Assessment of commingled human remains using a GIS-based approach

Abstract

The quantification of fragmentary human remains offers a challenge for physical and forensic anthropologists. Physical anthropologists frequently borrow methods and quantification techniques developed by zooarchaeologists to assess such collections. Traditionally, zooarchaeological examinations deal with highly fragmentary, commingled samples from numerous contexts. As such, the archaeofaunal literature is rich with analytical approaches to assess these complex assemblages. However, the appropriate application of zooarchaeological approaches to human bone assemblages is uncertain. The present study examines the commingled burned human remains from the Walker-Noe site (15Gd56) in Garrard County, Kentucky. The site is a small, early Middle Woodland Adena crematory located on the southern periphery of the Bluegrass physiographic region of the state of Kentucky. Extreme fragmentation of the remains precludes the use of a simple elemental coding system to generate a skeletal inventory. This chapter details the application of a geographic information systems (GIS)-based approach developed by zooarchaeological researchers (Marean et al. 2001) to provide both a minimum number of elements (MNE) and minimum number of individuals (MNI) estimate. The methods presented in this study have applications for both bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. The physical anthropologist needs tools to accurately quantify the number of elements and individuals recovered from a commingled context, whether prehistoric, historic, forensic, or part of a human rights investigation.