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Re: AAT and swimming
Pat Dooley (patdooley@delphi.com)
Sun, 11 DEC 94 23:28:07 -0500
Loopy Lemon <lmm5@cornell.edu> writes:
>Completely false. The bones do have different shapes in Africans,
>Caucasians, and Asians; in fact if you are trying to identify the ancestry
>of a skull (Asian vs. African vs. Caucasian), the nose is one of the best
>places to look.
>
>> So, it is going to be REAL hard to reconstruct noses based on skeletal and
>> muscle attacment analysis.
>
>Not at all. I agree that you wouldn't use muscle attachments, but you can
We all know that you candetermine race based on skeletal evidence. The
question is whether the reconstruction of the nose by forensic scientists
is based on evidence specific to the nose or on other evidence. For example,
if the skull suggests Asian then the scientist isn't going to reconstruct
a non-Asian nose. When you start looking at ancient fossils you really
don't have much to work with except a hole in the skull. The cartilidge
and bone fragments that a forensic scientist might use are likely not
to have been preserved.
Which gets us a bit off the point - why are humans unique amongst
primates in having down-ward pointing nostrils?
Pat Dooley sticking his nose in.
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