NCJ Number
138857
Date Published
1989
Length
302 pages
Annotation
This report presents the results of an investigation of secular trends in craniometric variation among Afro- Americans and Euro-American North American populations from 1750 to the present; an addition analysis of collection- specific cranial variation between two prominent anatomical collections was also undertaken.
Abstract
Both investigations addressed the issue of crania variation in reference to the proper application of craniometric analysis to medico-legal identification of racial affiliation in forensic anthropology. The craniometric data included individual historic specimens and cemetery populations from Canada,Philadelphia, and New Orleans. Anatomical specimens were collected from the Hamann-Todd and R. J. Terry collections, and recent forensic cases were obtained from forensic laboratories across the Nation. Analyses were performed on 80 crania variables to document temporal differences among racial and ethnic groups and to explore patterns of variation related to gender within each group. The study found that significant temporal changes among Afro-American and Euro-American cranial series and ethnic specificity of individual skeletal collections can render problematic the application of earlier cranial series to the identification of recent forensic cases. An alternative to current calibration standards for forensic identification of crania is proposed. Calibration standards were calculated by using discriminant analysis for the separation of racial or ethnic groups. 39 tables, 38 figures, appended supplementary material, and 240 references