Is it possible to escape racial typology in forensic identification?

Abstract

This chapter provides a review of metric and morphological methods for determining ancestry from skeletal forensic cases, as well as a comparative look at emerging genetic origins-determination methods. The authors address two major issues with respect to these methods. Are the methods consistent with observable patterns of human biological variation and with the apportioning of variation in skeletal reference samples used to represent population groups? Do the methods have any utility for positive identification of unknowns? In addition, the authors provide examples of the patterns of variation in cranial measurements, infracranial measurements, and morphological characters as observed in skeletal reference samples to illustrate some of the limitations of the underlying assumptions of race-determination methods. © 2006 Humana Press Inc.