Utility of the Frontonasal Suture for Estimating Age at Death in Human Skeletal Remains*

Abstract: This project evaluated the utility of the frontonasal suture for estimating age at death. Utilizing human remains of known age at death with varying degrees of fusion, curated at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC, data were collected from the ectocranial surface of 522 crania; 68 of these were sagittally sectioned, allowing collection of internal data and observation of suture closure through the bone. Degree of ectocranial suture closure does not significantly predict age, even when sex and ancestry are accounted for. Suture closure progression data were converted into a Hershkovitz ratio (sum of the measurement of open portion divided by the total suture length), and regression models demonstrate that the effect of age accounts for only 13% of variation in suture closure.     

Using Creative Assignments to Help Students Integrate Their Learning in a Campaigns and Elections Class

The ability to integrate learning—to make connections across classes or even within a single class—is integral to students becoming better learners, and to growing their capacity to perform as civic actors. We discuss an upper-level Campaigns and Elections class in which the course structure and assignments were set up to encourage students to integrate their learning. As part of the class, students played the role of state party committees during the 2016 presidential election, at first making arguments to devote more national party resources to their state campaign and then reporting back to the national party on how the election went in their state, and what the party must do to maximize its future success. Through coding of student final exam essay questions, we explore the degree to which students were able to achieve the integrative learning goals we had set for them, and examine factors that might help predict which students achieved these learning goals. We conclude by generalizing from our experience to discuss best practices for achieving integrative learning in our courses.     

Two bite mark cases with inadequate scale references

Most literature addressing comparisons between epidermal bite marks and the perpetrator's bite pattern mandates fastidious coordination between the size of the compared reproductions. While ideal, this is not possible in every case and inability to control this variable in selected cases may not necessarily invalidate the comparison. The first case involves a known perpetrator. All photographic measurements were recorded with acceptable techniques to discover a serious discrepancy in arch size. The second case was degraded by the absence of a ruler in a tangentially made photograph of a bite mark. In both cases, the weight of the conclusions were lessened by these problems but the impartial handling of the evidence and explanation of discrepancies offered credibility to the analyses. Both cases illustrate that a technical infraction in processing and recording bite marks, though serious, need not automatically preempt the analysis.