Forensic Anthropological Characteristics

Forensic anthropologists have been under the microscope of whether their ability to identify race is accurate or not. For many centuries, there was has been a debate whether race can have biological variations (Ousley, Jantz, & Freid, D, 2009, p.68). For many centuries there has been a debate whether race can have biological variations (Ousley, Jantz, & Freid, D, 2009, p.68). Forensic anthropologists are called in to help identify physical characteristics which are then used to determine the physical appearance of an individual by constructing biological profiles (Ousley, Jantz, & Freid, D, 2009, p.68). These profiles consist of three categories that forensic anthropologists use to identify human variations are: race, age, and sex (Ousley,
Forensic anthropologists are important because of the way they create these biological profiles, the three categories they use are the connection they make between the living and the skeletal remains of human variation in relation to race (Sauer, 1992, p.108). In order to identify anything there must be an element of comparison (Sauer, 1992, p.108). Forensic anthropologists compare the characteristics of living human variations to skeletal remains in order to create biological profiles, because they compare the two, they have the ability to see the social races within society and associate them to skeletal remains (Sauer, 1992, p.108) (Ousley, Jantz, & Freid, D, 2009, p.68). The main way forensic anthropologists determine race is through phenotypic variations (Relethford, 2009, p.16). According to Relethford, the specific scientific way forensic anthropologists identify race is through something called DNA haplotypes (Relethford, 2009, p.16). DNA haplotypes are essentially a set of DNA variations that are grouped together based on a geographic location (Relethford, 2009,
By using Howells’s core population theory, he concludes that the central origin of population is from African, Polynesia, Australasia’s, East Asia America’s, and Europe (Relethford, 2009, p.19). According to Relethford, by using the assortment of craniometrics, we can conclude the human variations depending on geographical location in correlation to how much one is exposed to the sun will explain why some people are darker than others (Relethford, 2009, p.19). By Relethford applying the craniometrics assortment, the reason people look differently is because of the distance between them, the farther one of the core populations are a part from each other the less they look alike (Relethford, 2009, p.19). So if there are populations closer to each other the more alike they will look, for example East Asia: Northern Japan and Southern Japan look similar to each other, not the same, but similar because their population is close to each other (Relethford, 2009,