TWO YEARS OF FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY AT THE MEDICO LEGAL CENTRE (CEMEL) OF THE FACULTY OF MEDICINE OF RIBEIRÃO PRETO-USP

Abstract

Forensic Anthropology is an area of knowledge which works in the establishment of a person’s identity through the individualization of his or her intrinsic characteristics. The Medico Legal Centre (CEMEL) of the Faculty of Medicine of Ribeirão Preto of University of São Paulo (FMRP-USP) has a Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology, which was created in a partnership with the University of Sheffield (UK), which elaborated a protocol for skeletons analysis and put efforts to develop a more reliable work to allow high quality social and scientific results. After two years of work, it was noticed that many skeletons forwarded to CEMEL did not have extremely important elements for the anthropological examination, which could avoid the elaboration of an adequate biological profile of the skeletons and, because of this, postpone its identification. Considering that there is no recent anthropological data in national literature about medico-legal cases of skeletons, this is the first report about the analysis of 42 human skeletons forwarded to CEMEL since its inauguration in 1999. The results showed the main anthropological characteristics of the skeletons as being related to male individuals, from Caucasian ethnic origin, age between 32.71 and 46.29 y.o., height between 1.64 and 1.73, dexterous, without any relevant pathological findings, with informative odontological elements and no clothes or other belongings. Besides, it was evidenced that 61.90% of the skeletons had less than 50% of the bones, with mean of 79.64±52.40 bones per case. Considering this, it is discussed the necessity of improvements in technical qualification and working conditions for those responsible for skeletons collection in the place they are found , as well as their transport, in a way to increase the number of collected bones and, as a consequence, of information for possible identifications.