Personal identification of cadavers and human remains

Personal identification is a field where pathology, anthropology, odontology, and even genetics must merge. Specific features and descriptors (such as scars, moles, gross anomalies) may be sufficient for identification. However, in more complex cases, four main disciplines are involved in the identification of human remains: DNA, fingerprint analysis, odontology, and anthropology (or better yet, osteology). Genetic and fingerprinting methods give a quantitative result, or at least statistics have been performed on the specific traits studied, which allow one to answer in a quantitative manner on the probability of two individuals having similar characteristics—in the first case, for the distribution of different alleles within a population, and in the second, for the frequency of minutiae on the finger. Forensic anthropology and odontology methods, which compare the status and shape of teeth and bones, are valid alternative methods. Methods include comparison of dental work, bone, and tooth morphology, in particular frontal sinus patterns, and craniofacial superimposition. They are advantageous methods because faster and less costly; however, they may suffer, in the view of some judges, from the qualitative and nonquantitative responses they give. Personal identification must always be carried out with a set of data, after having carefully evaluated the limits and the possible sources of error of each method.