Identity in Forensic Anthropology

🌸 | This had to be typed out on Google Docs because SpaceHey kept giving up on me, too many obstacles and English isn't even my first language, I fear that when it comes to my pointless rambles, the enemies are definitely prevailing... </3

🌸 | A quick warning that my lazy bum has yet to figure out how to make posts and bulletins look nice beyond a few silly embeds, and I won't even bother trying right now, okay? Okay.

Identity in Forensic Anthropology

      According to the dictionaries, identity (from the Latin word "idem", meaning "the same") can be defined as "the fact of being who or what a person or thing is" or, if you don't care about accuracy, as "a close similarity or affinity". But after rewatching a video where Dr. Sue M. Black, a Scottish forensic anthropologist, anatomist and academic - who just so happens to be one of my favorite people ever, with her soothing voice and passionate explanations - brings more to be questioned, it came to me that it's really easy to see how a simple dictionary definition couldn't possibly encompass such a widely nuanced matter.

      In a more general sense, we see identity as much more than that, we're constantly identifying people in our lives by collecting, comparing and sorting through what we know about them, and familiarity gradually builds onto that personal little database until we don't question or hesitate in knowing just who exactly is in front of our eyes. That's a tricky thing, considering long spans of time apart can drastically change a person to the point you no longer recognize them, or convince you that someone is who they claim to be when, as it turns out, some may lie.

But in the case of forensic identification, it's important to tell difference and change apart, or, as I like to think of it, an individual's own unique traits and the effects of their life. It's the difference between, for example, a sixth finger and a tattoo.

      Change is the one constant when it comes to identifying someone, no one will ever be the same person they were 5 years ago, mentally or physically. There's the natural change of aging throughout the years, as well as the occasional scars we gain as we live, and possible amputations or developed disabilities, then there's the personal choices, such as hair, plastic surgeries, tattoos and piercings, so on and so forth.

🌸 | Nearly each and every trait can be divided into two groups:

• Biological Identity - Age, race, sex, height, etc;

• Personal Identity - Body modifications, surgeries, scars, injuries and conditions.

🌸 | Or we can separate them further, like this:

• Genetic traits - Hands, skintone, nail morphology, tendon patterns, pigmentation type, etc;

• Developmental traits - Vascular patterns, fingerprints, finger folding and webbing, etc;

• External - Scars, injuries, clinical conditions, freckles, etc;

• Cellular variation - Birthmarks, freckles, etc;

• Personal choice - Piercings, tattoos, cosmetic surgeries, hair color, etc.

These are all things that could be found and then explained through logic, of course, which makes them an incredibly reliable .

The human body is a canvas for all kinds of art and a blank page ready for a thousand stories, and that brings the question of how much can change until the identity follows along to the point of being put into question, and of what kind of differences are we prepared to see as recognizable change, rather than a different subject altogether.

      There’s hundreds of unique traits in each and every body, even within the same body, really, our right and left halves aren’t perfectly mirrored, and obviously neither are the top and bottom halves, that’d be pretty awkward, but what I’m saying is, from skintone, eye and hair colors, to the pattern of one’s veins, there is a lot to work with. Although that’s rarely ever the case in Forensic Anthropology, a field where people are usually called up when the subjects are long past the “meaty” stages of decay.

Here is the video, in case anyone is interested! It'll start right on time for this specific topic.

🌸 | The biggest thanks to Nero, Vale, Kae, and Kitsuhara, some of the sweetest and most supportive people ever and, in a way, the reason I even write at all. Love you guys sooo much!!

🌸 | Additionally, this is my first post, hooray! So thank you to anyone who bothered reading, and sorry for the lack of coherence, I really meant it when I said there'd been many obstacles to writing this.

That's all, byee!!