The study presented here aimed to determine if commingled joints can be separated with virtual anthropology methods, providing an innovative and novel method for sorting commingled human remains at the atlantoaxial, sacroiliac, and and first tarsometatarsal joints.
This paper addresses the difficulty of sorting commingled human remains. The research was guided by five main hypotheses that asked the following questions: if the selected joints sort commingled human remains, and which of those joints are most useful for separating them; what the degree and range of fit is between two articulating bones within an individual, and which aspects of articulating joint surfaces are most similar or dissimilar; if the variation found within articulating joints can be defined as a threshold value to separate commingled remains; if virtual anthropology methods can sort commingled remains using joint surfaces, and if so, do those techniques improve upon current strategies for sorting commingled remains; and finally, if virtual anthropology methods can reassociate commingled remains as well as sorting them. The study's results indicate that the method discussed is highly promising and demonstrates the efficacy of deviation analysis in forensic anthropology research. Based on findings, it is recommended that this method be used to exclude or reassociated sacroiliac joint pairs, that it be used primarily in the exclusion of the first tarsometatarsal joint pairs, and only be used to exclude potential atlantoaxial joint pairs.