Warianty tytułu
Języki publikacji
Abstrakty
Although the concept of race has been thoroughly criticised in biological anthropology, forensic anthropology still uses a number of methods to determine the ‘race’ of a skeleton. The methods must be evaluated to see how effective they are given large individual variation. This study used 20 cases of skeletons of varied provenance to test whether the nine published methods of ‘race’ determination, using a range of various approaches, were able to consistently identify the ethnic origin. No one individual was identified as belonging to just one ‘major racial class’, e.g. European, meaning that complete consistency across all nine methods was not observed. In 14 cases (70%), various methods identified the same individual as belonging to all three racial classes. This suggests that the existing methods for the determination of ‘race’ are compromised. The very concept of ‘race’ is inapplicable to variation that occurs between populations only in small ways and the methods are limited by the geographic population from which their discriminant functions or observations of morphological traits were derived. Methods of multivariate linear discriminant analysis, e.g. CRANID, are supposed to allocate an individual skull to a specific population rather than a ‘major race’. In our analysis CRANID did not produce convincing allocations of individual skeletons to specific populations. The findings of this study show that great caution must be taken when attempting to ascertain the ‘race’ of a skeleton, as the outcome is not only dependent on which skeletal sites are available for assessment, but also the degree to which the unknown skeleton’s population of origin has been investigated.
Wydawca
Czasopismo
Rocznik
Tom
Numer
Strony
21-31
Opis fizyczny
Daty
wydano
2015-03-01
otrzymano
2014-09-04
zaakceptowano
2014-11-19
online
2015-04-10
Twórcy
autor
- Biological Anthropology and Comparative Anatomy Research Unit, School of Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Austra, Ingrid.sierp@student.adelaide.edu.au
autor
- Biological Anthropology and Comparative Anatomy Research Unit, School of Medical Sciences, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5005, Austra
Bibliografia
- Bass WM. 1995. Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual. Fourth edn. Columbia: Missouri Archaeological Society.
- Brace CL. 2005. “Race” is a four-letter word: the genesis of the concept. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
- Brace CL & Ryan AS. 1980. Sexual Dimorphism and Human Tooth Size Differences. J Hum Evol 9(1): 417-435.[Crossref]
- Brues AM. 1990. The once and future diagnosis of race. In: GW Gill & S Rhine, editors. Skeletal Attribution of Race. Albuquerque: Maxwell Museum of Anthropology.
- Brues AM. 1992. Forensic Diagnosis of Race- General Race vs Specific Populations. Soc Sci Med 34(2): 125-128.[PubMed][Crossref]
- Giles E & Elliot O. 1962. Race identification from cranial measurements. J Forensic Sci 7(1): 147-157.
- Gill GW. 1984. A forensic test case for a new method of geographical race determination. In: TA Rathbun & JE Buikstra, editors. Human Idnetification: Case Studies in Forensic Anthropolgy. Springfield: Thomas.
- Gill GW. 1998. Craniofacial criteria in the skeletal attribution of race. In: KJ Reichs, editors. Advances in the identification of human remains. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas. 293-317.
- Henneberg M. 2006. The rate of human morphological microevolution and taxonomic diversity of hominids. Studies in Historical Anthropology 4(1): 49-59.
- Henneberg M. 2010. The Illusive Concept of Human Variation: Thirty Years of Teaching Biological Anthropology on Four Continents. In: G Strkalj, editors. Teaching Human Variation: Issues, Trends and Challenges. New York: Nova Science Publishers.
- Iscan MY. 1983. Assessment of Race From the Pelvis. Am J Phys Anthropol 62(1): 205-208.[PubMed][Crossref]
- Iscan MY & Steyn M. 1999. Craniometric Determination of Population Affinity in South Africans. Int J Leg Med 112(1): 91-97.
- Kallenberger L & Pilbrow V. 2012. Using CRANID to test the population affinity of known crania. J Anat 22(5): 459-464.[WoS][Crossref]
- Kaszycka KA, Strkalj G & Strzalko J. 2009. Current views of European anthropologists on race: Influence of educational and ideological background. Am Anthropol 111(1): 43-56.[Crossref][WoS]
- Lewontin RC. 1976. The Fallacy of Biological Determinism. The Sciences 16(2): 6-10.[Crossref]
- Ousley S, Jantz R & Freid D. 2009. Understanding race and human variation: Why forensic anthropologists are good at identifying race. Am J Phys Anthropol 139(1): 68-76.[Crossref][PubMed][WoS]
- Patriquin ML, Steyn M & Loth SR. 2002. Metric assessment of race from the pelvis in South Africans. Forensic Sci Int 127(1): 104-113.[Crossref][PubMed]
- Rhine S. 1993. Skeletal Criteria for Racial Attribution. NAPA Bulletin 13(1): 54-67.
- Snow CC, Hartman S, Giles E & Young FA. 1979. Sex and Race Determination of Crania by Calipers and Computer: A Test of the Giles and Elliot Discriminant functions in 52 Forensic Cases. Washington, DC.
- Williams F, Belcher R & Armelagos G. 2005. Forensic misclassification of Ancient Nubian crania: Implications for assumptions about human variation. Current Anthropology 46(1): 340-346.[Crossref]
- Wright R. 2008. Detection of likely ancestry using CRANID. In: M Oxenham, editors. Forensic approaches to death, disaster and abuse. Queensland: Australian Achademic Press.
Typ dokumentu
Bibliografia
Identyfikatory
Identyfikator YADDA
bwmeta1.element.doi-10_1515_anre-2015-0002