Forensic Anthropology Syllabus

Diversifying Forensic Anthropology

Course description

Forensic anthropology is a subdiscipline of biological anthropology, a field with a deep colonial history steeped in typological research, race creation, and racism. In the present day, forensic anthropology in the United States is, by definition, embedded within the legal system. This course will serve as an introduction to the methods, scope of practice, and historical development of forensic anthropology from a perspective of decolonization and diversification. We will discuss laboratory and field methods of human remains recovery, skeletal analysis, and personal identification. Readings will emphasize the need for diverse perspectives in evaluating methods. We will pay particular attention to studying human variation and sex estimation and the limits of information regarding personal identity that can be obtained from the skeleton.

Diversifying forensic anthropology – purpose of this syllabus

This course is intended to interrogate the position of forensic anthropology as both an historical entity and a modern practice. This syllabus document provides a framework for teaching forensic anthropology from a perspective that promotes diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice. The syllabus can be adjusted depending on scheduling, access to teaching collections, departmental requirements, and course level. Course topics are organized into 15 modular topics so that the instructor can choose the order of delivery. Each module contains a suggested list of readings; however additional readings can be added or substituted from https://sites.google.com/view/forensic-anthropology-comm/citationsreferences?authuser=4. This is a living list of resources that was initially developed alongside this course. For additional resources on the pedagogy of decolonized and diversified courses please see the link above, as well as:

• Lindsay, J. (2020). Decolonizing the Curriculum. Academic Questions, 33(3), 448-454.

• Mogstad, H., & Tse, L. S. (2018). Decolonizing Anthropology: Reflections from Cambridge. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 36(2), 53-72.

There are also many great web resources on diverse teaching:

• ACUE Inclusive Teaching Toolkit: https://acue.org/inclusive-teaching-practices-toolkit/

• Checklist for Designing an Inclusive Syllabus: https://www.mtholyoke.edu/sites/default/files/TLI-TEFD-Checklist-Inclusive-Syllabus-20180613.pdf

• The Social Justice Syllabus Design Tool: A First Step in Doing Social Justice Pedagogy: https://journals.shareok.org/jcscore/article/view/87

Suggestions to the instructor for course structure and expectations

• Weekly structure: In order to get the most out of readings it is suggested that about 40% of class time be devoted to active discussion depending on course level.

• Assessment methods: This course is intended to allow students to explore multiple approaches and perspectives within forensic anthropology. Assessing student learning through written responses and essays, student-led discussions, and in-class presentation of ideas is recommended over formal quizzes and exams. Additionally, instructors may want to consider alternate methods of assessing students that may include the Unessay and Ungrading. Such methods of assessing academic achievement are more inclusive of a diverse study body with different lived experiences.

  • See this website for resources on the Unessay: https://marckissel.netlify.app/post/on-the-unessay/

  • See also the book by Susan Blum on Ungrading: https://wvupressonline.com/node/844

• Readings: The volume of readings supplied would be reasonable for a graduate course, but likely excessive for most undergraduate courses. Reduce readings as appropriate by course level.

• Representation Matters: While we have attempted to include a range of scholars in the suggested readings here, it is also important that students see scholars and representation within lectures and other course materials. This website has provided illustrations for biological anthropologists to use in lectures: https://anthroillustrated.com/?fbclid=IwAR19St_tFfwNLrg3_f-hioEitHBWZ3pty9bmciDezeb7VwMSdplogirYFuk. We encourage instructors to consider representation when preparing lectures and choosing videos or other materials to share in the classroom.

• To follow the current debate within forensic anthropology over the practice of ancestry/population affinity estimation, we provide two alternatives for instructors. A week where the critiques and topics/methods are discussed, as well as a week in which only critiques are presented as well as how human variation can be studied in a way that is hypothesis driven and not typological. There is debate over whether methods for ancestry/population affinity estimation should even be introduced at the undergraduate level, as the vast majority of these students will not go on to become practicing forensic anthropologists; therefore, the potential harm of the other students to misinterpret the concepts as legitimizing the biological race concept outweighs the benefit to a few to learn these methods early in their careers. The following articles also provide suggestions for teaching around race in the undergraduate classroom:

  • Hubbard, A. R. (2017). Testing common misconceptions about the nature of human racial variation. The American Biology Teacher, 79(7), 538-543.

  • Hubbard, A. R. (2017). Teaching race (bioculturally) matters: A visual approach for college biology courses. The American Biology Teacher, 79(7), 516-524.

Suggestions to the instructor for additional syllabus sections (samples given at the end of the syllabus)

• University land acknowledgement

• Statement on disability and accommodations

• Statement on diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice

• Statement on academic integrity

• Statement on Title IX

• Statement on immigration status

• Statement on personal pronouns

• Communication policy

Learning objectives

A. Understand the basic principles guiding forensic anthropological research and methods and be able to evaluate forensic case studies

B. Describe fundamental forensic archaeology methods and forensic taphonomy as they pertain to the recovery and interpretation of human remains from outdoor scenes.

C. Understand the contexts in which forensic anthropologists work and the legal framework in which they serve as expert witnesses.

D. In discussion and written work, critically apply concepts central to ethical practice within the discipline and understand ethical practice in response to collections, skeletal curation, and repatriation. Additionally, to be aware of the ethics standards of major professional organizations, and know your obligation to each.

E. Examine the concepts of race and ancestry and how they do and do not relate to population affinity/ancestry estimation in forensic anthropology and the social implications of the examination of these concepts.

F. Compare and contrast the meaning and assessment of gender and skeletal sex and how they do and do not relate to sex estimates in forensic anthropology.

G. Recognize the effects that systemic racism in the legal system has on arrests, convictions, incarcerations, and the death penalty.

Readings

Albanese, J., & Saunders, S. R. (2006). Is it possible to escape racial typology in forensic identification?. In Forensic anthropology and medicine (pp. 281-316). Humana Press.

Albanese, J., Osley, S. E., & Tuck, A. (2016). Do group-specific equations provide the best estimates of stature?. Forensic science international, 261, 154-158.

Blakey, M.L. (2020). Understanding racism in physical (biological) anthropology. American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Early View, 1-10.

Bethard, J. D., & DiGangi, E. A. (2019). From the laboratory to the witness stand: research trends and method validation in forensic anthropology. Forensic anthropology and the United States judicial system, 41-52.

Bethard, J.D., & DiGangi, E.A. (2020). Letter to the Editor—Moving beyond a lost cause: Forensic anthropology and ancestry estimates in the United States. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 65(5), 1791-1792.

Blau, S. (2015). Working as a forensic archaeologist and/or anthropologist in post-conflict contexts: A consideration of professional responsibilities to the missing, the dead and their relatives. In Ethics and the Archaeology of Violence (pp. 215-228). Springer, New York, NY.

Blau, S., & Briggs, C. A. (2011). The role of forensic anthropology in Disaster Victim Identification (DVI). Forensic science international, 205(1-3), 29-35.

Boyd, C., & Boyd, D. C. (2011). Theory and the scientific basis for forensic anthropology. Journal of forensic sciences, 56(6), 1407-1415.

Buikstra, J.E. (2019). Ortner's Identification of Pathological Conditions in Human Skeletal Remains. Academic Press.

Cho, H., Stout, S. D., Madsen, R. W., & Streeter, M. A. (2002). Population-specific histological age-estimating method: a model for known African-American and European-American skeletal remains. Journal of Forensic Science, 47(1), 12-18.

Cordner, S., & Tidball-Binz, M. (2017). Humanitarian forensic action—Its origins and future. Forensic science international, 279, 65-71.

Corron, L., Marchal, F., Condemi, S., Chaumoître, K., & Adalian, P. (2017). A new approach of juvenile age estimation using measurements of the ilium and multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS) models for better age prediction. Journal of forensic sciences, 62(1), 18-29.

de Boer, H. H., Blau, S., Delabarde, T., & Hackman, L. (2019). The role of forensic anthropology in disaster victim identification (DVI): recent developments and future prospects. Forensic sciences research, 4(4), 303-315.

de la Cova, C. (2010). Cultural patterns of trauma among 19th‐century‐born males in cadaver collections. American Anthropologist, 112(4), 589-606.

DiGangi, E. A., and Bethard, J. D. (Early View). Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States. American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

Dupras, T. L., Schultz, J. J., Wheeler, S. M., & Williams, L. J. (2011). Forensic recovery of human remains: archaeological approaches. CRC Press.

Dunn, R.R., Spiros, M.C., Kamnikar, K.R., Plemons, A.M., & Hefner, J.T. (2020). Ancestry estimation in forensic anthropology: A review. WIREs Forensic Science, 2(4), 1-26.

Getz, S. M. (2020). The use of transition analysis in skeletal age estimation. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Forensic Science, 2(6), e1378.

Goad, G. (2020). Expanding Humanitarian Forensic Action: An Approach to US Cold Cases. Forensic Anthropology, 3(1), 50-59.

Gravlee, C. C. (2009). How race becomes biology: embodiment of social inequality. American journal of physical anthropology, 139(1), 47-57.

Grivas, C. R., & Komar, D. A. (2008). Kumho, Daubert, and the nature of scientific inquiry: implications for forensic anthropology. Journal of forensic sciences, 53(4), 771-776.

Hochman, A. (early view). Janus-faced race: Is race biological, social, or mythical? American Journal of Physical Anthropology, .

Imaizumi, K. (2015). Forensic investigation of burnt human remains. Research and Reports in Forensic Medical Science, 5, 67-74.

Jantz, R. L., & Ousley, S. D. (2020). Sexual dimorphism variation in Fordisc samples. In Sex Estimation of the Human Skeleton (pp. 185-200). Academic Press.

Keita, S.Omar.Y., Kittles, R.A., Royal, C.D.M., Bonney, G.E., Furbert-Harris, P., Dunston, G.M., Rotimi, C.N. (2004). Conceptualizing human variation. Nature Genetics, 36, S17-S20.

Kimmerle, E. H. (2014). Practicing forensic anthropology: a human rights approach to the global problem of missing and unidentified persons. Annals of Anthropological Practice, 38(1), 1-6.

Klales, A. R. (2020). Sex estimation using pelvis morphology. In Sex Estimation of the Human Skeleton (pp. 75-93). Academic Press.

Krishan, K., Kanchan, T., Menezes, R. G., & Ghosh, A. (2012). Forensic anthropology casework—essential methodological considerations in stature estimation. Journal of forensic nursing, 8(1), 45-50.

Lambert, P. M., & Walker, P. L. (2018). Bioarchaeological ethics: Perspectives on the use and value of human remains in scientific research. Biological anthropology of the human skeleton, 1.

Liversidge, H. (2008). Dental age revisited. In Technique and application in dental anthropology, 53, 234. Cambridge University Press.

Mundorff, A. Z. (2012). Integrating forensic anthropology into disaster victim identification. Forensic science, medicine, and pathology, 8(2), 131-139.

Nakhaeizadeh, S., Hanson, I., & Dozzi, N. (2014). The power of contextual effects in forensic anthropology: a study of biasability in the visual interpretations of trauma analysis on skeletal remains. Journal of forensic sciences, 59(5), 1177-1183.

Nakhaeizadeh, S., Morgan, R. M., Rando, C., & Dror, I. E. (2018). Cascading bias of initial exposure to information at the crime scene to the subsequent evaluation of skeletal remains. Journal of forensic sciences, 63(2), 403-411.

Ousley, S., Jantz, R.L., & Hefner, J.T. (2018). From Blumenbach to Howells: The slow, painful emergence of theory through forensic race estimation. In Forensic Anthropology: Theoretical Framework and Scientific Basis (pp. 67-97). John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, NJ.

Passalacqua, N. V., & Pilloud, M. A. (2018). Ethics and professionalism in forensic anthropology. Academic Press.

Rodríguez-Martín, Conrado. "Identification and differential diagnosis of traumatic lesions of the skeleton." In Forensic Anthropology and Medicine, pp. 197-221. Humana Press, 2006.

Sauer, N.J. (1992). Forensic anthropology and the concept of race: If races don't exist, why are forensic anthropologists so good at identifying them? Social Science & Medicine, 34(2), 107-111.

Schall, J. L., Rogers, T. L., & Deschamps-Braly, J. C. (2020). Breaking the binary: The identification of trans-women in forensic anthropology. Forensic science international, 309, 110220.

Sincerbox, S. N., & DiGangi, E. A. (2017). Forensic taphonomy and ecology of North American scavengers. Academic Press.

Smith, R. J., Levinson, J. D., & Robinson, Z. (2014). Implicit white favoritism in the criminal justice system. Ala. L. Rev., 66, 871.

Sofaer, D. J. (2006). Sex and gender. In The Body as Material Culture (pp. 89-116). Cambridge University Press.

Steadman, D. W., Adams, B. J., & Konigsberg, L. W. (2006). Statistical basis for positive identification in forensic anthropology. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 131(1), 15-26.

Stubblefield, P. R. (2011). The anatomical diaspora: evidence of early American anatomical traditions in North Dakota. Journal of forensic sciences, 56(5), 1324-1327.

Stull, K.E., Bartelink, E.J., Klales, A.R., Berg, G.E., Kenyhercz, M.W., L’Abbé, E.N., Go; M.C., McCormick, K., & Mariscal, C. (2020). Commentary on: Bethard JD, DiGangi EA. Letter to the Editor—Moving beyond a lost cause: Forensic anthropology and ancestry estimates in the United States.. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 66(1), 417-420.

Tallman, S., Kincer, C., and Plemons, E. (In press). Centering transgender individuals in forensic anthropology and expanding binary sex estimmaion in casework and research. Forensic Anthropology.

Turner, T. R., Wagner, J. K., & Cabana, G. S. (2018). Ethics in biological anthropology. American journal of physical anthropology, 165(4), 939.

Ubelaker, D. H., Shamlou, A., & Kunkle, A. E. (2019). Forensic anthropology in the global investigation of humanitarian and human rights abuse: Perspective from the published record. Science & Justice, 59(2), 203-209.

Ubelaker, D. (2020). The Historical Development of Forensic Anthropology. Forensic Anthropology, 3(3), 164–170.

Waldron, T. (2008). Palaeopathology (Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology). Cambridge: Cambridge University.

Warren, C. P. (1977). Forensic anthropology—theory and practice. Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. 87, 83-89.

Warren, C. P. (1978). Personal identification of human remains: an overview. Journal of Forensic Science, 23(2), 388-395.

Washburn, S.L. (1951). The New Physical Anthropology. Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences. (13)7, 298-304.

Winburn, A. P., Jennings, A. L., Steadman, D. W., and DiGangi, E. A. (2020). Ancestral Diversity in Skeletal Collections. Forensic Anthropology (DOI: 10.5744/fa.2020.1023).