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Use of craniometric data to facilitate migrant identifications at the United States/Mexico border

Bibliographic Data

ID8315239
AuthorsM Katherine Spradley (0000-0002-6056-9712, Department of Anthropology Texas State University San Marcos Texas, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume175
Issue2
Pages486-496
Publication date2021-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Journal of Physical Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-9483 • E-ISSN: 1096-8644
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/ajpa.24241
PMID33555056
OpenAlexW3127311607
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited52

OBJECTIVES: Thousands of migrants have died along the United States/Mexico border and many remain unidentified. The purpose of this research is to test whether estimations of population affinity, derived from craniometric data, can facilitate identification of migrant remains and provide a geographic region of origin rather than the broad label Hispanic. The appropriateness of current forensic reference data will also be assessed. METHODS: A case study combined with craniometric data from positively identified and unidentified migrants from the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner (n = 489) in Arizona and operation identification (n = 201) in Texas were compared to skeletal data representing Guatemalan (n = 87) and Mexican (n = 65) Mayans. Biological distance and discriminant function analyses were used to assess overall population relationships and classificatory models for forensic anthropological application. RESULTS: The majority of evidence indicates that estimations of population affinity can assist in the facilitation identification of migrant remains, even when a broad classification is used. Biological distances among the groups suggest that positively identified Guatemalan and Mexican migrants are similar to one another but differ from Guatemalan and Mexican Mayans. CONCLUSIONS: Population affinity estimations can aid migrant identification, and current reference data used in forensic anthropological practice should be replaced with data from positive identifications. Estimates of geographic origin may be more useful than the broad generic term Hispanic for narrowing down the search for a missing person, but more data and research is needed to achieve this goal. Although, the utility of geographic origin estimates relies on transnational data centralization and sharing, which is not always the case

Archaeology · Biology · Country of origin · Forensic anthropology · Geography · Identification (biology) · Political science · Population · Sociology · Demography · Forensic and Genetic Research · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · Race, Genetics, and Society

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Unique citing works2
Citations per year0,5
Citation span2022 - 2023 (2)
Citation velocityhistorical
Highly citedNo
Citation typesNeutral: 1
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