Role of an anthropologist in forensic: A review on forensic anthropology

Abstract

Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology to the legal process. The identification of skeletal, badly decomposed or otherwise unidentified human remains is important for both legal and humanitarian reasons. Forensic anthropologists apply standard scientific techniques developed in physical anthropology to identify human remains, and to assist in detection in crime. Cases requiring the services of forensic anthropologists arise in a variety of ways. Excluding mass fatality scenarios, the appearance of unknown human remains may involve skeletal components and scavenged fragments scattered about the landscapes, clandestine burials, submerged remains or the occasional skull upon a mantel kept as a memento mori discovered incidentally during execution of a warrant for an unrelated cause. One can predict that agencies responsible for death investigation and identification will develop cadres of specialists, including anthropologists, odontologists, pathologists, molecular biologists and others, whose contributions form a seamless team approach to these problems on any scale.