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Soon paper Close friend of Dr. Ross and Dr. Williams examines Panama and Colombia as a test case. An ancestry estimate might suggest that people from both countries would have similar skulls. But population affinity acknowledges that the transatlantic slave trade and Spanish colonization resulted in new communities living in Panama that changed the composition of the country’s population. Panamanian Dr. “People from Panama are very, very different from Colombia because of these historic events,” Ross said.
Dr. Ross even designed his own software, 3D-ID, to replace Fordisc, the most widely used forensic software that categorizes skulls in inconsistent terms: White. Black. Spanish. Guatemala. Japanese.
Other anthropologists say that, for all practical purposes, their own ancestry estimates become closeness estimates. Kate Spradley, a forensic anthropologist at Texas State University, works with the remains of unidentified immigrants found near the US-Mexico border. Dr. “When we refer to data using local population groups, it’s really kinship, not ancestry,” Spradley said.
Dr. In her work, Spradley uses databases of missing persons from multiple countries, which do not always share their DNA data. Bones often wear out by breaking down DNA. Dr. Spradley said estimating proximity “could help provide a preponderance of evidence.”
Still, Dr. DiGangi said the switch to intimacy may not address racial bias in law enforcement. He says he doesn’t want a “checkbox” based on ancestry or kinship until he sees evidence that biases don’t prevent people from identifying.
From mid-October, Dr. Ross expects the American Academy of Forensic Sciences Board of Standards to hold a vote to determine whether the ancestry estimate should be replaced by population affinity. But the larger debate over how to bridge the gap between a person’s bones and their identity in real life is far from resolved.
Dr. “In 10 or 20 years, we may find a better way to do this,” Williams said. “I hope so.”
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