Forensic Anthropology
The beginning of forensic anthropology had begun with the murder of Dr. George Parkman, a physician and frequent donator to Harvard University, in 1849. It was believed that Harvard Chemistry professor John Webster had borrowed money (approximately $2,400 then, $60,000 now) from Parkman, and in an attempt to escape his debt, murdered Parkman. The newspaper had reported a mutilation in which Parkman’s body parts were found in the anatomy laboratory, in the septic tank, and in the furnace. Left with only skeletal remains, Harvard anatomy professors Jeffries Wyman and Oliver Wendell Holmes pieced the skeletal structure back together and identified Parkman by his dentures, which were confirmed by the mold provided by his dentist. They were also able to find his stature (5'10) from the bone's length measurments, and the cause of death. The cause of death was confirmed to be from the wound found between the ribs on the torso, identified to be a fatal knife blow. The amount of information found by Holmes and Wyman from just the skeletal remains inspired a new field of study in forensics, forensic anthropology. The first official applied study of forensic anthropology was by Thomas Dwight (student of Wendell Holmes) now considered the father of forensic anthropology (in the United States).
Thomas Dwight had written an essay titled “The Identification of the Human Skeleton. A Medico-Legal Study”, as he was one of the first Americans who had discussed the possibility of identifying skeletal remains. He eventually took over Wendell Holmes position as Professor of Anatomy at Harvard and researched the ways in which you could determine age, sex, and stature from one’s skeleton. His essay inspired a whole new field and mode of forensics inspired by skeletal measurments. Today, forensic anthropologists are continuing the use of his methods in order to identify age, sex, stature, and now race. By identyfing one's age, sex, stature and race, forensic anthropologists are able to build a biological profile. Identification “is a two-stage process. The first stage involves the construction of a biological profile and the second is an attempt at a positive match. The latter ideally involves comparing some individualizing data from a missing person to similar data recovered from the skeletal remains, such as dental records or X-rays” (Sauer, 2009). The first stage is important in generating a narrowed down list of possible missing persons based on matching features identified from the remains. Once forensic anthropologists have generated a narrowed down list they are able to match identifiable features from the skeletal remians to possible missing persons reports.
One such example of these identifiable features is dental records/molds. Forensics can request dental histories and teeth molds from a possible victim's dentist in order to compare the skeletal remains teeth to the mold provided. This is often the most common way in which to confirm/identify the skeletal remains. This was the same way Holmes and Wyman had identified Parkman's body. Holmes and Wyman requested dental molds from Parkman's dentist and compared them to the teeth that remained, it was a match. This was also one of their main indentifiable features when presenting their findings to the court during the trial for Parkman's murder.