Essay: Controversial history behind anthropology

Anthropology as a field of study is evolving from controversial roots to become a  widely accepted science with many subsets and potential applications. Human osteology is an emerging subset of anthropology with important roles in modern medicine and forensics. The countries of Bosnia and Vietnam are currently using the latest techniques in osteology and forensic anthropology to identify the tens of thousands of victims slain in separate conflicts that occurred in the late 20th century.
The controversial history behind anthropology can be traced back to the Swedish botanist Carl von Linné, or Linnaeus by his Latinized name, who first introduced the idea of systematic biology which is used today to classify all organisms. In addition to physical attributes of the Homo genus, Linnaeus’ system of classification included stereotypes about personality, politics, and ethics that were oriented around the idea that Caucasian Europeans were superior to other races. This is evidenced in his descriptions of different races: Native Americans were “reddish, single-minded, and guided by tradition,” Africans were “black, wily, and ruled by whimsy,” and Caucasian Europeans were “white, gracious, and governed by reason.”
The ideology of science-based Caucasian superiority extended to the osteological field in the 19th century under Dr. Samuel George Morton, a medical doctor and scientist who had one of the largest skull collections in the world at the time. The medical field was receiving a lot of negative attention due to the practice of bodysnatching that physicians resorted to in order to increase their human anatomical specimen collections; Morton obtained many of his specimens in this way, and was therefore partially responsible for associating anthropology with the ongoing bodysnatching controversy. He believed the skull was the key to accurate racial classifications and a good indicator of differences in mental development between the races. To maintain objectivity, Morton argued that by using large sample sizes and easily repeatable measurements he could scientifically prove intellectual inequalities between the races which could be used for identification. His focus was on cranial capacity, which was believed to be an indicator of intelligence at the time. In his study, he filled skulls with lead shot to calculate volume and then averaged the cranial capacities of skulls from whites, Native Americans, and blacks. These measurements were published in Crania America, where Morton demonstrated that whites had the biggest brains at an average of 87 cubic inches, while Native Americans averaged 82 cu. in., and blacks averaged 78 cu. in. He then posited that cranial capacity could be used as an accurate identifier of race; the main problem was the incorrect assumption that brain size was correlated with intelligence. This assumption was a product of phrenology, a popular 19th century pseudomedicine based on correlations between human skull shape and personality, as well as theories about brain function that would later be disproven.
Despite its controversial history of bodysnatching and scientific racism, osteology has evolved to become a highly useful and widely accepted science that is being applied worldwide to issues of varying scales. Law enforcement uses osteological methods to solve crimes, historians rely on osteological identification to draw conclusions about past events, and anthropologists can use it to obtain a better understanding of other cultures. Osteology is currently being used on a massive scale to identify remains of individuals who died in late 20th century conflicts around the globe. The loss of human life sustained in these conflicts reached magnitudes of tens and even hundreds of thousands.
The Bosnian war broke out in 1992 after the breakup of Yugoslavia and lasted for three years. During those three years, over 100,000 people were killed. In one of the bloodiest massacres of the conflict, Serbian soldiers in Srebrenica, Bosnia slaughtered around 7,000 boys and men because they were Muslim. In methods reminiscent of German WWII atrocities, the victims were taken to multiple locations where soldiers shot them en masse or grouped them up and lobbed hand grenades at them. The bodies were unceremoniously dumped into mass graves using bulldozers and excavation machinery. As the war drew to an end, the Serbian army attempted to conceal the evidence of this massacre by digging up the now decomposing bodies and bringing them to more secluded burial sites where they were once again hastily hidden. Around this time, NATO and the United States were performing aerial recon missions over Bosnia and noticed a pattern: large groups of men would appear in photos for a short amount of time, and then pictures of the same location taken shortly after showed patches of upturned earth. Over a period of a month, more aerial photos were taken showing the same pattern in surrounding locations. This led to the discovery of the mass gravesites after the end of the war, and laid the foundations for one of the largest osteological undertakings to date.
The victims left behind thousands of grieving families, many of whom had no idea of the fates of their missing family members. Excavating these newly discovered burial pits was the first step in granting closure to these families by identifying the victims of the massacre. Millions of bones were extracted from these pits, many of which were disconnected and damaged by hasty burial methods and the heavy machinery used to dump the bodies. The initial excavations were carried out by a team composed mainly of forensic specialists and archaeologists, which was put together by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.