Blog 17: Fourth Interview Questions

For my fourth interview I plan on interviewing Kristina Killgrove, a biological anthropologists who has expertise in the fields of archaeology, bio-anthropology, and the classical world. Having a doctorate in the field of anthropology will allow me to have a better, more professional aspect towards my senior project.

1. What is the most important factor of a skeletal remain in a criminal investigation?
2. How do you understand the urban development and collapse through the analysis of human remains?
3. What is osteological and biochemical analysis? How do you learn more about the daily lives of individuals by applying these methods?
4. What technology or software facilitates anthropologists when identifying an individual?
5. Why are clear, precise record-keeping skills considered to be important attributes when being tentative to skeletal remain details?
6. How do anthropologists tell apart social and cultural context through skeletal variation?
7. Why are forensic anthropologists so widely used in mass fatality incidents? Can you name examples?
8. How do forensic anthropologists work with other experts in criminal investigations?
9. What are archaeological expertise that a forensic anthropologist utilizes during an investigation?
10. If a significant period of time elapse is between time of burial and time of death, will the remains be damaged?

11. What are the difficulties with aerated grave soil? What can be done to prevent from occurring?
12. How do the rural and suburban areas affect the analytic points of the burial of remains?
13. How can degenerative changes and striations in the bones suggest an elderly individual is the owner?
14. What is the method in order to create a facial reconstruction approximation?
15. What is the importance of photographic superimposition for a forensic anthropologist?
16. How can anthropologists analyze the mechanical forces and disease process in skeletal remains?
17. What are you most proud of as your career as a forensic anthropologist?
18. What method can be used in order to remove soft tissue from the bones without damaging evidence?
19. What kinds of research have you conducted in order to better understand time since death?
20. What happens to the skeletal remains after the criminal investigations come to a conclusion in trials?
21. How much information is initially released to a forensic anthropologists at the beginning of a forensic case?
22. What would you say is the most difficult or intriguing forensic case you have worked on?
23. How does the field of forensic anthropology compare with when you have started and today?
24. Why is the positioning of the remains to necessary to understand or analyse? 

25. How do you differ the trauma presented in the remains are post or ante-mortem to analysize if it was done before or after time of death.
26. How is the time of exposure to the outside environment in which insects and animals may have access to,  affect skeletal remains?

Blog 16: Independent Component 2 Approval

1. Write a description of what you plan on doing for your independent study component.


For my independent study component I plan on completing the Advances in Forensic Anthropology Technology Transition Workshop, in which I will have acquired the knowledge to: Summarize the forensic anthropological perspective on human variation, be able to discuss the determination of biological sex, have the fundamental values in order to explain the fundamentals of traditional craniometrics and geometric morphometrics, apply segmentation methods for CT images and tissue and bone measurements to use the facial reproduction empirical modeling software tool, explain genetic variation in the context of forensics, emphasizing ancestry informative DNA markers, apply likelihood methods of cause and time of death vector qualities, estimate ancestry using the programs presented. This multiple day workshop has been strongly enforced by the Forensic Science Academy and has constantly been stressed to know all of the knowledge that the workshop has to offer. To have a look at what I will be doing check out the Forensic Science Academy Club endorced link: NFSTC FA Workshop

2. Describe in detail how you think your plan will meet the 30 hours work requirement.


I know that this workshop will surpass the 30 hours work requirement since the workshop contains several hours worth of audio visuals, interactive professional government-funded programs that present 3-Dimensional images that show how innovative technology is in order to facilitate the Forensic Anthropology input in criminal investigations. Containing over 15 lesson sessions through the forms of presentations, worksheets, software, resources, hands-on materials, 3D-ID Data Entry Template, AVIZO Software, and various structure information it is no doubt that this will surpass the 30 hours requirement.


3. How does your independent study component relate to your EQ?


My independent study component completely relates to my EQ because in this workshop I will have access to professional software and Forensic Anthropology-heavy hands-on activities and work that will give me a new paradigm of how scientific and mathematical this topic is. Based on the NFSTC Forensic Anthropology Workshop, all of the application and literal analysis that I will be able to have a hold of will be able to be well interpreted within my two hour presentation and further research knowledge.

Blog 15: Independent Component 1

Click the following link for the Independent Component 1 Calendar Spreadsheet: Introduction to Archaeology/Prehistory Cal Poly Pomona ANT 103-01 Class

Literal
(a) Statement saying: “I, Jaime Cervantes Jr., affirm that I completed my independent component which represents 30 hours of work.”

(b) Explanation of what you completed. I have completed 42 hours of work for my independent component by attending an Introduction to Archaeology/Prehistory at Cal Poly Pomona taught by Dr. Mark Allen. During this 103-01 class with a compiled archaeology and anthropological aspect on how archaeology (in the United States and other countries) is a branch of anthropology that deals with cultures of the past, the basic methods, theories, and goals of archaeological research, having the ability to describe the nature of cultural developments in most parts of the world, as learned through archaeological research, and finally, how to appreciate the ethical questions and other current issues facing archaeology. 

Interpretive
Defend your work and explain how the significant parts of your component and how it demonstrates 30 hours of work.

My independent component was extremely helpful and yet informative. I've never had the opportunity to actually touch various skull models of humanoids from other time periods before. The class consisted of every continental archaeological and anthropological information such as present day evidence, cranium capacity, religions, with class discussions, several alumni presentations, and to check for understanding Dr. Allen gave us three exams and a final that. 

Although I did above-and-beyond studying of different cultures and their cooperation with the physical anthropology knowledge that is used in forensic cases, it is pretty clear that the Cal Poly Pomona class that I took exceeded the 30 hour requirement by over 12 hours. There is clear evidence that I have successfully completed the first independent component based on my previous blogs and by the knowledge I have applied in my five minute  and answer one presentations.

Applied
How did it help you answer your EQ? Be specific and use examples.

There were several significant parts of my component that helped me with my EQ, for instance I learned forensic anthropology requires many of the basic attributes and expertise of many of the anthropology subcategories in order to be able to critically think and acquire all of the evidence necessary to solve a crime. Not only is forensic anthropology dealing with the skeletal remains, but the soil they were found, natural components, items found with, as well as insect remnants. I was able to draw connections with my senior project and this class by observing how the Neantherthal's skull greatly differs with that of a Homo sapean's skull and how it will be able to help give important details that are found in investigations such as: is this human? Professor Allen makes the "dirty work" of the anthropological standpoint seem rather fun and enjoyable experience if you have an incredible amount of patience and have an eye of detail to be able to use in the workforce.

Learned how the three goals of anthropology is to reconstruct cultural history by means of knowing the who, what when, where? As well as reconstructing the past life ways of the hearth/origin of the individual and be able to explain the cultural process (long and short-term change of the scientific growth of the body). The most important thing to learn about the skeletal remains is the context! The site in which they were found in can lead to the historical attribute of the existence of an entire civilization as well as the details behind the artifacts/evidence and the eco-facts that can lead to the collection of important items that can show evidence of religious insensitive, date-comparable organic material, as well as the soil in which they were found. The important things you are looking for when searching a crime scene or any time of site is the artifacts (lithics, sherds, bone, metal, glass, etc). You are also looking for soil stains, mostly midden, to determine if water was available to this particular area, even depressions, pits, and similar soil-like features. Most importantly, natural shelters like caves and rock shelters and huge, pyramid-like hills that can easily distinguish a possible forensic case between a religious death. You should always record your findings! 

I also learned how people that have hunting as a hobby/sport tend to have rather healthier, disease-free evidence on their skeletal remains. Family and factory farmers, however, tend to be manifested with such conditions since they are in a more compact area with a larger group of people.Trace element analysis is when skeletal remains absorb some plant and animal fibers that can lead to knowing the time of death as well as location and elevation. This has become a widely practice method, due to the high accuracy rate of being factual evidence!

For more insight in my independent component feel free to look at my previous blog entries of those class weeks:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Compiled forensic anthropology useful information and prehistory data based on time period, location with evidence, cranium capacity (skull), and time periods based on million and thousands of years ago:

Major Characteristics of the Pilo/Pleistocene Hominins

Please refer to my Evidence of Independent Component 1 link that contains pictures of the final grade and a photograph of the physical calendars.

Blog 14: Presentation 2 Rough Draft

The link posted is my 20 minute lesson plan for my  presentation on February 16, 2012.

Forensic Anthropology 20 Minute Lesson Plan

Forensic Science Academy Club Meeting

The Forensic Science Academy Club held a meeting between 8:00AM-3:00PM on both Saturday and Sunday. In this week of FSAClub we teamed up in coming up with teaching methods in teaching the human skeletal anatomy in a long-term memory manner.

This is the perfect time to do it since I'm going to execute my 20 minute presentation. Before we begin we wanted to focus the room into thinking on what the best way is to help one in understanding the  human skeleton. It is rather important for learning about human and nonhman primate anatomy to compare and contrast their fundamental values. Some of the defining characteristics for humans include our

height and our skeletal adaptations for bipedalism By presenting an outline of an adult human standing 187 ½ cm tall (or 6’2”) and compare it with that of modern humans average a height of 162 centimeters (or 5’3”) tall for female, and 175 centimeters (5’7”) tall for males. 

Some rather simple ideas of doing this included: discussing the functions of the bones - for example, legs are for walking, hands are for grasping, ribs are for protecting organs. Labeling all the bones, just kidding! This would be quite the challenge for someone who doesn't even know higher-level thinking. Coming up with activities to describe how does a skeleton work is rather difficult so bringing in a plastic disarticulated skeleton that is puzzle-like can allow students to think cooperatively and build the exoskeleton of a human. As this is being done, there should be a discussion on paired bones, anatomical position, right versus left, and how joints work.

Using Appendix 1 in Bass' Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual, teach some basic anatomical terms that someone would use in a criminal investigation court case testimony. Using the categorical bone structures found in the lateral/medial, superior/inferior, anterior/posterior, work accordingly.

Categories: condyle, boss, and malleolus are all large, rounded processes. Basically, solicit their help in making up acronyms to learn bones.

Using a plastic disarticulated skeleton , create a forensic murder mystery by using markers stickers/colored tape on the skeleton to stand for things like cut marks, projectile trauma from a bullet, and broken bones.

After that has been completed, state the result and professional terminology: a person was attacked from the front , then suffered blunt force trauma to the head, was dismembered, and the evidence that led you to that particular decision. I was also unaware of the fact that you can get some bones from your local butcher. It's pretty easy (and often free) to get bones from non-choice cuts of meat - several FSAClub members got free pig joints and skulls just by asking. Very enlightened week!

Forensic Science Academy Club Meeting

The Forensic Science Academy Club held a meeting between 8:00AM-3:00PM on both Saturday and Sunday. During this week we had the discussion question: Is anatomy different in foreign countries such as Latin America's Peru? The director once again had the idea for her favorite game: "What's wrong with this skeleton?" Today's contestant comes from an NPR piece "Finders, Not Keepers: Yale Returns Artifacts to Peru".

My group pretty much carefully and precisely computed the following conclusions:

The femurs of the human are on the wrong sides! The ribs are presented in the wrong order;  it is suppose to go from to small to big and small again! 1-3 ribs are usually small, 4-10 are big, and 11-12 are small once again. We were also bespectacled on why the fibulae of the remains are bent! The criticizing doesn't end here! There are 6 left metatarsals, the tibiae look much younger than the rest of the bones, and I'm not sure what's going on with the left tarsals.

In addition to what is been said so far, it is showing the posterior side of the scapula and they are on the wrong arms, same with the femurs. They don't know their right from their left, or front to back for the manner. It looks like one of those 6 metatarsals is actually a second metacarpal. The inferior portions of the ribs are actually pointing upward, when they should be pointed downward! The radii look like they're flipped as well, proximal to distal. The radial heads are pointing at the carpals when they should be pointed at the humeri.

With this presented evidence we can suggest that the radius and ulna should be reversed, since the radius is lateral when laid out in proper anatomical position, whereas it is shown to be medial. It looks like the olecranon fossae are pointed up in the anterior manner when they should be down in the posterior manner. Tibiae possibly don't go with this individual. Both have clear epiphyseal lines that aren't even close to closed at both ends making this a 12-15 year old adolescent. There might be a line of fusion evident in the proximal humeri, but there are no epiphyseal lines evident on the femora.

Finally, the pathologies are odd too. How is it that the left fibulae is significantly bowed without any notable changes to the left tibia! At the rate that we were going through, we were fairly convinced that these bones come from 2 or more people. And I'm definitely convinced that whoever laid out this skeleton knows precious little about human osteology, what a great disappointment Peru!

Forensic Science Academy Club Meeting

 

The Forensic Science Academy Club held a meeting between 8:00AM-3:00PM on both Saturday and Sunday. During this weekend, we were given a brief look at some of the uses of lead  in the Roman world, including the hoary hypothesis that rampant lead poisoning led to the downfall of Rome.

The fact the Romans loved their lead isn't in question. There is plenty of textual and archaeological sources that inform us of the use of lead - as cosmetics, ballistics, sarcophagi, pipes, jewelry, curse tablets, utensils and cooking pots, and, of course sapa and defrutum(wine boiled down in lead pots) - but what almost all stories about the use of lead in ancient Rome miss is the osteological evidence. Metabolic disorders can be caused by a lack of nutrients - a lack of vitamin C gives you scurvy, and a lack of vitamin D gives you rickets - but they can also be caused by an abundance of  too much fluoride, mercury, arsenic,or lead.

Lead is found in the environment naturally, so we do expect to find some amount of lead in the skeleton of every person, ancient or modern. But, because of the physical properties of lead - it can be made into hard, sharp things - people have been using it for millennia and thus have been exposed to heavy metal toxicity for millennia as well. The dangers of lead actually weren't well known until the second half of the 20th century, which was when lead was taken out of things like paint and gasoline.

In modern society, lead poisoning is diagnosed through a blood test to determine the level of lead in the body. We don't have blood in ancient remains, so we have to investigate lead through the levels we can measure in bone and enamel. Humans should not have more than 1 mg/kg of lead in their bones (or 10 ug/dL measured in blood). What is clear, though, is that lead poisoning is not something you'd want to have. People with very severe lead poisoning tend to have major neurological changes - brain swelling leading to seizures and headaches, aggressive behavior, loss of short-term memory, and slurred speech - and a host of other problems, like anemia and constipation.

Now in order to answer the EQ for the week, we had to look at the evidence and conclude if lead poisoning caused the fall of the Roman Empire? Probably not. Yes, there was increased lead production in the Roman Empire, which we know from histories, ecological sources, artifacts, and now skeletons. But the data - few as they are - simply don't support a conclusion of high lead concentration in the entire population.

Dr. Aufderheide and FSAClub assistants did test 20 skeletons from Italy, including a few from the greater Rome area. However, this was not an in-depth study, in that the skeletons were from various places. They further note that they could not control for lead diagenesis, which may have thrown off their measurements and caused a large percentage of error. Twenty years later, the technology for identifying lead concentration in skeletons is greatly improved. Aufderheide and colleagues found that skeletons from the Roman period had much higher lead levels than in the previous centuries, which is consistent with our study and the understanding that lead working increased in this time period.