Forensic anthropologists study human remains: bones and soft tissue of deceased people. They are trained to carefully recover human remains, to examine them to figure out who a person was, and to determine as much as possible about what happened to them around death. They are called upon when skeletal, fragmentary, or decomposed remains are recovered¹. In missing person cases, the findings of the anthropologist can be key to determining someone’s identity. In suspicious death cases, the anthropologist can provide details about injuries around death or how long an individual has been deceased that can help corroborate the manner of death or evidence of a suspect’s guilt.
Spirituality as Method in Anthropology and Sociology
In the history of anthropology, in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, when anthropology was becoming an academic discipline, it focused on studying…