FSC239Y5 Lecture Notes - Sam Sheppard, Hans Gross, Blood Residue
Document Summary
Identification of human remains (using human skeleton and archeological context) Search for, recover, analyze and present in court. Legal rights and responsibilities regarding human remains. Coroner/ police orders investigation and to call in experts. Search indictors (plants destroyed, softer soil, animal activity) Forensic significance: reduces police workload, reduces anxiety of families. Study of processes affecting body after death. State of bones: environment (elements: erosion, weathering), animal and human activity. Importance: consistent with tip/testimony, movement of the body, elapsed time since death. 3 methods: corporal (decomposition), environmental (insects, leaf layers, roots, artifacts), habitual activities. Specific (past trauma, disease, bone wear patterns, anomalies) Degenerations that go along with the aging process (hard to distinguish after 50) In sub-adults: dental formation (matrix production and mineralization, enamel), eruption (emergence of tooth relative to gum/bone), most accurate for prenatal and early adolescence. Long bone length (fetal individuals), appearance of ossification centres, epiphyseal union. Mode of death=method (sharp force trauma etc)