What exactly is a forensic anthropologist?

Question

What exactly is a forensic anthropologist?

Answer 1

See, a forensic anthropologist is a scientist who uses knowledge of physical anthropology for police investigations.

One of the pioneers in the field is Dr. William Bass, a professor famous for founding the "Body Farm", a facility where bodies are allowed to decompose without interference in a variety of conditions. The data gathered there can help in real cases. For example, what does a body look like if it has been decomposing in a car trunk in the sun for three days? A week? Three weeks? A month? What if the car is in the shade?

This helps police who have found remains in a trunk, but are not sure how long it has been there. You, too, can will your body to science and be allowed to decompose naturally, while helping to fight crime. What could be cooler than that?

Answer 2

forensic: Relating to or dealing with the application of scientific knowledge to legal problems, especially in relation to the detection of crime

anthropology n. The scientific study of the origin, the behavior, and the physical, social, and cultural development of humans

A forensic anthropologist is someone who uses scientific forensic techniques on fossils and bones to determine age, race, diet, general level of health. life style and  manner of death to get a picture of the lifestyle and social class, of the victim  and aid the anthropologist in understand the  strcutures and standards of of the society the ictimlived and died..

it is an important discipline to support archeologists and anthropologists to understand the nature of extinct cultures an societies and what may have happened to them.

Answer 3

Someone who painstakingly measures and sketches bone structures.

Answer 4

From the first link below (UT has what is generally considered to be the best forensic anthropology program in the US):

"What is Forensic Anthropology?

Generally speaking forensic anthropology is the examination of human skeletal remains for law enforcement agencies to determine the identity of unidentified bones.

Further definition of the term is necessary to understand the scope and basis of forensic anthropology. Anthropology alone is the study of man. Anthropologists are interested in culture (cultural anthropologists), language (linguistic anthropologists), the physical remains or artifacts left behind by human occupation (archaeologists), and human remains or bones and teeth (physical anthropologists).

Over the past century physical anthropologists (those who study human remains) have developed methods to evaluate bones to figure out things about people who lived in the past. These techniques help them to answer questions about the remains they are studying.

The questions that might be looked into include: Was this individual male or female? How old were they when they died? How tall were they? Were the people studied in good or poor general health? "

Additionally, the other links will give you a good idea about the field.

wl

Answer 5

do you happen to watch CSI????

Answer 6

the branch of physical anthropology in which anthropological data, criteria, and techniques are used to determine the s*x, age, genetic population, or parentage of skeletal or biological materials in questions of civil or criminal law.

Answer 7

i dunno

Answer 8

Forensic anthropology is the application of the science of physical anthropology and human osteology (the study of the human skeleton) in a legal setting, most often in criminal cases where the victim's remains are more or less skeletonized. A forensic anthropologist can also assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable. The adjective "forensic" refers to the application of this subfield of science to a court of law.

Answer 9

I believe they examine remains of people who've died in order to examine how or what caused their death, but don't hold me to that answer.

Answer 10

I thought that was someone who studies dead human Bones.......like the show Bones.