NCJ Number
128106
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 36 Issue: 1 Dated: (January 1991) Pages: 272-279
Date Published
1991
Length
8 pages
Annotation
Forensic anthropology techniques were used to identify incomplete postcranial remains and a skull that had been discovered over a period of two months near Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Abstract
Once the various discoveries were found to be from the same person and the remains were shown to be consistent with an anthropological analysis of a missing person, further work led to a positive identification. A legal identification was made on multiple grounds including parental identification of the clothing, condition of the skeleton, stature, fused cervical vertebrae, various aging criteria, radiographic morphology of the skull, pattern of the mastoid sinus, and meningeal artery and suture morphology. The mastoid sinus and endocranial arterial patterns may be particularly useful for identifications when antemortem radiographic studies are limited to lateral cranial vault studies. 1 table, 4 figures, and 15 references (Author abstract modified)