Thomas A. Crist

Bad to the bone?: Historical archaeologists in the practice of forensic science

Heightened recognition by law enforcement personnel of forensic archaeology provides an expanding array of opportunities for historical archaeologists to apply their skills in situations of medicolegal significance. Yet too few archaeologists are familiar with the protocols of criminalistics, including crime scene processing, chains of custody, and effective court testimony. Also, most archaeologists do not fully realize the health risks associated with handling decomposed human remains and the professional liability exposure inherent to a juridical investigation. As a group, historical archaeologists undoubtedly possess the skills and ethical disposition required of forensic scientists, but those who wish to offer their services as forensic experts must also be prepared to assume the serious responsibilities of doing so. This paper discusses the development of forensic archaeology, the specialized training that qualifies one to participate in a crime scene investigation, methods to reduce health risks and professional liability exposure, and the most effective approaches an historical archaeologist can follow to become certified as a forensic expert.

Babies in the Privy: Prostitution, Infanticide, and Abortion in New York City’s Five Points District

Excavation of a privy shaft associated with a 19th-century tenement at 12 Orange Street in New York City’s Five Points district revealed the skeletal remains of two full-term neonates and a fetus. The well-preserved neonatal remains, probably twins, represent either concealment of a stillbirth or neonaticide, a subtype of infanticide. The presence of the “quickened” fetus in a different privy layer reflects concealment of a miscarriage or an induced abortion. Historical documents indicate that city authorities closed a “disorderly house” or brothel located in the tenement’s cellar in 1843 due to neighbors’ complaints. Within this historical context, the discovery of the skeletal remains provides an opportunity to trace changes in American social and legal attitudes regarding infanticide, abortion, and prostitution and explore the difficult choices faced by working women in New York City from the colonial period to the middle of the 19th century.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Bioarchaeology and the Modern Gun Culture Debate

In his controversial book Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture, historian Michael A. Bellesiles argued that personal gun ownership was uncommon prior to 1850. His book triggered an intense re-examination of the American gun culture. A subsequent investigation into his alleged misuse of antebellum probate records to support his thesis resulted in his forfeiture of the prestigious Bancroft Prize and the loss of his position at Emory University. Historical archaeologists can contribute to the debate on the popularity of guns in early America armed with objective data on the frequency and distribution of gun-related artifacts. Analysis of historic period human remains provides another dimension to the modern gun-culture debate through documentation of the prevalence of gunshot wounds, including those among minority groups whose rates of firearms trauma were generally unreported in official statistics before the 1930s. By accurately recognizing and systematically recording gunshot wounds among historical population samples, bioarchaeologists are uniquely positioned to report the actual frequency and, in many cases, the contexts within which such wounds occurred in the past.

Renaissance Anatomy in the Americas: A Bioarchaeological Perspective on the Earliest Skeletal Evidence of Autopsy in the New World

The discovery of an autopsied colonist who was buried at Saint Croix Island in New France during the winter of 1604–1605 provides a unique opportunity to explore the practice of autopsy in late Renaissance Europe and its transmission to the New World in the Age of Discovery. Currently representing the earliest skeletal evidence of autopsy found in the Americas, this young man’s remains reflect the changing attitudes towards the corpse in Europe that began in the thirteenth century and were promulgated through the Reformation in the 1500s as the Roman Catholic Church’s loosened restrictions on autopsy and dissection coincided with the increasing availability of printed books on anatomy. Combining the skeletal evidence with Samuel de Champlain’s eyewitness accounts, this chapter adopts a biocultural approach to address the issues of social organization, inequality, and marginalization among the 79 stranded Acadian colonists as they faced a deadly crisis of scurvy and starvation.

“The Mangled Remains of What Had Been Humanity”: Evidence of Autopsy and Dissection at Philadelphia’s Blockley Almshouse, 1835–1895

Emphasizing the concepts of structural violence, abnormality, social marginalization, control, and consent, this chapter describes the excavation and analysis of skeletal remains from patients who were autopsied and dissected at Philadelphia’s historic Blockley Almshouse. Highly influential in the development of modern American medical education, the Blockley Almshouse was where the city’s poor were physically removed from society, transformed into anatomical specimens, exhibited in the almshouse’s Pathological Museum, used for surgical practice and experimentation, and permanently separated again through burial in the remote, unmarked almshouse cemetery further erased by an ash dump. The skeletal remains literally embody the rise of scientific medicine and changing attitudes regarding the appropriate treatment of the sick and the poor through two centuries in Philadelphia and across the nation.