After Dr. Monique Fortunato, associate professor of Biological Anthropology, proposed the Forensic Anthropology course ANTHR 13 in the early half of this year around February, Delta’s Academic Senate approved the course in November. ANTHR 13 is currently awaiting approval from Dr. Charles “Kale” Braden, Vice President of Instruction & Planning, before it can receive final approval at a board meeting.
Fortunato has been developing the lab for ANTHR 13 since she started teaching at Delta four years ago. Currently, the lab for ANTHR 13 consists of various forensics equipment and skeletal casts sourced from osteological reproductions company Bones Clones. Some of the casts had already been at Delta when Fortunato was hired, later casts were acquired through funds from resource allocation monies received internally according to Fortunato.
Skeletal casts in the lab include: a skull with blunt force trauma from a hammer, a skull with a gunshot wound, an abnormal sternum and a rib with a bullet lodged inside.
The lab also has casts used for comparative anatomy, such as: a skeletal set of a human hand and a bear paw, a male and female pelvis, a set of jaw casts across various ages from infanthood to adulthood and articulated skeletons of an infant, a five-year-old, a 14-year-old and adult male and female. The lab has casts for pathological examination as well, including: a femur with bone cancer, a femur with a poorly healed fracture and a skull with South American cultural modifications of deliberate cranial deformation and healed trepanation.
The ANTHR 13 lab is currently awaiting new flooring, as well as a variety of skull casts including: a skull for facial reconstruction lab experiments, an elderly skull, a skull marked with craniometric landmarks, a hypermasculine female skull and a skull with hydrocephalus. The materials are expected to arrive before the latter half of December.
