Friday, September 28, 2007
Forensic Anthropology Lab Exercise
How has having worked for two classes measuring and gathering data from "skeletal" remains changed your opinion of the type of work done by a forensic anthropologist? Do you think the skeletal remains are a "quick" or "easy" to interpret source of information? Or do skeletal remains require careful observation and serious thought when considering all of the possibilities presented by the observations?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
26 comments:
I think it is actually pretty dificult to examine skeletons, you have to be very careful and precise. I imagined it would be like doing a math problem where there is one right answer, however, it is much less clear, and I think it would bee very easy to make an incorrect assumption
When I first heard about the job of a forensic anthropologist, I thought that it must have been really complicated. The name, itself, sounded pretty intense. However, my opinion on the job definitely changed as soon as I started the class lab. It was actually easier than I thought it would be; however, it took a very long time. I had to pay extra close attention in identifying the different traits and angles of the bones. Sex determination seemed to be one of the longest things to determine because the bones indicated both male and female traits.
I think that skeletal remains require careful ovservation and a lot of thought because when we were doing it in class, we had a lot of trouble trying to determine if it was consistant with a male or a female. Our skull was both rough and smooth, one a characteristic of a male and the other of a female, however most of the skull was smooth, which led us to believe that it was a female skull, but little imperfections can make the process hard. Also, another reason why identifying bones needs a lot of thought is because incorrect measurments. If we recorded any of the measurements wrong, then we could have been thrown off completly.
I think that it was very difficult to determine the sex of the skeleton by observing the bones because a skeleton can have a few female traits and still be identified as male.
i definitely think that this is much much much much harder than my first impression - the differences between races adn sexes are more ambiguous than i initially thought, we had a lot of problems in determingint the sex adn race of our skeleton and our measurements were continually going against the race and sex of the skeleton, it was definitely more complicated than i first thought.
I think the skeletal remains required a lot of careful observation. In particular it was really challenging to determine the sex of the skeleton because the bones could have been a small male or larger female - which made things difficult. I found it very interesting that one could tell so much information about the life of a skeleton simply by making these measurements, however. It was cool to be able to determine all of that! In particular it was interesting to see how the shape of a skul differed between the sexes and races.
I think that it was hard to determine the sex of the skeleton because, like Hilary said, it can have traits that are similar to those of a female, or similar of those to a male. Observing skeletons and determing sex, race etc. is not a quick and easy job, it takes a lot of time to carefully measure each bone and determine the correct measurements.
When you're observing skeletons, you have to take many factors into account. You have to make sure you are measuring certain parts of the skeletons correctly. Sometimes it is hard to decide what gender, race, sex or height a person was because the factors that you took in to account are split down the middle. I think that being a forensic anthropologist would be a very difficult and demanding job.
Working with skeletal remains has changed my opinion of the work of a forensic anthropologist. I understand that the work they do isn't as easy as it seems. Skeletal remains require careful observation and serious thought.
Working with theese skeletons has changed my opinion of forensic anthropology. On TV shows like CSI or Law and Order the process seems to take no time at all to accomplish, so I always thought scientists could simply glance at skeletal remains to determine the race, gender, and physical proportions of a person. Now I realize that it's a long, complicated, and exhausting process.
When gathering data for skeletal remains you have to be very precise. Like Megan said, there is one right answer and if you dont get that right answer, you could easily confuse a man skeleton with a womans skeleton.... that would not be goooood.
I think it is very difficult to determine which skeletal bones belong to which gender. At first I thought the work of an anthropologist was simply tedious, yet not incredibly challenging or difficult. Yet after working on these labs, I have come to realize that the work these scientists undergo is very challenging and if they make a mistake it results in big issues.
I did not think the work of a forensic anthropologist would be too difficult. However, once actually getting a taste of what it is like in class I realized that it is quite the demanding job. It required very precise measurement and careful examination of each and every bone and it's details. The fact that males and females share certain characteristics makes the work of a forensics anthropologist even harder. If a detail is overlooked or a measurement is taken incorrectly by just an inch/because the angle was slightly off then the sex determination could be completely thrown off and thus, conclude in the incorrect gender. You would certainly not want that type of identity crisis in a case! I truly appreciate the work done by forensic anthropologists. Their work is much more tedious and time consuming that one would think.
Exaiming the skull of the skeleton took my group the whole class period because everyone had a different impression of certain charastics. The process is very time consuming, and causes much consideration.
i think it is diffitult at times to determine skeltal remains because theres never one possible answer it could be, you always have to think outside the box, check all of the evidence and put the pieces together and try and figure all the possibities. When identifying a skeleton it can sometimes throw you off when it has a bruse on a bone and yet it might have been there before the death, or maybe it was the link that solved the cause of death to this person.
I think that determining the sex of a skeleton is actually pretty difficult. You really have to look at the bones carefully to be able to determine whether the skeleton is a female or a male. Certain bones may have a few male traits when in reality the bone may have belonged to a female, so you have to be careful. The forensic scientists job is actually more difficult than most think that it would be.
When first hearing about the lab I did not think that it would take this much time and work. You have to measure a lot of specific parts of the skull or the femur. It is not just take the length and you can identify it is it male or female, you must take certain measurements and feel if parts are smooth or rough. I have a lot more respect for forensic anthropologists after doin this lab.
After doing the lab, my opinion changed but just slightly. I knew it was going to be difficult however, from the Death's Acre book, it seemed as if once you knew what things were and how to classify data, it was a pretty easy job to do. After doing this lab, I realized that even after learning how to do things it is still hard because if you are not extremely precise you could determine the wrong sex or age or race and never ID the body.
I think it is difficult determining which gender the skeleton belongs too. I always confuse them! I did not think it took this much time to figure out each measurement of every bone and its angles. It shows how important taking your time is.
The identification of the race, sex and the age of skeletal is very challenging because in most cases it is even hard to identify what the bone is. In identifying these things you have to make very precise observations or you wont be able to correctly identify the sex, race and age of the skeletal that you are looking at.
Not knowing really anything about how to determine the sex, race and the age of skeleton, I assumed it wouldn't be that hard. However, after actually doing the lab, it has been pretty hard so far. It takes a lot of precise and careful observations. Even if there was a little imperfection, it meant a lot in determing certain things about the skeleton. I never knew that the texture of a skeleton meant so much. Though this lab is pretty tedious, I have found it very interesting.
the work of a forensic anthropologist is much harder than i had originally thought. i did not realize that you had to pay such close attention to little details. this method of determining and identity seems to take a long time, but also seems to be a pretty thorough and precise technique
I thought it was pretty easy to identify the bones once we knew what we were looking for. It also isn't as exact as I thought its all learned by touch and your eye, there wasn't a lot of exact measuring.
I thought it was pretty easy to identify the bones once we knew what we were looking for. It also isn't as exact as I thought its all learned by touch and your eye, there wasn't a lot of exact measuring.
After the summer reading assignment, I thought that anthropology was something pretty hard. I was wondering how it was possible for an anthropologist to determined an individual identity just by examine the skeletal remains. After measuring and gathering data from "skeletal" remains for 2 classes, my opinion of this type of work done by a forensic anthropologist totally changed. Even the type of work done by a forensic anthropologist is easier than what I thought, I think that it still requires careful observations to determine all possibilities one can get from a skeletal remain.
Skeletal remains take a while to examine. If an incorrect assumption or some other kind of error is made, it affects the whole process and as a result, the identity could end up being mistaken.
Post a Comment