Abstract
Archaeology and anthropology have a long-standing and often uneasy relationship. Anthropology, as the parent discipline, has provided the theoretical lens through which archaeological interpretation is viewed. However, archaeological methodology is unique and separate. Over the years, archaeology has been known at times to break away from anthropology with separate professional societies, separate university departments, and separate career tracks. Despite this, archaeology remains inextricably connected to anthropology. This chapter will discuss how and why archaeology and anthropology are distinct but complementary disciplines and how they have managed to coexist as such. Within the forensic community, forensic anthropology and archaeology in the United States have not been able yet to achieve this balance. The author will make the case for the philosophical foundations for forensic archaeology as separate from forensic anthropology specifically in the context of burial excavation.
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Notes
- 1.
The clay we encountered was truly unlike anything I had seen. Not only was it incredibly dense, it was also a strange color. I remember the first time I ever saw a Munsell Soil Color Chart. I found the gley pages to be really odd. Could soil actually be any of those colors? Fifteen years later, I got my answer: the clay at this exhumation was the strangest blue color. But for all the remarks made by those at the exhumation about the clay, no Munsell Soil Color Chart was available, and no soil samples were taken.
- 2.
Also at this time there was a lively debate within the community as to the status of those within the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) sphere of archaeology. CRM is largely where the majority of archaeologists are employed, but this practical, applied, commercial version of archaeology was very much looked down upon by the academic elites. In the early 2000s CRM archaeology was gaining acceptance and today, while many would argue, that it is still not seen as equal to academic archaeology, it has become a strong voice within the community. CRM archaeology is very field-focused and therefore deviates from more traditional anthropological archaeology. This rise of CRM might also be a contributing factor to the view by some that archaeology and anthropology are separate fields of practice.
- 3.
What has been the challenge within the archaeological community is defining “forensic,” a subject discussed later in this chapter.
- 4.
See the chapter in this volume dedicated to the forensic archaeologist as crime scene investigator for a fuller discussion.
- 5.
Many excellent books outline the “how to” of forensic archaeology, namely, burial excavation. Two recommendations for further reading on this topic include Dupras and Schultz (2011) Forensic Recovery of Human Remains: Archaeological Approaches and Connor (2007) Forensic Methods: Excavation for the Archaeologist and Investigator.
- 6.
These principles also apply to crime scene examination. “Crime scenes” can be used in place of “clandestine burials.”
- 7.
A very funny video on the “coolness” of bones was produced by The Onion in 2014. It is currently available on You Tube, https://youtu.be/QDlCW7FROtI.
- 8.
This case is still active and further details cannot be provided at this time.
- 9.
Also embedded in the concrete was a figurine: a “Kermit” from the series “Muppet Babies.” The volunteer instantly recognized the figurine as coming from a McDonald’s Happy Meal from sometime in the 1980s. An Internet search produced similar figurines that provided a date – 1987. The coin and the figurine were contemporaneous.
- 10.
Some examples of “nontraditional” crime scenes include outdoor scenes, buried scenes, scene spanning large areas like an arson-initiated forest fire or a mass fatality scene, multiagency incidents, bodies found in water, etc.
- 11.
This number comes from the website of the International Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ITFY). The activities of the ITFY have now concluded but the website remains “as a monument to those accomplishments” (http://www.icty.org).
- 12.
Human-induced mass fatality scenes require the same activities as crime scenes: search, location, recovery of remains, recovery of associated evidence, and scene reconstruction. In addition, mass fatality scenes also require an accounting of all victims, correct association of victim and personal effects, repatriation of remains to next of kin, victim identification, interpretation of human activity (cause of incident, motive of the perpetrator(s), the series of events leading up to the incident), and the correcting of the historical account in cases of human rights abuses, genocide, or other restorative/reparative justice scenarios.
- 13.
Each subcommittee within the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) has been asked by the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST) to publish research needs for their fields. The research needs identified by the CSI subcommittee can be found on the NIST OSAC website under “Research and Development Needs.”
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Moran, K.S. (2019). Different But Equal: The Philosophical Foundations of Forensic Archaeology. In: Moran, K.S., Gold, C.L. (eds) Forensic Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03291-3_1
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