Your Bones Are Your ID, Anthropologist Says
By Charles Corcoran
Five or six times a year an FRI, KBI or local law enforcement investigator carrying a box or bushel basket full of bones enters the office of William M. Bass, professor of sociology and anthropology.
"Well, Doc, who is it?" the officer will invariably ask
"I lean over and inspect the bones, rub my chin, and mumble to myself for a few minutes, and then I tell him." Bass said.
A TYPICAL analysis might sound like this: "Negroid, female, about 25 years old, 120 pounds, 5 feet 6 inches tall, bore at least one child and left-handed." Bass said.
Prof. Bass, who received his doctorate in anthropology in 1961, thus introduced his lecture, "The Skeleton Talks: Human Identification," to members and guests of Phi Sigma, national honorary biological science fraternity last night.
He explained that an anthropologist is the last man who can be consulted when an unidentifiable body is found.
"If I can't do anything about it, nothing will usually come out of the case," he said.
He outlined a hypothetical case of a fisherman who happens across a body.
HE CALLS the local sheriff, who in turn calls the local coroner." Bass said. "If the body is badly decomposed, the coroner, who's usually just a local doctor who never had a patient that looked quite like that, calls me. I might add that if a doctor did have a patient look like that, I'd say he pretty well bungled the job."
Bass said when he is called in to identify a body or when he is unearthing the remains of bodies at a burial site, he uses basic facts about human body growth to tell the sex, age and race of the individual.
Examination of the teeth is one method of determining age.
Bass said that a better method than examination of teeth to tell the age is scrutiny of the epiphytes, pieces of bone at the ends of most of the post cranial (those below the skull) bones. These pieces of bone are joined with the larger bones in an adult, but they fuse gradually. Since the rate at which the fusing takes place is constant,
the degree of fusion is a reliable scale by which to judge age. This method is useful up to the time an individual has reached 16-18 years of age.
Anthropologists at one time judged age by the degree of closure of the cranial sutures (jagged unions of the bones of the skull), but this proved inadequate because the process was too erratic.
THE BEST METHOD of age determination is the examination of the public sympysis, Prof. Bass explained.
We can tell age within a range of plus or minus 3 years with the public symphysis," he said.
The public symphysis is the area of anterior mid-line union of the two hip bones. The joint surface never fuses.
"Let's talk about sex." Bass said, turning the lecture to an explanation of how gender of skeletal remains is determined.
"When in doubt, look at the pelvis, then the skull and finally the sternum (breast bone)."
BASS SAID the female pelvis is wider than the male's to facilitate
childbirth. A large sciatic nerve notch is wider and the sacroiliac joint is built up with bone in the female.
"The female skull is nice and smooth and gracile (graceful). There are no pronounced ridges above the eye. The chin is pointed where in the male it is squared. The mastoid process, just behind the ear, is not so pronounced as in the male. The eye sockets have almost a knife edge where in the male they are smooth."
The breast bone can be divided into three distinct parts. To simplify matters, Prof. Bass compared them to a sword with a handle, blade and tip. The blade is less than 2 times the length of the handle in the female. If the blade on the upper arm and leg bones is less than 44 millimeters in diameter, it is most likely a female; if it is 45 mm or longer, it is a male.
Pass explained the anthropologist's interest in race.
"TO A PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGIST, race is biological. If a Negro goes into a tavern and is thrown out because of his race, that's a social problem, not a biological one. This is not race to the physical anthropologist."
A Caucazoid has a pointed face with a prominent nose. The area between the nose and the chin is flat. Bone along the lower edge of the nose forms what he called a gutter. It allows a Caucasian to sniffle when he has a cold, he said.
The Negroid has a protrusion of the mouth region in definite contrast with the flatness of the Cauca-zoid. There is a protrusion of the teeth. There is no gutter of bone under the nose.
"Mongoloids have flat, moonlike faces. Their cheekbones come far forward. They have shovel-shaped incisors."
"THE SKULL IS about the only part of the skeleton with which you can define the race of an individual," he said.
Bass summarized his talk with a detailed description of an investigation on which he is now working.
The skeleton of what appeared to be a man in woman's clothing was found along the Delaware River in Easton, Pa. The physical descrip-
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EVERYTHING IS UPSIDE DOWN when it rains—even KU coeds whose shadows are reflected from the rainy sidewalk. The sudden change in weather gave KU students a chance to don their raincoats and galoshes.
Daily hansan
KU Spirits Dampened By Wind, Rain Stprm
61st Year, No.26
The spirits of KU's out-of-doors enthusiasts were dampened today by a wind and rain storm.
Lawrence received .72 inches of rainfall. Winds reached 43 m.p.h. during the 11 p.m. storm.
The Buildings and Grounds office said that no damage was reported to the University buildings during the storm.
Harris Says Force Rules in States' Disputes
Scattered thunderstorms were still going on in the northeast quarter of the state early today.
Errol E. Harris, professor of philosophy, last night said force is more important in the affairs of states than international law.
Mrs. Marian E. Wilson, 69. Sigma Chi housemother, died from a stroke this morning at 1 a.m. in St. Luke's Hospital, Kansas City. Mrs. Wilson had been the Sigma Chi housemother for five years. She is survived by two sons, Dr. John S. Wilson, Hillsborough, California, and Frank W. Wilson Jr., Kirkwood, Missouri.
It will be partly cloudy through Saturday. Thunderstorms are expected to redevelop in the Southeast and extreme East tonight and in the extreme Southeast again tomorrow. The high temperatures Saturday will be in the middle 70's and the low will be near 60, the weather bureau said.
The five-day forecast calls for temperatures to average 6 to 10 degrees above normal for the period Saturday through Wednesday. It will continue to be mild with no decided day to day temperature changes. Scattered showers or thunderstorms will occur over most of the area through Wednesday.
Prof. Harris spoke at a lecture in Dyche auditorium on "The Philosophy of War and Peace." It was the fifth of the series.
Housemother Dies
"The underlying presupposition of international law is that the final arbiter is force, not law," he said.
Before 1920 it was a recognized doctrine of international law that any country could resort to war as it saw fit. Prof. Harris said.
PROF. HARRIS said the League of Nations and the United Nations have attempted to stop wars. Now war is only justified for defensive purposes, he added.
Neither the League or the U.N. have greatly altered the use of force. Prof. Harris continued.
The state's sovereign independence is a fundamental principle of international law, he said. The mark of sovereignty is the authority it has over affairs within its own territory, he said.
THE PRINCIPLE of sovereignty is not clearly stated in international law, but it is clearly recognized among nations. Harris said.
"Keeping the peace is dependent on the ability of nations to keep laws without resort to force."
- A state is an equal among equals, "Since a nation is not subject or responsible to any higher authority, then all sovereign states are equal in the eyes of international law," Prof. Harris said.
Prof. Harris presented these three points as consequences of the recognition of sovereignty:
Although in legal theory all states are equal, they are not equal in power.
- A STATE CANNOT be compelled by law to submit to arbitration and to the decisions of international organizations.
Prof. Harris pointed out that membership in the Council of the League of Nations and the Security Council of the U.N. went to the big world powers. Other states are ranked in descending order in accordance with their power and capacity to affect world affairs, he said.
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
MEMBERSHIP in the "concert of powers" theoretically depends on recognition by the other nations of the world, he said.
Prof. Harris will continue his lectures next week at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, in Dyche Auditorium when he will discuss the concept of law.
Home Named Prime Minister
LONDON—(UPI)—Prime Minister Harold Macmillan resigned today and Queen Elizabeth promptly asked foreign secretary Lord Home to replace him and form a new government.
The series of moves came swiftly after eight days of agonizing appraisal and consultations that appeared to wrack the ruling Conservative Party.
IN CHOOSING HOME as the next Prime Minister, the Queen obviously followed Macmillan's advice from the sickbed where he is recovering from a prostate gland operation.
The decision eliminated the present Deputy Prime Minister R. A. (RAB) Butler, who had been a leading candidate for the job many times, but never had been able to muster enough party support to win it.
Macmillan beat him out for the Prime Minister's role last time, and Home was chosen over him this time—presumably because a
(Earlier story, page 8.)
contest between Butler and Science Minister Lord Hailsham could not be reconciled and Home was an acceptable compromise candidate. Once this was settled events moved fast.
Once this was settled, events moved fast.
The Queen and the new prime minister-designate conferred for 37 minutes.
THE ANNOUNCEMENT of Home's appointment said briefly:
"The Queen has received the Earl of Home in audience and invited him to form an administration."
There was wide belief that Home's choice as a compromise candidate was made in hopes of averting a dangerous Conservative Party split—especially now, when the new Prime Minister must lead the party into general elections before next October in the face of a united Labor Party which is favored in current polls to win a majority of seats in the next parliament.
Although he has had a successful record as foreign secretary for three years, Home is virtually a political amateur. His opponents charged he did not have the experience for the rough and tumble of parliamentary debate nor the toughness required of a party leader.
Opponents of Lord Home fought apparently to the last moments to sidetrack his selection.
LARGE CROWDS gathered outside both Buckingham Palace and No.10 Downing Street, the Prime Minister's official residence, as the political drama unfolded.
Lord Home, hatless and wearing a conservative dark grey pinstriped suit, drove through the crowds to the place in a chauffeured limousine.
He waved and smiled as he entered the "King's Gate"—now changed to the "Queen's Gate" in this reign—and again when he departed just before the Queen's announcement at 1 p.m.
NEXT OFFICIAL step for the prime minister-designate was to go to 10 Downing Street to start his round of preliminary steps.
A spokesman said Macmillan's old cabinet was expected to gather
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