Testing the Applicability of Non-destructive Methods and Databases for Determining Biological/Cultural Affiliation within NAGPRA

Summary

Determining biological/cultural affiliation of prehistoric human skeletal remains for NAGPRA compliance is standard protocol in museums and academic institutions. However, the biological affiliation of skeletons of unknown provenience is not always straightforward, especially when they preclude the use of destructive analytical methods (e.g., DNA extraction). Although software is available for the estimation of ancestry of human skulls in forensic cases, few comparative datasets are available for assessments involving prehistoric crania in California and other regions of North America. To circumvent this problem, a digital database using non-destructive 3D scanners was created for biological assessments of potentially Native American crania. The dataset contains high-resolution scans of over 400 North American human crania from archaeological sites and five "unknown" crania, two of which may be affiliated with Native American groups. To test the biological affinities of the "unknown" crania, we recorded 34 craniofacial landmarks for a subset of adult individuals in the database. These data were then subjected to a series 3D geometric morphometric analyses to compare the "unknowns" to individuals in the North American database. Although preliminary, our analyses show that this North American comparative database serves as a viable, non-destructive alternative for conducting biological assessments of Native American skeletal remains.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage