Describe the forensic anthropology techniques that were used for identification
****CASE STUDIES is below****
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold (2003)
In her book Written in Bone, Sally Walker describes how in 2003, Dr. Douglas Owsley, a forensic anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution, “reached into the graves” of the earliest colonists of Jamestown, Virginia. Their life stories are “written in their bones.” One of those graves is believed to belong to Bartholomew Gosnold, a lawyer, explorer, and one of the captains of the three ships that landed at the Jamestown Settlement in 1607. Bartholomew Gosnold died in 1607 and was buried with the iron tip of a staff used by the seventeenth-century British military. This staff, along with other evidence and artifacts found in the grave, helped establish the age of the gravesite and his military connection.
The well-preserved skeletal remains were found in sandy soil. The shape of the gravesite indicated the captain was buried in a coffin, which meant he was a person with high status. Only discolored soil remained from the rotted wood of the coffin. Green stains in the soil remained from the oxidation of the copper shroud pins that wrapped the body.
Dr. Owsley and his team were able to “read the bones” of Captain Gosnold and inferred the following details.
Sex: male, based on pelvis shape
Age: between 33 and 39 years, based on the caps fused (epiphyses) with the shafts (diaphyses) of his long bones and other bone fusion sites, combined with evidence of arthritis in his spine and right arm
Height: approximately 5 feet, 3 inches, based on the length of his leg bones
Right-handed: based on the greater development of bones in the right arm than in the left arm
Slender build: based on bone size
Type of work: based on bone size, indicative of an active man but not one who did heavy labor
Facial features: based on bone structure, a large broad nose and a small square chin
Dental health: loss of one tooth during his life as evidenced by a healed jaw
Bone health: mostly good other than healed ankle fractures
Physical health: chronic nasal infection evidenced by the extra bone formation inside the nasal cavity. Otherwise, he was apparently in good health.
