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Racial Identification in the Skull and Teeth

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Racial Identification in the Skull and Teeth RACIAL IDENTIFICATION IN THE S'I(ULLAND TEETH Jodi Blumenfeld difficult to differentiate". Skeletons that are hybrids of several different racial groups, There is one major problem in the and exhibit characteristics typical of one or determination of race and that is the extreme more race are difficult to categorise into one difficulty encountered when attempting to specific racial group. define the term "race". According to Skinner According to C. Loring Brace (1995), and Lazenby (1983:48-49), in the field of prior to the Renaissance era of trans-oceanic forensic anthropology, the term "race" is voyaging, there was no such thing as a used very broadly. Racial affinity is concept of race. Brace (1995: 174) refers to identified for the lone purpose of identifying the travels of Marco Polo and Ibn Batuta, human skeletal remains. Shipman et al. who were fully aware of the wide range of (1985:250-251) define race as "...a human biological variation that existed. morphologically recognisable subset of a Neither explorer used such a concept as species". According to Dyer (1974: 1), the "race" because their voyages were broken up term "race" describes populations, not into day-long segments and they individuals, and it "...implies that a "...perceived the spectrum of human population, or group of populations, is variation as an unbroken continuum" (Brace sufficiently different from all others in the 1995: 174). After the European discovery of species to be separately recognized" . the western hemisphere, when navigational Dyer (1974:8) discusses early racial capabilities allowed one to board a boat in classifications such as the earliest England and get off in the New World classification of Linnaeus, who recognized without seeing anything in between, four human racial subspecies: Homo sapiens concepts of human variation became europaeus, Homo sapiens asiaticus, Homo categorical. Today, airplanes and the sapiens ajer, and Homo sapiens americanus. television camera have further reinforced Dyer (1974:8) also mentions the six categorical notions of human biological classifications proposed by W.C. Boyd in variation (Brace 1995: 174). 1950. Based on blood group studies, these In 1940, Franz Boas pronounced that classifications include: Early European, "...homogenous populations do not exist European (Caucasoid), African (Negroid), anywhere in the world" (Boas 1940:38). In Asiatic (Mongoloid), Amerindian, and his anthropometric experiments on the Australoid. characteristics of European immigrants to One major problem in these racial the United States, Boas stressed the classifications is that they do not take into important influence of social and geographic account the occurrence of racial hybridity. environments on body form, and stated that As Shipman et al. (1985:251) state, "...many "...head forms may undergo certain changes skeletons possess features "typical" of two in course of time, without change of or more racial groups". Shipman et al. descent" (Boas 1940:74). Boas refers to the (1985:251) use the example of "American plasticity of the form of the human cranium blacks" who are "...an admixture of several as the "instability or plasticity of types" different racial stocks and are skeletally (Boas 1940:72). More than 50 years after Boas' ancestry, or original geographical ongms, experiments, the American Association of but no straight assessment of skin colour. Physical Anthropology published a "Africa of course entails "black", but statement on the biological aspects of race "black" does not entail African" (Brace (1996:569-570). In this statement, the 1995: 172). Jim Chatters, the anthropologist AAP A declared that all living humans who first described Kennewick Man, was belong to a single species (Homo sapiens), misunderstood and misquoted when he used and all share a common descent. The AAP A the term "Caucasoid" to describe the ancient stated that there is a great deal of genetic remains (Shanklin 2000: 102). Caucasoid diversity and variation within all human does not mean "white", but only that the populations, and "...pure races, in the sense remains exhibit Caucasoid-like features. of genetically homogenous populations, do Brace (1995:172) warns that forensic not exist in the human species today, nor is anthropologists must be fully aware of the there any evidence that they have ever many biological inaccuracies contained in existed in the past" (AAPA 1996:569). the socially-expected practice of assigning According to Gill (1998:293), skeletal race to a skeleton. race attribution is important to the process of In this paper, I will attempt to describe records screening and personal the many different morphological variations identification. The AAP A may state that in the skull and teeth that occur among pure races do not exist, but society still different "racial" groups. I will also attempt perceives human genetic diversity in terms to describe the different methods, both past of discrete racial groups. This poses a and present, anthroposcopic and dilemma for many forensic anthropologists. anthropometric, which are used within the While most contemporary anthropologists field of forensic anthropology for have abandoned the traditional Western determining race from the skull and teeth. concept of race as bounded, identifiable For the sake of simplicity, I have chosen to biological populations (Sauer 1992: 107), the use the three primary racial classifications race concept continues to persist in used in modem race identification studies in government census data and mass media forensic anthropology: Caucasoid, Negroid sources. Because of this, the forensic and Mongoloid (including American anthropologist must be equipped to provide Indians) (Sauer 1992:109). results of analysis in those terms, and thus, perpetuates the myth that races exists within our species (Kennedy 1995:798). This MORPHOLOGICAUANATOMICAL \JARIATION practice is not a vindication of the traditional IN THE )\(ULL AND TEETH race concept but a prediction, based upon skeletal morphology, that a certain label Table 1. outlines the essential would have been assigned to a person when craniofacial trait variations, which are that person was alive (Sauer 1992: 110). common to these three racial categories. Brace (1995:172) warns that skeletal analysis can provide an accurate estimate of Monjtoloid Caucasoid NeJ!Toid Cranialform broad medium Long Sagittal outline high, high, highly variable, globular rounded post-bregmatic depression Nose form medium narrow Broad Nasal bone size small large medium/small Nasal profile concave straight straight! concave Nasal spine medium prominent, Reduced straight Nasal sill medium sharp dull/absent Incisorform shoveled blade Blade Facial moderate reduced Extreme projtnathism Alveolar moderate reduced Extreme proj!nathism Malar form projecting reduced Reduced Palatal form parabolic/ parabolic Hyperbolic elliptic Orbitalform round rhomboid Round Mandible robust medium gracile, oblique gonial angle Chin pro;ection moderate prominent Reduced Chin form median bilateral Median Table 1. Craniofacial trait variations. (modified from Gill 1986, Table 1.) points on the sagittal plane. This study was done on the skulls of black and white males, and it concluded that the frontal bones of white males were A Caucasoid cranium is long in thicker than those of black males (Bass length, narrow in breadth and high in 1979:558). height. The sagittal contour is round, and it exhibits a somewhat sloping forehead in comparison to Negroid or Mongoloid crania. The occipital profile is rounded A Negroid cranium is long in and it exhibits strong nuchal muscle length, narrow in breadth, and low in markings (Skinner & Lazenby 1983:50). height. The sagittal contour is flat and Bass (1979) has referred to a the occipital profile is quite rounded study by Adeloye et al.,which was (Skinner & Lazenby 1983:50). The conducted in 1975 that measured the flatness of the sagittal contour is due to a thickness of the cranium at four different post-bregmatic depression, a trait that occurs frequently in the Negroid the dental region of the skull (Bass cranium (Eckert 1997:356). Skinner and 1995:88). Lazenby (1983:50) describe the Negroid The malar bones (zygomatic bones) forehead as steep, but El-Najjar and retreat in the Caucasoid skull which can McWilliams (1978:74) describe the make the skull appear somewhat Negroid forehead as rounded. According "pointed" (Ubelaker 1989: 119). In the to Bass (1979:558), again referring to nasal region, Caucasoids possess a rather the 1975 Adeloye et al. study, the large and sharp nasal sill (Bass 1995:88). Negroid cranium exhibits thicker EI-Najjar and McWilliams (1978:74) parieto-occipital areas than Caucasoid describe the Caucasoid nasal root crama. depression as well-marked, and mention that the "...superior ends of the nasal bones often seem to disappear beneath an overhanging projection at glabella". The Mongoloid cranium is long Gill (1986:148-149) refers to the in length (Skinner & Lazenby 1983:50), Caucasoid nose as narrow with a long, but can frequently appear round instead straight nasal spine and large nasal of long (EI-Najjar & McWilliams bones. 1978:74). The Mongoloid cranium is Ubelaker (1989:119) describes the broad in breadth and average in height, Caucasoid palate as narrow and categorised between the high Caucasoid triangular, as does Gill (1986:150) who cranium and the low Negroid cranium. also mentions that the palatine suture has The occipital profile is angular and the sharp angles close to, but not
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