Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Sing (1972)
provided regression equations for crown
e
rump length from 50 fetuses. The age
estimation of subadult remains is addressed by Uhl (Chapter 3), this volume.
CASE STUDIES: STATURE ESTIMATION
Case Study: Colombia
The forensic anthropologists in Colombia each see hundreds of cases each year; as a result,
they have very little time to conduct independent research. There are currently no population
standards in common use for stature, sex, or age estimation for modern Colombians. To esti-
mate stature for forensic cases, Colombian scientists typically resort to the
Trotter and Gleser
(1952, 1958)
“Mongoloid” or the Genov
´
s (1967) Mesoamerican formulae for females. Neither
of these population samples accurately reflects the population of modern Colombians who
exhibit a high degree of mixed ancestry (Indigenous, European, African), and many of
whom (particularly the population from which the majority of forensic cases are drawn)
have environmental and sociocultural obstacles, such as proper nutrition and access to
medical care.
Starting in 2009, a Colombian forensic anthropologist named Dr. C´sar Sanabria decided
to remedy this problem by developing a known modern Colombian skeletal collection.
Working for the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences in Bogot´ , he con-
tacted local cemeteries and received permission to curate those individuals unclaimed by
family members after the standard 4-year burial period had elapsed. The alternative fate
of unclaimed remains is cremation or the bones are placed in an ossuary (Sanabria and
DiGangi, 2011). (Remains that are “claimed” in this sense are those for which family members
continue to pay fees to the cemetery for burial.) This is a common practice in cemeteries
around the world. Sanabria and the Institute were granted permission to curate the skeletal
remains for use as a study collection (unless a family member were to come forward to claim
the remains). This is one of the largest modern collections of identified human skeletal
remains in South America and has the potential to provide a wealth of information about
the modern Colombian population.
In February of 2011, a team of four American anthropologists and 30 Colombian forensic
anthropologists, odontologists, and pathologists convened in Bogot
´
to conduct a massive
research endeavor utilizing the new Colombian Modern Skeletal Collection. The researchers
split into separate teams to collect the various types of skeletal data (i.e., craniometrics, postcra-
nial metrics, sexing, aging, etc.). The first author of this chapter helped to organize the postcra-
nial metrics team. All of the measurements were taken according to procedures outlined in
Buikstra and Ubelaker's
Standards for Data Collection from Human Skeletal Remains
(1994). All
of the descriptions had been translated into Spanish for this endeavor. Each of the seven
researchers on the postcranial metrics teamwas responsible for a separate task. Two researchers
measured all of the bones of a subset of 30 individuals, in order to provide an estimate of inter-
observer error, one researcher measured all of the tibiae and fibulae, another researcher
measured the humeri, radii, and ulnae, etc. Each bone was measured three times by a single
researcher and the average measurement was then recorded. At the end of each day, the
