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                            Funding & Awards
 A Dental Anthropological Databank for Use in the Statistical Estimation of Ancestry and Sex in Forensic Anthropology
Award Information
Awardee
              NEVADA SYSTEM OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Award #
              2017-DN-BX-0143
Funding Category
              Competitive Discretionary
Location
                    RENO, NV
Congressional District
              2
Status
              Closed
Funding First Awarded
              2017
Total funding (to date)
              $422,514
Original Solicitation
              NIJ FY17 Research and Development in Forensic Science for Criminal Justice Purposes
Description of original award (Fiscal Year 2017, $422,514)
As submitted by the proposer:
Within forensic anthropological analyses, the dentition are commonly overlooked as a source of data for the estimation of the biological profile, despite their extensive use in other realms of biological anthropology. Much is known about the heritability, population variation, sexual dimorphism, secular change, evolution, and development of tooth morphology and size. Moreover, teeth tend to preserve well when other skeletal elements do not. As such, they are particularly well-suited to forensic anthropological analyses and can greatly aid in improving overall accuracies of sex and ancestry estimations. This research seeks to remedy this disconnect in the field by incorporating dental data into forensic anthropological practice.
The first part of this project will involve data collection on standard and novel morphological and metric dental traits in modern populations across the globe. Once data are collected, statistical analyses will be conducted to assess population and sex-based variation in these traits, and models will be created to estimate the sex and ancestry of an individual set of unidentified remains. The models will then be validated using data from modern forensic cases encountered in Medical Examiners offices. After model validation, a web-based program will be created that will provide statistical estimations of ancestry and sex based on dental data that can be used by the forensic anthropologist in casework.
The final products of this analysis will be (1) a large databank of dental data based on modern and archaeological samples, (2) a referential database that can be used in the collection of dental data, and (3) a statistical program that will estimate ancestry and sex based on these dental data that can be used in forensic casework in the United States. All of which will be made freely available. The creation of these products will allow for ease of future data collection and  research in both an applied and academic setting.
Finally, the statistical program based on dental data will offer a broader view of ancestry and sex as reflected in the skeletal phenotype, which will provide forensic anthropologists with more accurate estimates of these components of the biological profile. Such methods are necessary to fulfill the requirements of expert testimony in a court of law (as per the Daubert standard) and will be welcomed by the field as providing an additional avenue of investigation in cases of both complete and fragmentary remains.
Note: This project contains a research and/or development component, as defined in applicable law, and complies with Part 200 Uniform Requirements - 2 CFR  200.210(a)(14).
ca/ncf



  
Grant-Funded Publications
        
                      An Anthropological Investigation of the Sociocultural and Economic Forces Shaping Dental Crowding Prevalence
                  Peopling of the Americas: A new approach to assessing dental morphological variation in Asian and Native American populations
                  A Dental Anthropological Databank for Use in the Statistical Estimation of Ancestry and Sex in Forensic Anthropology
                  Tooth morphology and population affinity: Testing rASUDAS2 on modern African and European-derived samples
                  Peopling the Americas: Not “Out of Japan”
                  Observer error and its impact on ancestry estimation using dental morphology

  
Date Created: September 29, 2017
    
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