Biological Affinity in Forensic Identification of Human Skeletal Remains ─ Beyond Black and White

Consolidating work done in a variety of studies in recent decades, this timely guide and reference manual offers techniques and avenues of inquiry that can be used to determine socio-cultural categories for the identification of unknown remains. Providing both theoretical and statistical support, it addresses population variation in cranial and postcranial human skeletal remains, population variation in human teeth, and advances in molecular biology regarding population variation. The contributors also evaluate historical and medico-legal aspects. The book includes a CD-ROM with color images.

Gregory E. Berg, PhD, D-ABFA, is a laboratory manager and forensic anthropologist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory in Hawaii, where he works on the recovery and identification of missing US service personnel. He has more than 19 years of field experience in archaeology and physical anthropology and has presented or published numerous articles and papers in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, Journal of Archaeological Science, and Optometry, as well as at various annual meetings. His recent research has concentrated on ancestry and sex determination, trauma analysis, aging techniques, human identification and eyewear, and intra- and interobserver error studies, which have been particularly focused on aging and population determination methods used in human identification.

Sabrina C. Ta’ala, MA, MBA, is an adjunct professor at Pikes Peak Community College and a lecturer at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, teaching courses in forensic, physical, and cultural anthropology. She spent nine years as a forensic anthropologist at the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command Central Identification Laboratory. Her research interests have included historical archaeology in the southeastern United States, testing of geophysical tools as a method for detection of clandestine graves, assessing cranial nonmetric traits in Southeast Asian skeletal collections, and identifying cranial trauma in remains of Khmer Rouge victims in Cambodia. Ta’ala’s work has been published in the Journal of Forensic Sciences and Journal of Forensic Identification and been presented at a variety of national archaeological and forensics conferences.