Today’s Class • Who were the main people influential in starting the field? • How has the field changed over time? What are the major events in its development?
Ales Hrdlicka (1869 – 1943)
• “silent” contributor • physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution (1903 – 1942) • did case work for the FBI, but didn’t publish anything o no lasting record about what information he provided Ernest Albert hooton (1887 – 1954) • “silent” contributor • professor of anthropology at Harvard • examined forensic cases and trained many students, but did not publish Hamann-Todd Collection (Carl A. Hamann, and T. Wingate Todd) • Cleveland, Ohio • Collected 2,600 skeletons of known individuals (early 1900s to about 1940s) • Used to develop standards used for determination of age, sex, ancestry, stature Terry Collection (Robert Terry, and Mildred Trotter) • St. Louis, Missouri • Terry takes the cadavers and collects them from classes • Collected about 1600 skeletons from dissecting room cadavers • Known age, sex, ancestry • Trotter helped figure out the stature of a person by the bones Problems with Collections • low socio-economic status • not representative of the population as a whole • poor health • turn of the century o people are now taller o healthier Consolidation Period (1939 – 1971) • FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin (1939) o FBI starts working with physical anthropologists. There is more collaboration. • The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine (1962) o First forensic anthropology textbook he made it more mainstream World War II • 1947: Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI) established o now the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC) o identification of war dead o directed by Charles E. Snow, later by Mildred Trotter she convinces the government to let her do research on the soldiers that are deceased and can start developing standards standards for determining stature Korean War • Ended in 1953 • Lab established in Japan o Identification of war dead • Directed by T. Dale Stewart, researched by Thomas McKern o Lot of work in aging o Standards for determining age T. Dale Stewart • Curator, physical anthropology section, Smithsonian institution • Large influence extending into the modern period • Essentials of forensic anthropology 1979
Modern Period (1972 - ?)
• 1971: Physical Anthropology Section of AAFS established • 1977: American Board of Forensic Anthropology is formed o make sure the people calling themselves anthropologists were properly trained and had the credentials William Bass • Human Osteology: A Laboratory and Field Manual, 1986 • Professor, University of Tennessee • Started the “Body Farm” William Maples • Founder, C.A. Pound Human ID Laboratory, UF • Human IDE and trauma analysis • Worked on cases of historical interest Modern Skeletal Collections • William M. Bass Donated Skeletal Collection o 1981, University of Tennessee o about 400 known individuals o much wider range of individuals • Maxwell Museum’s Documented Skeletal Collection o 1984, New México o about 250 known individuals o all died in the past 25 years
The “4th period” in the New Millennium
• 2000 and beyond o broadened research goals and new techniques o international focus o burgeoning educational programs o increasing opportunities in non-academic venues
(The History of Medicine in Context) Sarah Ferber and Sally Wilde (Eds) - The Body Divided - Human Beings and Human Material' in Modern Medical History-Ashgate (2011) PDF