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Spring 2017 Glendale Community College presents ASM 275 Forensic Anthropology Section 14630 TTH 8:30-10:50 am Location: HU-101 INSTRUCTOR: Dr. Lillian Spencer Office: 5-106 Phone: 623-845-3276 Email: [email protected] Office hours: M 11-12 am; by appt. COURSE DESCRIPTION: Forensic anthropology is an applied subfield of biological anthropology that seeks to recover, identify, and evaluate human skeletal remains within a medico-legal context. This course provides a broad overview of forensic anthropology. Students will learn: to identify bones and teeth of the human skeleton; recovery techniques and initial treatment of forensic material; the techniques used by forensic anthropologists to determine such factors as age, sex, ancestry, and stature from the skeleton; how pathological and occupational markers can help identify skeletal remains; how to estimate time since death; and how forensic anthropologists interpret skeletal information to determine cause of death. Students will also become familiar with the application of forensic anthropology to issues of human rights, mass disasters, and military identifications, and how forensic anthropology regimens are applied to non-contemporary cases. REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William R. Maples, PhD. COURSE POLICIES ATTENDANCE POLICY: The best way to know what material is covered in class is to attend class. I will take roll each class and I will be paying attention to who attends class and this could be important for your grade. Please make every effort to be ready to pay attention when class starts. Coming in late is distracting for everyone! REQUIREMENTS and GRADING: Each student is responsible for the material covered in the readings, lectures, and labs. This course is a lab course. Most weeks a portion of class time will be devoted to a lab activity. Labs are a way to reinforce some of the material from lecture and can also be a source of new material. You will gain hands-on experience and one-on-one instruction that will be very useful to you for the exams. The completed labs will form a significant portion of your final grade and CANNOT BE DONE OUTSIDE OF CLASS. Videos are considered important sources of information and will be covered on the exams. In some cases, there will be video worksheets to fill out while watching the video. These cannot be made up. There will be one reading assignment, in which students will read an article OUTSIDE of class, and then answer questions about the article. This assignment will be posted on the Canvas class website. Other reading assignments will be posted on Canvas as extra credit assignments. The ‘textbook’ assigned for this course is Dead Men Do Tell Tales by William R. Maples, PhD. He is a renowned forensic anthropologist, and this book is sort of an autobiography. It covers many of the important principles of forensic anthropology through a description of some of his interesting cases. The book is meant to provide additional information on the subject, rather than be a direct supplement to the material covered in class. However, you will be responsible for the information in the book, and you will be tested on it, according to the following schedule: Exam 1- Chapters 1-4 Exam 2- Chapters 5-8 Exam 3- Chapters 9-12 Exam 4- Chapters 13-16 Canvas. Course materials will be available on Canvas, including articles to read, labs, and lecture slides. Announcements relevant to the course will be made here as well. Grades. Grades will be assigned on the basis of 4 exams, a lab grade averaged from the labs, and another combined score for the remaining assignments. No exams are cumulative, except concerning material that is relevant throughout the course (such as human osteology!). Exams are a combination of multiple choice questions, identification/labelling, and short essays. There will be questions from the Maples book and from videos watched in class on the exams. The four exams are worth 40% of your final grade, the labs are worth 55% of your final 2 grade, and all of the other assignments will be combined together for one score for the final 5% of your grade. A standard formula for determining final grades is used: A: 90-100%; B: 80-89%;C: 70-79%; D: 60-69%; F: below 60%. Regarding Missed Exams: Few excuses are acceptable for missing an exam, and permission must be obtained from me prior to the listed exam date to be considered for taking a make-up exam. This syllabus may be modified during the course of the semester to fit the particular circumstances of this class. *IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are absent once during the first week of class you may be DROPPED from the class. Also, if you are absent more than once during the first two weeks of class you may be DROPPED from the class. Finally, if you are absent more than four times at any point in the semester you may be DROPPED from the class. If you are dropped, you are responsible for your class standing. If you simply stop attending or do not complete all three exams and appear on my final roster, you will be withdrawn and receive a “W” for the course grade. Conduct in course: I take issues related to academic honesty very seriously. Acts of academic dishonesty on the part of any student will result in failure of the course. Such acts are defined in the current catalog, and include plagiarism, cheating, fabrication and falsification, multiple submission and misuse of academic materials. Make sure you understand and avoid these behaviors. I also expect that you will conduct yourself with courtesy: no talking during lecture, no use of cell phones during class, and exhibiting respect toward me and your classmates at all times. Student Responsibilities: Please be advised that your continued enrollment and participation in this class implies that you have read and accepted the terms and conditions of this syllabus. Also please be advised that you are responsible for being aware of and in compliance with the college policies included in the college catalog and the student handbook. Disabilities: I will make any reasonable accommodations for limitations due to disabilities, including learning disabilities. Please see me personally before or after class or during my office hours to discuss any special needs you might have. If you have a documented disability and require specific accommodations, you will need to contact the Disability Resources and Services Office at 623-845-3080. COURSE COMPETENCIES 1. Define the process involved in a scientific investigation and cite the steps of the scientific method 2. Describe data scales, summary measures, and the difference between accuracy and precision 3. Collect data with scientific instruments used by forensic anthropologists 4. Explain the role a forensic anthropologist plays in the medicolegal system 5. Identify the stages of a forensic investigation 6. Describe how human osteology can help identify the life history of an individual 7. Learn the major types of trauma and how each may be recognized from skeletal remains, and how taphonomic knowledge is used in forensic investigations 8. Describe how forensic knowledge can be used in special cases, such as mass disasters, historical mysteries, etc. 3 Date ASM 275 - FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY SCHEDULE - SPRING 2017 Lecture Topic T JAN 17 Introduction TH JAN 19 What is Science? Forensic Anthropology? T JAN 24 Data Collection and Lab 1: Scientific Methods TH JAN 26 History of Forensic Anthropology T JAN 31 Osteology 1 and Lab 2: Skull and Teeth TH FEB 2 Osteology 2 and Lab 3: Skeleton T FEB 7 TH FEB 9 CSI Glendale-Forensic Context and Lab 4: Forensic Context CSI Glendale- Recovery Scene Methods and The Body Farm T FEB 14 CSI Glendale- PMI, Decomposition, and Back to the Lab TH FEB 16 Review and Lab 5: Crime Scene T FEB 21 EXAM 1 TH FEB 23 Skeletal Analysis: Ancestry and Lab 6: Ancestry T FEB 28 Skeletal Analysis: Sex and Lab 7: Sex TH MAR 2 Skeletal Analysis: Age and Lab 8: Age T MAR 7 Skeletal Analysis: Stature and Lab 9: Stature TH MAR 9 T EXAM 2 SPRING BREAK MAR 21 Positive Identification: Video - Desert Bones TH MAR 23 Positive Identification and Lab 10: Positive ID T MAR 28 NO CLASS TH MAR 30 NO CLASS T TH T TH T TH T TH T TH T APR 4 APR 6 APR 11 APR 13 APR 18 APR 20 APR 25 APR 27 MAY 2 MAY 4 MAY 9 Cause of Death part 1 and Lab 11: Trauma Basics and Projectile Trauma Cause of Death part 2 and Lab 12: Blunt and Sharp Force Trauma Postmortem Changes to Bone and Lab 13: Taphonomy EXAM 3 Applied Forensic Anthropology part 1 Applied Forensic Anthropology part 2 Forensic Anthropology in Prehistory and Written in Bone Forensic Anthropology in History *READING ASSIGNMENT DUE* Legal Considerations and Popular Culture EXAM 4 OPEN CLASSROOM