Role of the molecular anthropologist in the forensic context

The greatest strength of forensic science is the scientific multidisciplinary approach used to support investigation activity in solving and explaining crimes. There are diverse scientific disciplines, including anthropology, involved in the forensic process. The crucial purpose of the forensic anthropology discipline is the identification of human remains when nearly or completely skeletonized remains are found and a standard soft tissue autopsy can no longer be performed. Various circumstances, such as those involving war crime victims, mass disaster events, homicides, or missing persons, can require establishing the identity of the deceased individual. In all these situations in which challenging samples such as skeletal remains are found, the joint activity of physical and molecular anthropologists can be effective in supporting the identification process. Forensic molecular anthropologists are able to exploit the expertise achieved from the analysis of highly degraded samples, so they can be an important allies of physical anthropologists in challenging situations. This is highly relevant in cases where a DNA profile from aged/compromised bones must be obtained to compare it with that of relatives and where other information, such as age at death, sex, ancestry origin, and so on, has to be provided to confirm the hypotheses of anthropological examination and/or when antemortem data are limited to physical description and/or photographs.