Human Biology

The articles that comprise this special issue, “Changing the Landscape of Identity in Forensic Anthropology,” grew from a symposium titled “Expanding Boundaries: Embracing the Intersectionality of Forensic Anthropology to Account for the Changing Landscape of Identity in Current Casework.” These papers were intended to be presented at the 2020 meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists (now the American Association of Biological Anthropologists). However, when the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated canceling the conference, we offered the opportunity for researchers to expand their intended presentations. We are grateful that, despite the events that changed many of our personal and professional lives over the last few years, many symposium participants transformed their contributions into the rich body of research presented here.

This two-part special issue focuses on the expanded potential of forensic anthropological research as the discipline continues to develop multidisciplinary approaches for understanding identity, incorporating new sources of information and new methodologies, and leveraging preexisting approaches in new ways. The research showcased here uses diverse data and forward-thinking applications—historical, demographic, dental, skeletal, and genomic—to tackle the complexities of identity in forensic casework. These studies engage critically with parameters of the biological profile from many different perspectives but with shared concern for practical applications within the field.

Operating in the context of this theme, all of the contributions highlight the need for a renewed dialogue in the field. Kenyhercz, Konigsberg et al., and Spake et al. problematize the straightforward adoption of prevailing methodologies through their presentations of advanced theory. They demonstrate risks of methodological misuse and misidentification that result from uncritical acceptance of standard practice. Kenyhercz challenges the ancestry estimation methodology used by forensic anthropologists for decades by providing an exploratory methodology of unsupervised learning techniques, an approach that does not require a priori group selection or assumptions when comparing an individual against different groups. In doing so, the author contests the norms of analysis, encouraging practitioners to broaden their perspectives on what it means to assess human variation at the level of the individual or group. Konigsberg et al., in surfacing procedural fallacies, underscore the sobering reality of the real human consequences in poor methodology. Asking us to rethink our role as experts in the production and acceptance of forensic evidence, the authors analyze the consistency in development of the first and second mandibular molars for predicting minimum age thresholds. They thus demonstrate the bounds of juvenile age estimation within this context and [End Page 5] assert that use of biological markers for minimum age of criminal responsibility is not reliable. Spake et al. explore the potential of incorporating into the forensic tool kit formulas that estimate body mass for use on modern juvenile remains. Their research emphasizes the contribution of population variation to body composition, and they argue that, while body mass estimation methodology has potential, the consistent underestimation of weight may result in inaccurate exclusions during the investigative process. Therefore, the authors suggest continued exploration of the topic and deep integration of broad anthropological methodologies that consider population-specific contributors to body composition, such as socioeconomic status, and incorporate growth patterns.

New et al. bring to the fore data use strategies that provide access to nuances in identifying immigrants who lost their lives in the US southern border region, problematizing what are often taken to be single, stable forensic populations by researchers who stand at a distance from the actual casework and evolving crisis. The authors demonstrate the investigative potential of genetic population data for persons whose communities of origin are unknown, arguing that mobilizing the breadth of genetic data available to forensic investigators, in tandem with multiple modes of analysis, provides an additional tool to help caseworkers refine their investigation. Their research views genetic data under a biocultural lens of significance for forensic anthropology and shows how valuable population learnings can be surfaced from data already collected during the forensic investigative process (CODIS short tandem repeats). Similarly, Afra et al. problematize assumptions of straightforward relationships between genetic, skeletal, and soft tissue data, yet they also bring key insights...