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| Anatomical Positions (very important and useful! ) |
November 3
I would have never thought I would have been able to put a skeleton
in order, in the right and left positions, and names of the bones. I can now
even go through the process narrowing down the age and sex of the remains! With the sharing of their
knowledge in Human Osteology, Erica, Amanda, Kalista and I spend the morning
upstairs analysing the three remains who were victims of massacre from the
Civil War. These remains are notably eroded due the way they were buried and
the kind of soil they laid in. Erica,
having some experience teaching in her Masters (now interning in L.A. doing tool
mark analysis in a morgue), gave the rest of us a refresher (myself, pretty
much a first timer). To start, there are three main progressions of trauma on
the body which forensic anthropologists look out for clues in case
identification: ante-mortem (before death), peri-mortem (the time around
death), and post-mortem (after the time of death). This includes whether there
is any form of heavy ware on the bones from hard work or arthritis, any prior
trauma or healing, what trauma killed the person, and what erosion or trauma to
the body after the death. Especially, when the victim is found in the remains
of bones or high erosion, the reliance on interview from families is critically
important in order to correctly identify the remains. These questions include,
their occupation, past medical history, any children, where last saw them, etc.
Before I had left for Guatemala, I had come across novel in Library and
Archives Canada, where I was able to grasp the insights of the field of which I
highly recommend: The Bone Woman: A Forensic Anthropologist's Search for Truth in the MassGraves of Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo by Clea Koff.
There is few step
process for ageing and sexing a skeleton and two main bones you focus on are the
skull and the pelvis (ribs and clavicle fusion are two other indicators to sex
and date). In summary on the processes, starting at the skull we analyse five
areas of the skull: the Nuchal Crest (bumpiness at back of skull, Mastoid
Process(length and shape back of skull), Supraorbital Margin (brow and eye
socket), Supraorbital Ridge/Glabella (brow/nose), and the Mental Eminence
(jaw). These areas are then measured from 1 (most feminine) to 5 (most
masculine).
Heading down to the pelvis, we seek out the other sex differences
in size and shape of the pelvis. In summary, a male has a thicker Ventral Arc,
while a female's longer. Looking at the subpubic concavity, males are generally
do not show dramatic concavity and edges
are straight or very slightly concave. Females are generally more concave and
thinner ridge. then looking at the medial aspect of the ischiopublic ramus,
where females have a a sharp edge while males the surface is fairly flat, broad
and blunt. Furthermore, one would look at the stages of fusion the pelvic bones
are in to identify the age range, while positioned in their natural form, men
have a narrower/triangular pelvis, while women a wider, circular shape for
childbirth. Anthropologists can also confirm with clues with women sometimes
with the texture and erosion from the amount of times gave birth from wear. 
From our analysis, it was confirmed that the remains were of
one female and two males at the age of 19-25, which could be confirmed by
seeing that their bones had not fully fused. I had gotten the heads up that it
was impressive how fast I understood, despite having the least official
training! In addition to, the femur,
while the best places to acquire DNA and bone marrow, also aids identifying a
estimate height of the person. Although, as anthropologists working in
Guatemala and other Central and South American countries, much of the data on
bones is outdated and limited in ethnic and racial diversity. For the only
official documentation for comparison is European and Asian. This has become a
notable barrier in confirming accuracy in identifying Hispanic or Maya bodies
because there is so much variation in size, stature and bone density. Like
Cristian and other practising forensic anthropologists in this region emphasize
on the importance in creating and generating official research into new manual
to accurately identify these ethnic groups; work and research for our newer
generations to get into the works of (Hint Hint)! 
In order to give some further context, EFI-IFIFT acquires the remains, only once families first
confrontation them that they would like the assistance to find and identify
their family members. Then they follow through further processes of interviews
and geo-locating the estimated area for dig sites. In other cases, the families
themselves (almost always far too poor to have access to the legal and
technical methods), have to pay the government fees to keep the case open.
Although, the directors of EFI-IFIFT, have separated themselves from other
similar organizations, on working on helping covering the fees for the poor
families, on the moral that everyone should have equal access to justice. Meanwhile,
funding is always a necessity in order to uncover the cases in a timely
fashion. Currently, such cases can take up to months, to years, if not ever.
For the Guatemalans families who have suffered these horrendous losses, time is
very much money. And the reality of how long it can take, with the lack of
funds on either end; of the families and then organizations to uncover the
crimes against these families. For the families, time is very much money, when
they only live off a few quetzales for whole large families, who have lost their
family members to help provide. Taking the time off to file in the process of
identification, is a tremendous sacrifice that many cannot afford.
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