9781422273432

Other career roles include work with the medical examiner or coroner in larger cities, or for the U.S. military or other governmental agencies. Another career path could be working for museums, although those positions are rare. Forensic anthropologists employed at museums are tasked with analyzing human remains to discover more about the history of an individual or culture. The National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., has a collection of 30,000 sets of human remains from populations all over the world, including over 1,700 complete skeletons from the late 19th to mid 20th century. Whether they work directly for a college or university or for a government organization, forensic anthropologists usually belong to professional associations and participate in conferences, including internationally. They can give lectures, write books, and in some cases be interviewed by television news reporters or documentary filmmakers.

Speaking for the Dead

Many forensic anthropologists enter the field because they want to make a difference for the families of people who have died. They use their skills to discover the identities of unidentified remains, and they can inform families of the circumstances surrounding peoples’ deaths. A 2015 museum exhibit sponsored by Arizona State University’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change (SHESC) was titled “Speaking for the Dead.” The exhibit included a case study of migrants who had died while attempting to cross the border between Arizona and Mexico, one of the harshest desert environments on earth. Interactive features allowed the public to see how investigators used bones to identify the ages, genders, and heights of deceased migrants. Accompanying artwork provided further information about the migrants’ stories and cultures.

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Forensic Anthropology