Courtney Henry

FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY: HOW BONES CAN IDENTIFY THE NAME/LESS

CourTney henry

There’s an old saying that goes, “dead men tell tales.” It’s believed to have originated from the infamous Gouffé Case of 1889, in which a skeleton provided the secrets to identify the victim and trap the murderers, marking a milestone for investigative techniques in forensic science. However, when most people think of forensic science and human remains, they picture fingerprints and DNA – not forensic anthropology.

The Gouffé Case began when a body was discovered in Lyons, France, near an abandoned trunk that reeked of decay. Initially, the body could not be identified and was placed in an anonymous pauper’s grave. However, it didn’t stay there long – a few months later the body was exhumed for re-examination by Alexandre Lacassagne, who was a Professor in Forensic Medicine.

During the examination of the victim’s skeleton, Lacassagne found that the right knee was deformed and weighed less than the left. This indicated that the victim more than likely suffered from tubercular disease in that leg and would have walked with a limp. This small yet significant piece of information allowed police to connect the body to the missing Toussaint-Augustin Gouffé, who walked with a limp and had been treated for a knee complaint.

Then, once the body had been positively identified as Gouffé’s, the rest of the case began to fall into place; Michel Eyraud, a shady businessman, and his mistress Gabrielle Bompard were arrested for murder. The use of bones in historic police investigations like this one forged the beginnings of the new field of forensic anthropology.

The main role of a modern forensic anthropologist now is to apply standard scientific techniques in physical anthropology to the identification of badly decomposed or skeletal remains, and use that information to assist in the investigation of crime. They use measurements and visual examinations of identifying bone features to create an osteobiography of biological sex, age at death, ancestry, stature, and physiological factors such as pathology and trauma. At this point, you may be thinking – how can a bone provide all this information?

Well, the shape of pelvic bones is the best evidence for determining a person’s sex, due to the function of birth in the female human body. The skull is also useful for estimating biological sex as females tend to have more smoothness and gracility, while males exhibit more robustness and larger muscle attachment areas. In children, the eruption of teeth and fusion of bones provide age, while in adults it is the degeneration of bones and ligaments such as the pubic symphysis which is assessed.

A trained anthropologist is also able to determine certain activities, diet, and ways of life that are reflected in the growth and chemical composition of bones and teeth. Living height can be estimated from the measurements of the skull, spine, leg bones, and ankle. Abnormal changes in the shape, size, and density of bones can indicate disease and trauma which can be linked back to living records.

Forensic anthropologists read bones the same way you might read a book. A bone abnormality can tell the story of falling from a tree as a child and breaking an arm, the bumps and grooves of the skull can tell of ancestry, and the length of a finger bone can estimate biological sex. All this evidence combined is then used to recreate the life story of name/less skeletons.