ANTH 1010: Week 8 Lecture
Week Eight: Tuesday, March 5, 2019
This week’s lecture on subfields of biological anthropology the focus was on forensic anthropology, which is the use of human osteology and archaeology to legal investigation of human remains. A large point of focus was trauma; the different aspects of trauma, the nature of trauma, the importance of the location and pattern of trauma and so forth. We also spoke briefly about forensic entomology or the use of insects and other bug activity in a body to determine time of death.
In relation to the nature of trauma, we talked about the three different time classifications used to describe the time in which an injury or trauma was sustained by the victim. First, there was an antemortem trauma which is an injury that occurred sometime before the victim’s death and therefore an anthropologist would be able to clearly see remodeling on the bone. Second, there was a perimortem trauma which is an injury that occurred right before the death of the victim and could possibly also serve as cause of death. Some characteristics of a perimortem trauma include sharp edges surrounding the injury, hinging, fracture lines, and hematoma staining. The final one was postmortem trauma which is an injury that occurred after the victim had already died, an example of this would be cut marks on the bone of a victim that was dismembered by their killer. Some characteristics of a postmortem trauma include clean edged wounds, no hinging, and very little evidence of fracture lines.
We also talked about the location and pattern of trauma and how it can help a forensic anthropologist determine a great number of different details about the manner of the individual’s death. You could tell from the location and pattern of a trauma whether the wound was self inflicted or not, if it was accidental or done on purpose, and the sequence in which the injuries were sustained which would help establish a sequence of events.
