Forensic anthropologist details how skeletons testify

Forensic anthropologist Douglas Ubelaker: “...as forensic anthropologists, we’re not trying to interpret the evidence or support one theory or another. We’re trying to represent the victim based on scientifically supported data.”

3:39 p.m., May 6, 2004--A forensic anthropologist has to rely on logic when sorting through what’s often sketchy evidence, but the ability to think outside the box is equally as vital to successful case-cracking.

Such was the wisdom shared by Douglas Ubelaker in his May 5 presentation that packed 104 Gore Hall with more than 200 people.

A forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution and a consultant to the FBI since 1977, Ubelaker reviewed the various techniques he’s used over the years to solve tough cases and explained in his slide-illustrated lecture that accurate analysis first requires the rejection of set assumptions.

“Most of my investigations come to me as fragments inside boxes, so there are often already some assumptions about them,” Ubelaker said. “Determining the facts about specimens is a matter of piecing together little bits of data and keeping an open mind, because as forensic anthropologists, we’re not trying to interpret the evidence or support one theory or another. We’re trying to represent the victim based on scientifically supported data.”

Ubelaker, who focused on the process and technique of forensics rather than the sensationalism often associated with crime investigation, said that although modern technology has provided a variety of new techniques for specimen analysis, there is still a great deal of sleuthwork required by his profession.

“We’ve gotten involved in some interesting cases over the years,” he said. “Because most crime scene experts have no experience in anthropology, much of the recovery effort comes down to the need for classic anthropological training.”

Besides reviewing various techniques used for determining a given specimen’s species, ancestry, gender, age and cause of death, Ubelaker talked about some cases he’s worked on through the years. There was the bear claw mistaken for the human hand of a homicide victim, the desiccated length of garden hose mistaken for a human femur and the maddeningly tough-to-crack case of the hydrocephalic calf skull mistaken for the skull of a newborn human. But, perhaps the most fulfilling part of his work, Ubelaker said, is the hard-won triumph of bringing a murderer to justice and the survivors to a sense of closure.

“Bone responds to different trauma in different ways,” he said. Following this statement with a series of slides that graphically illustrated the effects of stab, gunshot and tire iron wounds on skulls, ribcages and scapulas, Ubelaker closed with an example of a murder case he solved involving a woman formerly believed to have died of a drug overdose.

Ubelaker answered questions and spoke informally with audience members after concluding his lecture.

The lecture was sponsored by the UD chapter of Sigma Xi, the national scientific research society.

Article by Becca Hutchinson
Photo by Duane Perry

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