Research Training Program

Maureen Shea
University of Massachusetts at Boston
Boston, Massachusetts

Douglas Owsley, Ph.D.
Supervising Scientist
Department of Anthropology

"As an apprentice to a leading researcher, the RTP provides students unparalleled opportunities to actively participate in the museum's scientific community."

Examination and Analysis of Human Skeletal Remains from the Sullivan Carpenter Site, Oklahoma

This project focused on three separate forensic anthropology cases. The first concerned categorizing frontal crest morphotypes; finding the frequencies of these types in race, sex; and race-sex groups of specimens of the Terry skeletal collection; and statistically analyzing the data for significance using the chi-square test. This included examining the skeletal remains to define morphotypes, recording the morphotypes of 350 specimens (100 black, male; 100 white, male; 75 black female; 75 white female), and entering the data into a Parasox table. Data entry operator Pam Stone used SAS to analyze the data.

The purpose of this first study was to establish the use in forensic cases of frontal crest morphology in the positive identification of humans. This criterion was found to be a valid indicator of positive identification of humans, and it was applied to a recent forensic case.

Julia Geffroy (an intern from the Native American program), Malcolm Richardson (an amateur archaeologist), law enforcement officers of Prince George's County, Virginia, a local historian investigated the disturbance of a 19th century grave in Manassas, Virginia. At the field site, notes were taken (sketching a map of the site, marking locations of the cemetary's boundaries, its surface artifacts, and excavated artifacts), and soil that was excavated from the grave site had to be sorted through in order to find artifacts and remains. Finally, editing was done on the report of the investigation.

Lastly, contribution was made to the effort to seriate collections materials, Native American human skeletal remains, that are housed in the Repatriation lab of the Museum. The following data was collected: 1) metric and nonmetric age and sex indicators; 2) dental morphology and pathology; 3) bone pathology; 4) taphonomic alteration of skeletal and dental material; and 5) skeletal inventory; and 6) post-cranial osteometric measurements. These data were used to obtain age and sex estimations, information concerning pathologies, probable cause of death, and implications about culture and behavior of three individuals of one burial and two individuals of a second burial of the Sullivan-Carpenter Site, Roger Mills County, Western Oklahoma.

This research was supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation Research Experiences for Undergraduates Program ( Award: DIR-9200203).