Christopher W. Schmidt - University of Indianapolis Archeology ...

Sample Population
CHAPTER 3: MATERIALS AND METHODS
Specimens were drawn from three collections in the United States and one collection in
South Africa. The C.A. Hamann and T.W. Todd Osteological Collection at the Cleveland
Museum of Natural History is comprised of skeletons from the late 19 th century and the early
20 th centuries. These individuals were primarily unclaimed bodies from the Cuyahoga County
Morgue and other hospitals in the Cleveland area. The Robert J. Terry Anatomical Skeletal
Collection at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. is also composed of
skeletons from the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries. These were mostly unclaimed cadavers
from St. Louis hospitals and institutional morgues, the majority of which came from lower socio-
economic groups. The collection housed at the Forensic Research Laboratory at the University
of Florida is a known contemporary forensic collection. These jaws were sectioned and
identified by a forensic odontologist and are currently being retained at the Forensic Research
Laboratory as evidence. The Pretoria Bone Collection at the Department of Anatomy,
University of Pretoria, South Africa is a modern cadaver collection from the mid-20 th century to
the present. This collection is comprised of both donated and unclaimed cadavers.
The Hamann-Todd and the Terry Collections were each visited for a one-week period.
Data were colleted from the Pretoria Bone Collection over a two-month period. The Florida
Collection was visited twice with a three-month intervening period for the purpose of
determining intra-observer error, which is discussed in the latter half of this chapter. The current
study is limited to individuals of European and African ancestry. While the addition of Native
Americans to the sample may have proven beneficial, I have decided to study only those
individuals with a securely known sex and age at death. Since Native American skeletal
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