• Question: Do you specialised in certain types of bones or just any types.

    Asked by tucker2011 to Anna on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Anna Williams

      Anna Williams answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      Hi Tucker2011, thanks for the question!
      Well, as a forensic anthropologist, I am mostly interested in human bones. I need to know a bit about animal bones too, so that I can tell the difference between animal bones and human bones. This is because, usually, if someone has found some animal bones, it is usually not a forensic case – ie the police don’t have to start a murder investigation if the bones turn out to be not human but a sheep or dog or something. Animal bones COULD mean a forensic case if the bones were from a really rare endangered animal and it was a criminal case about that, but then you would employ a zoologist.

      As far as human bones go, I don’t specialise in any – a good anthropologist has to be able to identify ANY human bone, even from a tiny fragment which might be very badly damaged or burnt for example. I do do some research in skull fractures particularly – I look at what makes fractures go through certain parts of the skull when someone is hit on the head.

Comments

  • Photo: dino123aoife

    dino123aoife commented on :

    Do you ever get scared or nervous before going to a crime scene?
    And is it difficult to separate different people’s bones if they are all jumbled up together?
    Sorry! I know this isn’t my zone but i think forensics is interesting! = )

  • Photo: Anna

    Anna commented on :

    Hello dino123oife,
    I am sorry – I answered this question a fe days ago, but it doesn’t seem to have saved.

    I do get nervous going to a crime scene, but it is more about whether i will perform OK and be able to give the police or other investigators what they want rather than what I am going to see. I have just answered another question about how it feels to work with dead people – see: http://ias.im/54.664

    As for sorting out jumbled up bones – this is a very good question! This can happen in mass graves, where more than one person is buried, or in certain types of disasters, where people are blown together in a big blast.
    If bones from more than one individual are jumbled up, they are called ‘comingled’ remains.

    What we have to do is look carefully at each bone, and see if we can see any features that would let us say whether it was adult, child, male or female, and how big and chunky it is. We put all the bones that look male in one pile, all those that look female in another pile etc. Then we go through each of those piles and look for bones that are ‘consistent’ with each other, and we make sure that if there are any duplicates (two left thighs, for example) that we put them in separate piles, because we know that they belong to two different people, as noone has two left thighs! Then, when we have lots of different piles, we lay all the bones from each pile out in ‘anatomical order’ – this means putting them out on the lab bench as they are in real life – the skull, then the vertebrae (spine bones) in order, with the ribs etc, all the way down to the toes. This allows us to see very quickly if there are any inconsistencies – anything that doesn’t look right, or too many bones for example. Then we know that those have come from a different person. We also look at the joints and make sure that the joints that are next to each other fit – for example that the thigh fits into the hip joint at the top and matches with the knee joint at the bottom. If they don’t fit, then they couldn’t have come from the same person. Also, laying it out helps us to see if there is anything missing, so we can look in the other piles to see if we’ve missed something, or look back at the scene to see if we’ve missed some bones there. Then we try and compare all the bones in one ‘person’ for consistency in terms of sex and age – if you had a young arm bone with old ribs, they probably aren’t from the same person. It is a very long and laborious process, but eventually you can eliminate all the inconsistencies, and you end up with piles that are each one individual.

    Please feel free to ask more questions about forensics – that’s what we’re here for!