Ancestry Estimation: Advances and Limitations in Forensic Applications

• DOI: 10.2147/rrfms.s272224
• Publication Date: 2022-06-21T06:00:19Z
• Authors: Despoina E Flouri; Angeliki Alifragki; Julieta Gómez Gar...; Elena F Kranioti
• Keywords: biological variation; 03 medical and health sciences; 0302 clinical medicine; estimation; forensic anthropology; ancestry; population affinity

Abstract: Forensic anthropologists are faced with many challenges one of which is setting the grounds for assessment an unknown individual's population affinity, essential element building a biological profile that can lead to positive identification. A heavy body literature dealing topic "race" – in early studies or "ancestry/population affinity" more recent articles effort provide reliable tools this challenging task. great and ongoing debate exists on whether type classification should be done at all it accepted as "necessary evil". The over-simplistic categorization people originating from vast geographical areas without taking into account micro-evolutionary environmental factors, importance influence greatly enhance social discrimination stigma. On other hand, must stressed point assessing ancestry geographic origin forensic context not matter taxonomy labeling but rather asset identification process, help narrow down possible matches missing persons' list. In vein, current paper offers overview different methodological approaches estimation aims gather relevant information about used, advances implications regarding Keywords: ancestry, variation, anthropology,