ANT205H5 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Metacarpal Bones, Anointing, Body Snatching
Document Summary
Important in medico-legal investigation: reduces police workload, saves time/effort, reduces stress of families with missing relatives, usually human skeletal remains, animal remains, poaching - violation of the law, case from bc - individual killed someone and their dog. Textbooks recommend: know the human skeleton in detail, complete bones, not difficult to determine, recommendation, faunal archaeology (animal bones) Child vs small animal: within normal child range consider, epiphysis (ends, child = unfused. Animal bones most similar to humans: nonhuman primates, most similar in infancy. General considerations: animal bone are more dense, heavier for size, well-defined surfaces and edges, more angles and ridges. Skull: human, bulbous forehead, fragments uniformly curved, animal, fragments flat or sharply curved. Ribs: human ribs, very curved, animal ribs, often curved mainly at one end. Bear paws vs. human hands: without claws, most similar to human hands, bear carpals (wrists, larger, more defined than human, bear metacarpals (palm, ridge down head and shaft.
