@article{keys_ross_2022, title={Identifying Blunt Force Traumatic Injury on Thermally Altered Remains: A Pilot Study Using Sus scrofa}, volume={11}, ISSN={["2079-7737"]}, DOI={10.3390/biology11010087}, abstractNote={In forensic scenarios involving homicide, human remains are often exposed to fire as a means of disposal and/or obscuring identity. Burning human remains can result in the concealment of traumatic injury, the creation of artifacts resembling injury, or the destruction of preexisting trauma. Since fire exposure can greatly influence trauma preservation, methods to differentiate trauma signatures from burning artifacts are necessary to conduct forensic analyses. Specifically, in the field of forensic anthropology, criteria to distinguish trauma from fire signatures on bone is inconsistent and sparse. This study aims to supplement current forensic anthropological literature by identifying criteria found to be the most diagnostic of fire damage or blunt force trauma. Using the skulls of 11 adult pigs (Sus scrofa), blunt force trauma was manually produced using a crowbar and flat-faced hammer. Three specimens received no impacts and were utilized as controls. All skulls were relocated to an outdoor, open-air fire where they were burned until a calcined state was achieved across all samples. Results from this experiment found that blunt force trauma signatures remained after burning and were identifiable in all samples where reassociation of fragments was possible. This study concludes that distinct patterns attributed to thermal fractures and blunt force fractures are identifiable, allowing for diagnostic criteria to be narrowed down for future analyses.}, number={1}, journal={BIOLOGY-BASEL}, author={Keys, Kamryn and Ross, Ann H.}, year={2022}, month={Jan} }
 @article{churchill_keys_ross_2022, title={Midfacial Morphology and Neandertal-Modern Human Interbreeding}, volume={11}, ISSN={["2079-7737"]}, DOI={10.3390/biology11081163}, abstractNote={Ancient DNA from, Neandertal and modern human fossils, and comparative morphological analyses of them, reveal a complex history of interbreeding between these lineages and the introgression of Neandertal genes into modern human genomes. Despite substantial increases in our knowledge of these events, the timing and geographic location of hybridization events remain unclear. Six measures of facial size and shape, from regional samples of Neandertals and early modern humans, were used in a multivariate exploratory analysis to try to identify regions in which early modern human facial morphology was more similar to that of Neandertals, which might thus represent regions of greater introgression of Neandertal genes. The results of canonical variates analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis suggest important affinities in facial morphology between both Middle and Upper Paleolithic early modern humans of the Near East with Neandertals, highlighting the importance of this region for interbreeding between the two lineages.}, number={8}, journal={BIOLOGY-BASEL}, author={Churchill, Steven E. and Keys, Kamryn and Ross, Ann H.}, year={2022}, month={Aug} }