[ Music ]
>> Good morning everybody.
Thanks for joining us today.
We're very excited, actually,
to be able to host this here
at NC State, and Kary is the one
who actually made it all happen.
It wasn't me.
She just would send
me reminder e-mails.
Like, you haven't done this yet.
I'm, like, doing it.
Sorry. For some of you --
this may be for the
anthropologists in the house.
So some of our anthro
lectures will be maybe a little
bit basic.
But, hopefully, the
hands-on part,
with actually using 3D
ID will be very useful.
But some of you who don't have
an anthropology background,
hopefully this will give
you enough of a background
to be able to use 3D ID.
I guess the first thing
we should talk about is --
is the concept of race, and
I'm going to talk about it
from a forensic anthropological
perspective.
And that really means is, like,
there's been a lot of debate
in anthropology about race
and the concept of race,
and should be -- should
we be assessing race --
or ancestry, as we call it now.
I just put up this.
This was something that was said
by Gill, in 1998, about ancestry
or racial affinity [laughs].
So the important of -- for
our biological profile,
again is the determination
of ancestry, or --
as we used to call it
-- racial affinity.
And if you look at it from
a pragmatic perspective
and from an identification
perspective,
if we don't know the ancestral
origin of an individual,
it makes it very difficult to
get a full biological profile,
and also narrow down your
unidentified, and to be able
to get -- ultimately
-- an identification.
All right.
So ancestry or racial
affinity has been,
historically, politically
charged.
There's a lot of confusion,
still, whether it's --
you're dealing with cultural
or biological identity.
And sometimes those get mixed
in with -- even in our census,
as I will talk about
a little bit later.
All those, like, cultural
constructs get mixed
in with the biological
constructs,
and then we're not really sure
what we're dealing with at
that point; and it's
important to be able
to tease those things out.
Another question has
been is does race exist?
There's a lot of people
saying no, it does not exist.
Also, it's a conceptual
problem, whether you're dealing
with race or ancestry.
Some people say since as we
have moved to looking at --
from the human variation
perspective --
and we're using the
term ancestral origin,
instead of race, people are
just saying that we're --
the only thing that we're
doing is replacing one term
for another, but it actually
means the same thing,
which it really doesn't.
And we're going to talk
about this in a little bit.
So it's a conceptual
problem, and also fear
of the legal system imposing
or forcing certain categories.
And those you will see, also,
over the years, in the census.
They keep adding categories.
They take categories out,
and they put them back in.
Then they change
the name of them.
They take origin out.
They add descent.
And they're all confused,
as well.
And we also see it in the
medical examiner system.
A lot of times, you get some
of the older cases, people --
of the term -- of what you would
call Hispanic are called white.
Sometimes they're
not called white.
Is Hispanic really a true
biological construct?
And Kate has done a lot of
research on this and will talk
about this in a little bit, too.
So some of those
things get confusing.
So sometimes you'll see
white, nonwhite, you know.
We used to use this horrible
term called mongoloid
at one point, which
makes me cringe.
But we'll talk about all
those things, as well.
So, also, some of the
things that we have
to be careful in
a global setting.
Race has been used as
an excuse for genocide.
For example, in Rwanda, the
Hutus against the Tutsis,
even though they all originated
from the same language
group, or population.
Right? So they found
enough differences
to have an excuse
to comment genocide.
They used terms as you had
to annihilate the cockroaches,
and things like that.
So it's an oppression kind of
thing, that they have used race.
In the Balkans, as well, you
had people that originated
from the same Slavic stock
or origins were fighting
against each other, and you
had three different groups.
One was Catholic Croatians,
Orthodox Christians
that were Serbians.
You had Bosnian Muslims.
Which were religious
differences, but they used
that also as an excuse to
exterminate individuals.
So are we really dealing about
race, or are we dealing with,
you know, the term that the
genociders themselves used --
ethnic cleansing.
So those are all things
that go into play.
And I know, for a while,
people don't want you to look
at the differences in
-- across the globe --
at human biological differences,
because they feel that,
you know, there will
always be someone out there
that will use that, you
know, to their advantage,
and also to the detriment
of another population.
So ancestry: What
does ancestry mean?
Basically, it's a lineage,
or those who composed a line
of natural descent; so,
someone who descends from --
from a particular line.
Race is determined
geographically and culturally,
so you have geography and
culturally-derived in there,
who share a common gene
pool and are similar
in many characteristics.
And one of the things that
people have objected to the use
of the term race, is because
it actually means subspecies
in other biological sciences.
And we're not dealing
with subspecies.
We're dealing with the same
species, right, not subspecies;
just variations of humans, so --
that's where that
comes from, too.
Ethnic groups are
a group of persons
who share the same
language and customs.
So that has also been used.
I know if you've seen
talks that they deal
with someone's ethnicity
versus someone's ancestry.
Well, as a forensic
anthropologist,
we can't really determine
ethnicity, right;
because that's more of a
cultural, social construct.
We are looking at the underlying
biology of that individual,
right, and that's what
we're trying to get at.
So, again, ancestry, back in the
day, was related to distance.
As we all knows,
humans will mate
with whoever is closest
to them, generally.
Right? That's what
human nature is.
So generally, you are
closest to the individuals,
or you're more related to -- or
morphologically similar to --
the people that you are
in the vicinity with.
And also, you can look
at demis or populations
or breeding populations.
That's generally my
area of research.
So you can pretty
much group groups
of people into whatever form.
So you can look at
religious affiliation.
That can be a group.
You can look at the differences
and similarities
between those groups.
You can look at language as
similarities and differences
and call that your population.
So we're essentially looking
at breeding populations.
And generally, when we talk
about breeding populations,
individuals are more similar
in morphology with those others
within their breeding population
than others that are not, right,
because they're exchanging
genes.
So that's that.
The main problem with
the race concept,
it's does not reflect the
fluidity of interbreeding.
So we -- what we
look at are the mean
or average differences
among groups.
But you always have along those
clines, right, you have people
that are along the
borderlines, that you will see
that share traits
with other groups.
It also does not
address gene flow.
And also, humans do not
belong to a single group
for a long period of time.
So as time evolved, and as
we go, we have airplanes.
Right? So before, mountains used
to be good genetic barriers.
Right? So you would
generally mate
with people that are closer.
You're not going to climb the
Andes, right, to go find a mate,
when you can, you know, find
one up the road, like, a mile.
Right? So now, we have
cars, we have airplanes,
that makes this interbreeding
a lot more easier to do.
So we will, in our
populations --
modern, contemporary populations
have a lot of admixture.
So those are the things that
we can actually pick out.
If you have a forensic case,
rarely, now, are we not admixed
or have some type of mix
of other populations.
So what I generally
do is say European,
with African admixture, so --
I think, to stay on the
safe side of things.
We have few very moderately
distinct breeding populations.
If you take the world at
large, you can have Europe.
You can group them as
a European component.
European-Americans
would be very distinct.
The U.S. is an amalgamation
of various European
groups, you know.
We're not based on nationalistic
boundaries, whereas in Europe,
you still have national
boundaries
that help somewhat
curtail interbreeding.
For example, you have
Africa, certain groups.
Also, for example, in India
you have the caste system
that would also serve
as a breeding
or a genetic barrier, as well.
The American Anthropological
Association's position on race,
they have this huge website
called ProjectRace, I think.
It's online.
And for forensic
anthropologists, this is,
I guess, kind of a burr
in our side many times,
because they are vehement
about that races do not exist,
that we're all the same.
If you look at DNA, we all
have the same DNA makeup.
But what they're missing is that
that's correct, we also 98%,
you know, the same as
a chimpanzee, as well,
but you're not going to tell
me that we are not distinct --
right -- that we do not
have geographic adaptations.
So basically, our overall
schema of, when we're looking
at ancestral groups,
we're looking at origins,
or geographic origins
of populations.
So this is what we're
looking at,
and not necessarily just the
genetic makeup of individuals.
We're looking at the phenotype
and what we have adapted
to geographically over time.
Okay. So again, why do we
need to assess ancestry?
Well, it allows us to -- we can
estimate a person's ancestry
to a pretty good
degree of specificity.
We're pretty good at that,
because we do have
geographic adaptations
that we can actually visually
see in the craniofacial region,
and in some other
parts of the body.
And we can also quantify
those differences.
So what we essentially are doing
is determining the immediate
ancestor of that one individual,
to try to group them
into specifics.
So we would like to say, for
example, you have an unknown,
you can say this person
is of Asian ancestry,
or European ancestry,
or African ancestry,
which will also help the
identification process.
Ancestry implies broad
geographically-defined areas,
like we were discussing
-- Europe, Africa, Asia.
But again, those
can be subdivided
into other specific groups.
And one thing that we
have done with 3D ID --
and actually, Bruce
Anderson planted
that seed several years ago --
is to not just use that
term Hispanic that I'll talk
about in a minute,
but to subdivide
that into a more geographic
region, like Circum-Caribbean,
Meso-America, South America,
because they're all
very distinct.
And someone from, for
example, Puerto Rico
or Cuba will have some
African ancestry in there,
will have European
ancestry in there.
But someone, for example,
from Honduras will have
more indigenous ancestry.
So they're very distinct,
and they can be teased out.
And we can make those
kinds of assessments.
So, we no longer
use the term race.
It's is a dirty word.
Right? Even though
we are accused
of still doing the
same thing, we're not.
We're looking at
biological variation.
We try to avoid the older
typological or taxonomic things.
Before, they had
three major races.
They had Mongoloid, Negroid, and
Caucasoid were the three types
of main three areas that
individuals were grouped into.
However, we know
those are incorrect.
And those were done to
try to set up a schema
of who was more intelligent
than another.
So it had, for example, negative
connotations associated with it.
And we have moved away
from those things,
because we know those
things are not true.
Okay. So ancestry determination
in the United States.
This is from the
1990 U.S. Census,
and this shows you the
distribution of American Indian,
Eskimo, and Aleut persons.
And it seems like they go
around picking individuals
on the U.S. Census, and
then they just add --
I'm actually not sure
who actually decides
on the categories
that they used.
So this shows you
the distribution.
The ones with the dark green
have the most distribution
of these individuals
in the United States,
so you can kind of see that.
And it also helps, when
you're doing a forensic case,
to know your demographics --
the demographics of your area.
If you know you have a heavy
Hispanic of Mesoamerican origin,
those are things that you
should probably incorporate
into your thought process.
Okay? So know your demographics.
Of course, there's always
an exception to the rule,
but you should always
look at your demographics.
Asian and Pacific
Islander persons --
so, obviously, we don't have
too many across the U.S.,
but as you get to
the West Coast,
you start seeing the
darker numbers over there.
Black persons --
there's a big cluster
on the eastern United States.
And Hispanic origin -- also from
1990 -- you have, of course,
along the border and in
Florida, especially in Hialeah,
where you had a lot of the
Cuban immigrants coming in.
So that was from 1990.
And why does Hispanic
-- Hispanic is what --
more of a cultural construct.
Right? It has absolutely no
social -- or no -- excuse me --
biological meaning whatsoever.
It means people of
Spanish-speaking countries.
But you can have people of
Spanish-speaking countries
that are very biologically
different,
or have different ethno-historic
origins; again, like Mexico,
more of an indigenous;
Cuba, you have --
can have some African,
some European.
Someone from South America
would have indigenous --
but a different type of
indigenous or native American --
ancestry than, let's
say, in Central America.
So all those things
are very distinct,
but they would have all been
grouped into this umbrella
of Hispanic, which
is meaningless.
Let's see some of the changes
in the U.S. Census,
from 1970 to 2000.
In 1970, it's the first
time the data were collected
on Hispanic populations.
So, in there they have Mexican,
Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central
or South America, other
Spanish, no or some of these.
All right.
So you're supposed to
fill some of these out.
In 1980, they added the
question, is the person
of Spanish or Hispanic?
But to me Hispanic
means Spanish.
And if you actually talk to
someone from Europe from Spain,
and you call them Hispanic,
they get really angry.
They're European.
They don't consider themself as
part of, I guess, the Americas,
right, which is a whole
different construct.
I guess "no" was removed from
the list, and then Central
and South America
are removed, in 1980.
Then, in 1990, they dropped the
word descent and added origin
in there, so -- obviously,
they're confused in, like,
kind of thinking about what
they're supposed to be saying.
And then, in 2000,
they added Latino
and dropped the word "origin".
So they dropped descent,
switched it out for origin.
Then they dropped that.
Then they added Latino.
And I know Latino means a
specific cultural entity.
If you call, for example,
someone from Panama Latino,
they'll look at you like what
the heck are you talking about?
What is that?
You know. So it has
a completely --
and there is a new
term, too, Ladino.
So, you know, how are you
supposed to use these terms,
which are biologically
meaningless.
And you're having people
trying to do a census
and categorize themselves.
To be obnoxious, I would say
I'm admixed, so -- to throw --
one person throwing
off the census.
Right? So even when I get
asked at the doctor's office,
they always say race,
I put admixed, so --
unfortunately, you won't be able
to use my data for anything.
Right now.
This is something that Steve
Owsley did, and it's a poster.
And I can't remember, it was
for a couple of years back.
And he was looking at the Asian
question, or mongoloid question.
And also, I guess, just
as I was as frustrated --
and Kate was, as well --
with the term Hispanic,
he was just as frustrated
with everybody grouping
or lumping everybody together
under Mongoloid or Asian,
which they're very distinct.
And usually, when you do --
when you have those three
main categories, remember --
Caucasoid, Negroid,
and Mongoloid --
that also included individuals
of native American origin,
which could be historic
or prehistoric,
which you shouldn't
group together, anyway.
Granted that Asian ancestry --
the Americas, we all originated,
you know -- you know,
from the Bering Strait,
and we can tie back to
Native American origins.
But we're very distinct
groups --
or populations -- that we have.
And here he clearly shows
that you have a nice overlap
of African and European.
Right? And on here, there's a
distinct margin between Asia,
and then between Native
American populations.
So they're -- and, within
Asian, also, you have a lot
of different other groups
that you can also
tease apart, as well.
All right.
This is something I did in 2005
-- I want to say -- or 2004.
We were looking at groups,
using geometric morphometries,
looking at the different
populations.
And we compared different
groups from the Americas
with African-Americans, with
European-Americans that were
from the Terry Collection
and the donated collection,
from Panama, Mexico.
And then we had Afrol-Antillean
Pana major --
more of an African mixture.
Panama has a unique
history, where you have a lot
of indigenous populations
in certain parts of Panama.
You also have some
populations with a lot of --
especially on the Caribbean
side or Atlantic side --
with a lot of African origin,
because of the slave trade.
They brought in a lot of
Africans during the slave trade.
And they also have a lot
of Chinese individuals
that were brought in to
help build the canal.
So, then you have a big
mix of all these groups.
So here we see that African
and Cuba are closely
related, based on those trees.
Right? And then Spain
and European-American.
But they also cluster
with Cuban and African.
And that clustering shows you
that there's some common
descent going on there,
especially with the
two clusters together.
And then you have Ecuador,
Mexico, and Panama;
and that's also showing
some indigenous ancestry.
And prehistorically, they
have found that Mexico
and Ecuador are very similar,
based on because these
populations would travel along
the coasts.
So, you know, they were not only
sharing pottery in the past,
but obviously they were
sharing something else, as well.
Right? And Cuba --
pre-contact Cuba --
that's been something
very interesting.
They are unlike any other
in the Caribbean area,
so they have a distinct
origin that did not come
from the westward migration from
Venezuela, like we once thought.
All right.
This is someone of Hispanic
origin, and we can see --
you will have an amalgamation
of different traits.
So, for example, if you are in
South Florida and someone is
of Cuban ancestry, you will
probably have a, you know,
admixture of African, European,
and a suite of traits
that you can see.
And someone in North
Carolina, we get a lot
of people from Mesoamerica.
That's right, Clyde; isn't it?
So we'll have a lot of
indigenous ancestry in there,
and -- in the Southwest
and the western part
of the United States; also as
they're coming up from Mexico.
One of the things that we
have found that works --
and this came out in
a 2008 paper in JFS,
and I believe it was --
was it Bruce's paper, Kate?
Do you remember?
>> Audience: [Inaudible]
the cultural profile --
>> Yeah --
>> Audience: [Inaudible]
>> Birkby and them.
Yeah. And the protostylid.
And actually, we've
been collecting this
since we've been here.
Every individual of Mesoamerican
origin has a protostylid,
or a buccal pit on the molar.
So that has been a very
useful trait to use.
And don't mind the trauma that
the poor individual sustained.
Another thing that we
find is individuals
of Hispanic ancestry --
or in the Americas --
have some complex sutures.
And a lot of times that --
geographically specific,
but many times we'll
see individuals
of Mesoamerican origin that
have these complex sutures,
because they're asymmetrical
in the vault.
And that's most likely
due to the plagiocephaly,
or how you placed your
baby, when they're and --
or when they're sleeping, and
also of the way they're carried.
So that will cause that
asymmetry in the vault.
All right.
So some of the things
that we see here,
you have of Asian ancestry; you
have an intermediate profile,
meaning the part of the
maxilla is moderate --
or intermediate -- compared
to someone of African profile,
which will have a
projecting maxilla,
or they will be prognathic.
And someone of white, Hispanic,
generally a straight profile,
or lack of prognathism.
And that would hold
true with individuals
without African origin.
Right? Not so much, if you
have a Hispanic population
that does have African
admixture.
So those are things
to keep in mind.
Some of the other
things that we can look
at are dental morphology.
The one on your upper left
-- shovel-shaped incisors,
generally associated with Asian,
Native American, Hispanic,
if you have indigenous ancestry.
European and African generally
have a spatulate type incisor.
We see a crenulated molar
pattern in African populations,
and a smooth cusp pattern
-- or Y4 pattern --
in European populations.
Any questions so far?
We're good?
Yes.
>> Question: The complex sutures
are actually a reflection
of cultural feature,
like wear on the teeth?
>> Yeah, that's it.
Some of it would be that.
Some of it may be biologically
induced, but some of it, yes,
absolutely is cultural,
especially when you see
asymmetry in the vault.
>> Question: Is it from
more complex head-wrapping
of children?
Or is this just a simple matter
of how they're laid, or --
>> I think it's a simple
matter of how they laid,
because you'll see
sometimes broad,
you'll sometimes
flattening on one side.
It's not -- in the past, where
you've had cranial binding,
you will see very
complex sutures.
But I don't think there are any
populations today that do that.
So it's actually sometimes,
you know, for example,
you have migrant workers.
They wrap the baby so
tight against them,
so that may produce some of
the changes in the vault.
Yes.
>> Question: In North Carolina's
where you're primarily
collecting the data.
What's the primary origin
of the Hispanic population
in North Carolina.
>> We have a lot of people
from Central America
coming through here.
Honduras, El Salvador --
that's right, Clyde, isn't it?
Yeah, and it's, like, when I
looked at the demographics,
it was a Central
American origin.
>> Question: Do you think that
the Back to Sleep program,
educating everybody
who watches commercials
to put their babies
on their backs --
>> -- may have just --
>> Question: has
changed any of this?
>> That's actually a really
good question, because I know
that the frequencies
in the stats
for positional plagiocephaly
has increased tremendously,
since the Back to Sleep
program, in all kids.
And a lot of kids now have to
wear little helmets to kind
of reshape their heads.
So if you see little
kids with helmets,
it's because they have
positional plagiocephaly.
But one thing that
I noticed is, like,
with the Hispanic population
-- or the migrant workers --
I think it's not necessarily
the Back to Sleep problem,
because a lot of the other
skeletal features that we see,
like spina bifida and
some of the other things,
it doesn't seem like they're
getting a lot of prenatal care.
So, I'm not sure if that notice
has quite gotten to them yet.
But that would be an
interesting thing to see.
>> Question: Is the Hispanic
population here primarily
migrant workers,
or do you have --
LA is a little bit of a
special case, because we have
such a high population
of Hispanic individuals
from all over.
And they're in every
segment of society,
and fairly equally
at this point.
>> Yeah, we have
a lot of laborers
that are of Hispanic origin.
We have them also in most
sectors now, but the individuals
that come through the
ME's office would be
from a different, you know,
pool of individuals
that you would find.
So probably the pool
that we're seeing,
I would say more migrant
workers, because most
of them remain unidentified.
So I think its a
sector of society
that you're getting your...
>> Question: One more question.
>> Yes.
>> Question: Do you think
that they're primarily
first-generation migrants
that you're looking
at primarily,
or second, third, fourth?
>> That's a good question.
I hadn't actually, really
thought about it on those terms.
Some of the cold cases,
probably first-generation.
But some of the later
cases, I wouldn't know.
I don't know.
Yeah. Because we even have --
Clyde even has one in his office
from a little boy from --
10-year-old from '98, so --
so, yeah, I don't know.
Yeah. Good questions.
Thank you.
Some of the other traits that
we look at to differentiate --
just generalized -- is
European; Asian; rounded vault,
no depression post-bregma.
Bregma is a landmark up
here, which, from the coronal
and sagittal suture,
it intersects.
And you have a post-bregmatic
depression, generally,
in African populations.
So I actually -- really -- I've
pulled this off the Internet,
and I really like that to
show what the variation
of Hispanic populations
across the United States.
What we found in that research
with the phenogram on there was
that Panamanians very similar
to Mexicans, based, again,
on the migration patterns that
you can find in Ecuadorians.
And also, West Indian
Panamanians had a little bit
of similarity, as well.
This was very distinct
from European, African,
and modern Cuban affinities,
so that shows a different
descent, as well as origin.
So, I guess the census needs
to add these terms back in,
because we keep using
those over and over again.
Right? And basically,
Hispanics are so diverse
that we shouldn't group them
under this one
socially-constructed umbrella.
How do we determine ancestry?
Well, we do it non-metric
or through visual,
morphological traits,
like the protostylid,
post-bregmatic depression.
Those are things that you
can't necessarily quantify.
We use metric methods,
which you use continuous
and measurable points.
Traditionally, we've
used calipers.
It worked quite well, so far.
And then we applied those
lists of measurements
to multivariate statistics,
to allocate crania
to a distinct group.
We can look at population
level differences.
It's almost exclusively
derived from adults, though.
Anybody over the age of 18,
19 is usually what we
use in our samples.
And that's due to the
confounding effects of growth,
allometry, and changes
during that growth period.
But there has been
some new research --
well, relatively new research --
that has shown that some
of these morphological
characteristics are actually
found in utero.
So we can look at some
of these things, as well.
And we'll show you how using
geometric morphometrics,
you can actually look
at younger individuals,
not necessarily only
adults, to look at groups
of different ancestral origin.
And those are -- any questions?
We're good.
Okay. Thank you.
[Applause]
[ Music ]
