If there are no races, why can forensic anthropologists distinguish them based on osteology?

Question

Lately I've been reading that 'races' are a social construct. Which I believe is partly true....but if it is true, why can forensic anthropologists USUALLY distinguish between the remains of a caucasian and a '*******'. and I hate using those terms btw....but they are still in use...let me rephrase...how can they distinguish between whites and blacks, which they do, if race is a social construct, and not based on morphological differences>

Answer 1

They can't with 100% certainty. Many times it's a judgment call backed up with observations, not a true scientific conclusion. Geographical differences have produced some variations, but they really don't co-vary ubiquitously, at least not to the point where we have 100% African skeletons and 100% European skeletons (which are terms tend to be more useful and accurate than the ones you say you hate using up there).

Your confusion comes from the fact that "race" is a term that is used to describe many features of an individual, but that gets determined primarily through morphological features, which don't necessarily match all those other features much of the time. If race were scientifically valid, we'd say things like "All people with caucasoid jawlines like country music," which is stupid. It's stupid, but a real scientific study of race the way it is currently defined would lead to all sorts of stupid conclusions. So your confusion is valid, I'd say.

Answer 2

first remember that bones are made of cells too, and therefore contain DNA, however small. the marrow inside is also the place where blood cells and leukocytes are made.

secondly, by putting bones in about the right place with respect to the human body, they can compare features common in both races. hip and pelvis shape are highly influential in this category.

third, since leukocytes are made in bone marrow, they can detect certain proteins found in these cells. a cytokine known as CCR5 is found in higher quantities in blacks than in whites, so that can also be a factor.

Answer 3

Races are a social construct, and although different regions of the world have produced various physical features which are somewhat more prevalent in that region than in any other region, it does not mean that those traits dont exist among other populations throughout the world. For example, there have been numerous cases where two European "white" parents have produced offspring which are morphologicaly African. The reason this happens is because within an individual the genes for most all physical features still exist, its just that through culture, and adaptation other genes have been chosen to be expressed more often int hat population given rise to a "European" or "African" look. However, even though Anthropologists have general ideas about what traits are more prevalent in what populations, they are by no means even close to 100% when guessing ancestry of a person based on bone structure alone. Anthropologists actually run at around a 40-50% success rate when all they have to go off of is bone structure. This is because people are in constant change, populations are constantly moving and interbreeding, and the races that existed 30k years ago dont even exist today. So I guess to answer your question in a short way, race is a social construct because within almost every population there lies features from every other population, just in different frequencies.

Answer 4

Well, there are pretty obvious morphological differences between the races. Whites have more pronounced facial features, noses, and sometimes higher cheekbones.

Africans and Asians generally (but not exclusively) have broader noses which are close to the profile.

These feature sets however are never exclusively so, however, in this way skeletal forensic identification is a poor second cousin to more precise genetic tests.

ALOT, however, has to do with the broad reconstructions which we can now do via forensics.

By building alot of clay models and working "backwards" from hundreds of skeletons , there are dozens of subtle features which are particular to different ethnicities, however, these in no way prevent these different ethnicities from meeting marrying or having children in life.

Racially intermixed skeletons certainly would produce different / hybrid results, but from these we could further characterize the population of new inter-racial skeletal profiles.

We can distinguish between gender from various features of the hip arrangements, and other features of the bone structure itself.

In this way, it's also important to realize that these characterizations CAN be wrong, they are not nearly as reliably accurate as DNA or other mechanisms available to modern science.

In so far as race is a social construct, this is a probably true statement, in that it would be unethical to conduct the extensive set of experiments which would be required to absolutely determine the specific "racial" differences between the various ethinic groups of our species.

At the end of the day, however, we discount - to a VERY large extent, the impact of history and culture upon our modern races.

The most intriguing book on anthropology that I've read recently was Guns, Germs and Steel, which makes several non-racial observations - which are very likely correct, suggesting that geography, and the availability of various animals and or foodstuff allowed other ethnic groups to succeed relative to others.

Answer 5

What you aren't hearing is how much of a margin of error there is in this aspect of forensic anthropology, and how many times 'race determination' fails.  

The bigger question, which you identify in your explanation is more to the point. In my opinion race IS a social process which uses folk definitions of phenotypic differences to create different social identities. In other words, the folk concept 'race' has no discernable meaning in scientific discourse - since it can not be expected to have a universally applicable and consistent definition, but is rather based on the anti-scientific "I know one when I see one" ontology.

Answer 6

Forensic anthropologists try to determine the ancestry of an individual and stay away from terms like "race."  We use traits found on the skull to make the best estimation of "mongoloid", "n*", and "caucasoid" ancestry.  It is becoming more difficult to place individuals into these categories because of the ever increasing amount of "racial admixture" all over the world.  Although someone may display more traits from the "mongoloid" group, they may identify themselves within the "n*" or "caucasoid" group.  The best that forensic anthropologists can do in the case of a set of unidentified remains is to estimate what group the person would identify with.  It is impossible for us to conclusively determine whether the person was "white" or "black."

*Yahoo will not allow me to say the term used for African ancestry, but if you Google the other two groups you will find the third term.