Battered, Beaten and Bruised: Case Studies in Forensic Anthropology

Forensic anthropologists deal with human remains that have lost “personhood” through decomposition, burning or dismemberment. Most of these are cases where the only bones are left or are mummified. It is very challenging to analyze damage to bones, especially with old or even ancient tools (e.g. musket balls, stone knives or axes), and the healing that happens afterwards if the person lived for a while. One of the things that we learn from looking at these sorts of things is that interpersonal violence, including violence against women, and primitive surgery, has a long history in humans extending into the past at least for the last 150,000 years.
 
Museum open until the talk begins at 6 p.m. Registration is free, but donations ($5 suggested) are welcome at the door!
 
About Dr. Janet Monge:
Dr. Janet Monge is the Curator-in-Charge and Keeper of the Skeletal Collections at the Penn Museum and an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Director and Manager of the Casting Program, which stores, sells, and distributes more than 3,000 molds and casts representing every phase of human evolution to museums and universities throughout the world. She also serves as a forensic anthropology consultant for several counties in the northeast United States, including most recently in the excavation (in Delaware County, PA) and analysis of the body of H.H. Holmes, the infamous Chicago World’s Fair mass murderer from the late 1800s. Dr. Monge received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Pennsylvania State University and her doctorate in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania.
 
Dr. Monge’s primary interest is in the development of methodologies to preserve and broadcast datasets to the biological anthropology community using Computed Tomography (CT), traditional radiology, and human dental micro-anatomy. Much of her research has focused on growth and development of fossil children, especially in the later stages of human evolution such as Neanderthals. She has conducted fieldwork throughout the world, including in Europe, Africa, and Australia. Dr. Monge has received research support from the National Science Foundation for a range of projects, from investigating child development in Philadelphia, to archaeological and genetic studies of the Swahili in East Africa, to creating the Surviving: The Body of Evidence exhibition (opened 2008).