SAN MARCOS – Texas State University has received a $785,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice to improve understanding of age-related skeletal and dental traits, which will aid in the identification of unknown human remains.
Kate Spradley, a professor of anthropology with the Forensic Anthropology Center (FACTS) at Texas State, is co-principal investigator on the project, “Subadult ancestry estimation using craniometrics, macromorphoscopics, odontometrics and dental morphology.” Spradley will focus on the craniometric analysis portion of the grant.
Currently, forensic and biological anthropologists use skeletal and dental traits as predictors to assist in determining the ancestry of adults.
These skeletal and dental traits are less reliable for use on younger individuals, because the age at which these traits become fully developed and stable has not been studied.