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Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Pathology 39 Chapter 3 Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Pathology The State of the Art Eugénia Cunha and Cristina Cattaneo Summary This chapter presents a critical analysis of forensic anthropology. An evaluation of the conception of forensic anthropology across European and American countries is attempted. Furthermore, the authors set out to identify the growing fields in which the anthropologist is involved, alone or together with forensic pathologists. Certification, training requirements, and teaching are rather heterogeneous across the several countries analyzed. Yet, although the forensic anthropologist profile is not easy to achieve, particularly across Europe, the authors were able to identify some efforts—not yet enough, however—toward the uniformization of the most reliable pro- cedures in order to face the increasing and new challenges of forensic anthropology. The authors recognize at least 11 sub-areas in which the forensic anthropologist can be involved, which is a good witness of the exponential growth of this discipline in recent years. Key Words: Forensic anthropology; forensic pathology; interdisciplinarity; Europe. 1. INTRODUCTION The main aim of this chapter is twofold: to evaluate whether the concept of forensic anthropology is the same across European and American countries, From Forensic Anthropology and Medicine: Complementary Sciences From Recovery to Cause of Death Edited by: A. Schmitt, E. Cunha, and J. Pinheiro © Humana Press Inc., Totowa, NJ 39 40 Cunha and Cattaneo and to identify the growing fields in which the anthropologist is involved, together with forensic pathologists or physicians specialized in legal medicine. 2. WHAT IS FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY? HOW DOES IT COMPLEMENT FORENSIC PATHOLOGY? WHO IS THE FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGIST? What is a forensic anthropologist? Particularly across Europe, this is a very delicate issue, and it may concern experience and training more so than specific academic qualifications, at least at the moment. In Anglo-Saxon coun- tries, namely the United States and the United Kingdom, the forensic anthro- pologist falls into a defined category, i.e., that of an individual who practices forensic anthropology (FA), this being “the application of physical anthro- pology to the forensic context.” In the United States, the discipline is more organized at least as far as training is concerned, whereas in Europe, the prob- lem remains intact. In the United States, the Physical Anthropology Section, part of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, has existed since 1971– 1972, and has as its main interest the professional profile of the practitioners of FA. In 1977, section members devised a certification procedure (1). In 1989, it was already recognized that “a revolution in the training of forensic anthropologists” had occurred (2). The rise and development of FA in the United States is indeed well documented (1,3,4). Each year, to maintain their status, diplomates in FA are required to summarize the number and types of cases they have reported, which is a good way to track the work being done in the field (1), although regulations may change drastically from state to state. In the United States, several universities offer graduate and postgraduates courses in FA, which, along with the great amount of publications on the topic (entire books included) in particular during the last 5 yr, testify to the growth of this discipline in North America. The reality in Europe is now quite different. Again, in the United States, for some states, such as Tennessee, there are statistics of FA casework that date back to 1971 (5,6). For Canada, figures on number of cases are also available (7). Some European countries, or at least some cities of these countries (8,9), have these types of data as well, but, as far as the authors know, a comparison between different countries was never performed, which precludes an accurate comparison with the American reality. Finally, whereas in the United States, FA is a fully regulated profession (10), in Europe, as far as the authors know, only in England is FA credibility achieved by means of the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners. Forensic Anthropology and Forensic Pathology 41 Although the history of FA is out of the scope of the present article (see Chapter 1), this brief chapter comments on the situation of FA in Europe with respect to the United States and illustrates the existence of asymmetries. In Europe, a European workshop on FA has been taught every second year since its first edition in Brest in 1991 (with some cosponsoring by the Smithsonian Institution [11]). At present, some courses on this matter are being given by universities in the United Kingdom, the Universities of Dundee (12) and Bradford (13) perhaps offering the most assertive courses. Although subse- quent employment is definitely a problematic issue, Black (10) points out that there is already saturation of these courses, with students on waiting lists. In Norway, FA is taught as part of a forensic odontology course (14). In Spain, there are some intensive courses in FA, such as the one of the University of Granada, whereas in Portugal, FA is taught both at the masters and postgradu- ate levels in forensic medicine and/or forensic sciences. In Italy, only the Uni- versity of Milan offers postgraduate and masters courses, whereas other universities have organized workshop-type courses. Thus, across Europe, the issue of training is very poor and not homogeneous, and the quality of such training cannot be ascertained. This is certainly an issue to solve.* The other issue is that it is very unlikely that there will be—even when FA will be well known to judges—a large market for individuals specialized only in FA. An imbalance of number of students and job opportunities is already evident. It is very difficult to perform a crosscountry analysis of the status of FA and anthropologists in Europe, with regard to professionalism, training, and type of work, as has been done for the United States. Only recently have people who work in the field across Europe started discussing, comparing notes, and approaching the issue. Thus, only in recent times has the need for the constitution of a European association where these types of questions are discussed and solved appeared. Hence, the main goals of the recently formed the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (15), a subsection of the Inter- national Academy of Legal Medicine, are education, harmonization, and cer- tification, along with the promotion of research. The Profile and Training of Forensic Anthropologists in Europe has to be defined in detail. Taking into account that the reality is different from one country to another and that the issue of unidentified cadavers and human remains is almost unknown (16), a call for FA in Europe is mandatory (9). In the United States, the background of experts on FA is essentially physi- cal anthropology (Krogman, Ubelaker, Galloway, Simmons, and others). This * E. Baccino (one of the authors in this book) had his article, which addressed this issue, published in the International Journal of Legal Medicine in November 2005 (16a). 42 Cunha and Cattaneo is clearly perceptible through the definition of FA given by Ubelaker: “FA represents the application of knowledge and techniques of human skeletal biology to modern medical legal problems” (17). In Europe, the reality is much more diverse. In Spain, the great majority of individuals practicing FA have a medical formation (Canarias, Granada, San Sebastian, Barcelona). In Portugal, physical anthropology is the basic formation of the majority of experts who deal with cases, with an increasing collaboration between foren- sic pathology (FP) and FA in the last 5 yr (18). In France, FA cases are mainly dealt with by experts with a medical formation (Montpellier, Toulouse, Marseille). England has the strongest relation between archaeology and FA. Inclusively, FA courses are taught in archaeological departments (19,20). Yet Sue Black, perhaps the best-known FA in the United Kingdom, considers that “FA is clearly still in its infancy in the UK, and I suspect that the next 10 years will see it approach maturity.” When analyzing the expansion of this discipline in her country, she says that its origin is difficult to interpret. “Whilst it would of course be most tempting to assume that they have arisen directly from the demands of the court, there is the unfortunate possibility that they are, in part, a symptom of popularity” (10). In German-speaking countries, the concept of FA has similarities with the American one: “…application of principles of human biology to ques- tions of identification” (21). In Italy, the situation is similar to France, where FA is still a domain of forensic pathologists who have some expertise with human bones in the more favorable cases (Milan, Bari), although in some cities (Milan, Bologna), biologists with anthropology training and physical anthropologists are beginning to approach the field. In Central and South America, the development of FA presents strong asymmetries. Despite the obvious need of FA expertise, discrepancies do exist. Whereas some countries, such as Argentina and Guatemala, have some of the best-known groups in FA, the Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (22) and Fundacion/Equipo de Antropologia Forense de Guatemala (23), respectively, others, such as Brazil, are far from having experts in FA. As far as the authors know, in Brazil, there are almost no offices exclusively assigned to analyze skeletal remains. The progress of FA in Latin America has been described in several reviews (see also refs. 24 and 25). One of the obstacles to overcome in Europe is a cultural one. In fact, in many countries there still seems to be a distinct division between experts who work in the forensic scenario, namely forensic pathologists, and those who work in the anthropological context, mainly anthropologists working on archaeological material.

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