and four specimens. Of these specimens, one thousand three hundred and forty-eight were known or diagnosed as male and one thousand one hundred and fifty-six were known or diagnosed as female. All these specimens of known sex were collected during dissections. room collections. This set of measurements also includes five hundred and twenty-four “test” specimens. These specimens include additional rejects of prehistoric samples and casts of prehistoric skulls. To do this, Howell used both training in physical anthropology and measurements taken at sites in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific. Howell took these measurements from complete skulls. Although I'm not completely sure of the accuracy of this, William W. Howells' craniometric data set is still used today by forensic and physical anthropologists. If it wasn't at least partly accurate, it wouldn't still be in use today. Since Dr. Brennan was not allowed to cut significantly into the cocoon, initially only allowing visibility of the front of the skull that was protruding outside of the cocoon that was attached. in a very tall tree, I suppose assessing the initial biological profile by examining the skull was his best course of action. Only because the skull was the only visible part of the remains and the body was initially impossible to move. Once the body is removed from the tree, the skull is x-rayed and the body is positively identified, confirming his initial suspicions. These were appropriate choices, however, later in the episode, Dr. Brennan finds a storage room full of unidentified bones that belonged to the victim. She then proceeded to lick the bones to discover their porosity and their geological origin. This was not an appropriate choice, and in no professional situation should you lick bones. That being said, people lick bones to know if they are bones or not, I have seen it done. For added entertainment, the body was wrapped in a cocoon, this is an extremely unusual (if not entirely impossible) occurrence and had no forensic need to be. locked up so high in a tree. This was to create additional shock value: the life and career of a forensic anthropologist probably isn't that exciting. At least in the sense that it's not every day you get called because a body was found in a cocoon in a tree. Alternative Methods I'm not sure there would have been a better method in stating that the body in the cocoon was human, at least not at the time Dr. Brenan first stated that it was. At that point, only the skull was exposed, so that's the only way she could decide. Immediately stating that the body was that of an adult white male is another story. I don't think you can decide so quickly that a body belongs to a certain race or gender. However, I found a few quotes that seem to prove me wrong. However, the citations perhaps mean it can be done with more evidence. “A competent eye and practiced judgment are the most valuable tools for a forensic anthropologist. Increasing experience will enable him to make sense of small pieces of evidence.” (Hinkes 1993: 52) “Anthroposcopy appears to be as accurate as anthropometry when in experienced hands and when many features are used.” (Rhine 1990: 19) "Sometimes it is only the anthropologist's experience that tells him that there is an indefinable 'something' in the skeleton that suggests one race rather than another." (Stewart 1979: 231).