Bone Voyage: A Journey in Forensic Anthropology

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 290 pages
• Published by: University of New Mexico Press
• Edition: 1st Edition August 1, 1998
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0826319688
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0826319685
• Book Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Weighs: 1 pounds

Product Review
"This is an enormous contribution to the forensic anthropology literature." (Anthropology Review Database )

Product Description
A husband preserved in mothballs, a vigilante victim encased in red mud, and convicts beaten and burned in a prison riot are only a few of the cases of death examined here by forensic anthropologist Stanley Rhine. Drawing on cases he worked for the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator, Rhine demonstrates how unidentified skeletal remains indicate race, sex, age, height, and ultimately identity and how the specialist decodes skeletal anomalies to establish cause of death. Blunt trauma, gunshot and knife wounds, and other injuries receive his attention.

Step by step the author explains the techniques used to solve forensic mysteries. At the end of each case, he explains what lessons the forensic anthropologist learns from the bones. Rhine also explores specific problems and tasks: working mass disasters; recovering bodies from the field; defleshing bones; looking at charred and badly decomposed remains; testifying before juries; and others.

Reader Reviews
For those of you interested in working in the field of forensics (a seemingly popular job choice in recent times), this book is a must read. Rhine engages the reader by telling a number of tales; for example, the puzzling discovery of a body that looked female, but wearing male clothes, and how he determined the sex of the individual. He even tells us in a quite funny essay how he made enemies of the museum staff by boiling off the soft tissue of a body and causing people to vomit on the museum floor. All in all, a very practical view into the field. Rhine does not attempt to romanticize the profession; he merely tells his stories the way they should be told- very matter of factly. The book is funny at times, but his humor does not overshadow the information conveyed here.