Forensic Archaeology (Other Keyword)
51-75 (78 Records)
Unlike many other aspects of archaeology, forensic archaeology and anthropology is, in part, only as effective as the courts believe it to be. While peer review is the gold standard for assessing the integrity and viability of the scientific aspects of forensic archaeology and anthropology, passing muster in a court of law can be a different—and sometimes counterintuitive—standard. Although some recent research in this area has examined the impact of court attempts to “police” the integrity of...
Life Among the Tombstones: Forensics Crosses Paths with Hoodoo (2016)
African magic rituals among the graves of the recently dead in the South and elsewhere may not be as rare as one might think. This paper is an exploration of a case wherein the author was called in as a forensic archaeologist and consultant to law enforcement investigating a case of cemetery desecrations with supernatural overtones. Further, during the course of this investigation, possible connections between the author's historical archaeological research excavation of a slave street on a...
Mapping Human Migrations, Past and Present: Developing Environmental Isotope and Trace Element Maps of Mexico and Central America (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Intersection of Archaeological Science and Forensic Science" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Thousands of clandestine migrants die every year while traversing the hostile terrain of the United States/Mexico border. Most of these individuals go unidentified, leaving families in a desperate search for answers regarding their loved one’s whereabouts. Rural counties along the South Texas Borderlands lack resources for...
Mind the Gap: The Evolution of Forensic Archaeology in Military Remains Recovery (2017)
The Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is responsible for the recovery of U.S. servicemembers' remains from past conflicts. This paper will briefly review the history of military remains recovery by the U.S. government, focusing on the personnel responsible for field recovery as well as the methods typically employed. We will then explore the evolving role of archaeologists in the accounting community, and how this parallels the modern development of forensic archaeology as a distinct...
A Missing Person Body Recovery Case: Maintaining Professionalism & Best Practices as a Forensic Archaeologist Amidst Escalated Tensions (2015)
In Fall 2012, I was contacted by a county sheriff's department in South Carolina and their Coroner as well as by the family members of a missing person, to request my assistance as a forensic archaeologist in a body recovery. A 54 year old male had been missing for nearly two years until a timber worker stumbled upon a human bone in the course of marking trees for harvest. What followed was a body recovery wherein I witnessed growing tensions between family members towards law enforcement...
New Research on Andean Mummies at the Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels, Belgium (2024)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Royal Museums of Art and History preserves seven complete or partial Andean mummies. Three are still surrounded by textiles in the form of funerary bundles. Four others lacked textile remains but were probably also held up by ties and fabric. For the museum and for Belgium, one of them is very important because he was made famous thanks to the...
The New Role of Archaeology in Forensic Science (2017)
In 2015, the Physical Anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) officially became the "Anthropology" section of AAFS. This reflected not simply a name change, but an acknowledgement of the importance of archaeology to forensic anthropology and forensic science. This has heralded a new age of forensic anthropology based on increasing reliance on archaeological methods and theoretical principles. The interaction between forensic archaeology, anthropology, and...
A New Tool for Forensic Geoarchaeology: Sediment Fingerprinting with Geochemistry for Homicide Investigations (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Forensic Archaeology: Research & Practice" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sediment fingerprinting by elemental analysis has been an important analytical tool in the environmental sciences to help explain sediment movement and deposition in water bodies and other catchments. Related techniques have also been used in many archaeological investigations to aid in ancient activity area analysis. However, this technique has...
Post-Mortem Interval and Age-at-Death Estimation through Forensic Proteomics (2018)
The estimation of the post-mortem interval (PMI) and the age-at-death (AAD) are both important aspects of forensic anthropology for which numerous methods have been developed, each with different limitations. As proteins represent biomolecules that carry out a wide range of functions, many of which structural to the tissues undergoing decomposition, and the collection of these (i.e., the proteome) is dynamic not only throughout life, but also post-mortem, proteomic methods have great potential...
Recent Search and Recovery Efforts: Honoring Missing US Service Personnel through Forensic Archaeology (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Fulfilling a Nation’s Promise: The Search, Recovery, and Accounting Efforts of DPAA and Its Partners" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is dedicated to identifying and honoring missing US service personnel, particularly from World War II and other conflicts. Recent search and recovery efforts conducted by Alta Archaeological Consulting (ALTA), through the DPAA Partnerships and...
Ritual Human Sacrifice among the Tarascans (2018)
This study reports on osteological remains excavated from the Great Platform at Tzintzuntzán, the Postclassic (A.D. 1300-1522) Tarascan ceremonial capital. The osteological deposit was first uncovered by Alfonso Caso in 1937-1944, re-visited by Rubin de Borbolla and Roman Piña Chan during the 1960’s, by Efrain Cardenas in 1992, and most recently in 2011 by the Proyecto Especial de Michoacán. In 1992, 194 skull fragments (MNI=40) and 28 modified femur fragments were recovered while the most...
Searching for the lost Marines of Guadalcanal (2017)
In early 2016, Garcia & Associates conducted forensic archaeological investigations for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. DPAA (formerly JPAC) is the Department of Defense agency tasked with providing the fullest possible accounting for missing American service personnel from past wars. During World War II, the Battle for Guadalcanal lasted from 7 August 1942 to 9 February 1943 and included intense ground fighting to secure the airstrip known as...
Setting Things Right: Indigenous Archaeology in Sonora, México (2018)
Larry Zimmerman taught us how to do Indigenous archaeology. He told us do not rob graves or lick bones, to ask questions that Indigenous people need answered, to put aside academic capital, to collaborate, to be radical, to listen, to be humble and to atone for the transgressions of our discipline. Such a transgression occurred in the Sierra Mazatan of Sonora, México. In 1902, a party of Yaqui warriors freed hundreds of enslaved Yaquis from haciendas near Hermosillo, and they sought refuge in...
Shared Heritage: World War II American Military Loss Sites in Europe (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Applying the Power of Partnerships to the Search for America's Missing in Action" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Historic archaeological sites associated with World War II American military losses on foreign lands represent the physical remains of a shared cultural heritage. Such sites are irreplaceable phenomena of significance to the past of both nations and for the knowledge and understanding of our shared cultural...
Should You Care About Quality Assurance in Historical Archaeology? Yes, Especially in a Forensic Archaeology Context (2023)
This is an abstract from the session entitled "Paper / Report Submission (General Sessions)", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology. Quality Assurance is not typically a discussion firestarter in archaeology. It is intended to provide processes to ensure proper documentation and design for quality and performance. Often found in service/manufacturing industries, it is not typically applied to academic archaeology. But at the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting...
The Social Life of Crash Sites: Understanding World War II Sites in Context in the Search for Missing Air Crew (2024)
This is an abstract from the "Fulfilling a Nation’s Promise: The Search, Recovery, and Accounting Efforts of DPAA and Its Partners" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological sites are only rarely preserved as pristine moments in time, unaltered since the site was formed. More often, they are a continuous production, forming a part of the social and cultural landscape of the surrounding area. In this paper, we draw upon Appadurai’s idea of the...
St Bees Man: A Cold Case Review (2015)
St Bees Man was discovered in 1981 during an archaeological excavation of the south chancel aisle of St Bees Priory in Cumbria, England. His body was extremely well-preserved with pink tissue, blood present, and intact organs all observed during a forensic autopsy. This ‘cold case’ review shows the importance of balancing both archaeological and forensic techniques. In forensic archaeology, the handling of potential evidence, overall sampling strategy, and opportunity for further analysis are...
Standards for Crime Scene Investigation: An OSAC Update (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Forensic Archaeology: Research & Practice" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) is a federal effort coordinated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create standards of best practice for all disciplines within forensic science. In 2015, NIST created an OSAC subcommittee to address the lack of standards within crime scene investigation. ...
A Student’s Perspective on the Unidentified Persons Project, San Bernardino, California (2017)
Beginning in 2006 as a response to California Senate Bill 297, the Unidentified Persons Project is the first statewide attempt to apply modern DNA analysis to cold cases in San Bernardino County. In 2014 the project became an accredited field school through the Institute of Field Research and proceeded to have two consecutive field seasons in the summers of 2014 and 2015. This paper will present a student’s perspective on the most-recent 2015 field season and will discuss both the rewards and...
Survival Compasses, Parachutes, LPUs, and More: Life Support as Material Evidence (2017)
Like any type of archaeologically recovered material culture, the debris found at an aircraft crash site can be classified in a myriad of ways, potentially focused upon shape, function, material, and/or interpretive value for the specific research questions at hand. While DPAA archaeology is informed by the broader patterns of archaeological interpretation and analysis, the focus of a DPAA crash site investigation or recovery effort is upon a singular event, such as the loss of an individual...
Sustainable Archaeology: Accelerating DPAA's mission through technological advancement, partnerships and collaboration, and meaningful public engagement (2019)
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fielding new capabilities and leveraging untapped resources for the acceleration of operational mission tempo has become a central imperative for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's (DPAA) fullest possible accounting mission. Since 2015, DPAA's Partnerships and...
A Tale of Two Bombers: Forensic Recovery of WWII-era Aircraft Crash Sites in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The successful recovery of human remains from aircraft crash sites is significantly impacted by the circumstances of loss, to include how the crash occurred, the size of the aircraft, and taphonomic factors. Two WWII aircraft crashes in the East Sepik and Madang...
Theoretical Frameworks for Isotope Data Collection and Interpretation (2024)
This is an abstract from the "The Intersection of Archaeological Science and Forensic Science" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation describes the theoretical frameworks for isotope data collection and interpretation that will help archaeological scientists ensure their contributions to forensic investigations are scientifically sound and legally defensible. Archaeological science is now commonly used in forensic settings to reconstruct...
Thriving under the Killick Critical Gaze (KCG): Toward Taphonomically Informed Forensic Sedimentology (2023)
This is an abstract from the "Archaeological Science and African Archaeology: Appreciating the Impact of David Killick" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeologists and Indigenous and national governments agree on the need to address the wicked problem of heritage resource crime, but archaeologists have yet to deploy the full range of analytic tools at our disposal to assist in the investigation and prosecution of looting, vandalism, and grave...
Underwater Archaeology at DPAA: Efforts to Address U.S. Military Loss Incidents (2019)
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A significant portion of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)'s unresolved loss cases involve incidents that occurred over water, at sea, or otherwise within a body of water. In the context of underwater forensic archaeology, addressing these cases require a...