Friday Morning in the Garden Room

Basically, the other posts that I've posted are not really related to USM. They concentrate more on my life in general. These next two posts will concern USM and me.


February 12, 2009, a Friday morning, the Southern Miss Department of Anthropology and Sociology participated in two symposiums: Research in Reconstructing Mississippi's Past and the Symposium of Forensics. Many departments participated in the Mississippi Academy of Sciences conference, which was in the Hattiesburg Convention Center on North 49. However, I did not attend all of their presentations. My friends and I participated in the two symposiums mentioned above. These are our titles:

• MUSCULOSKELETAL MARKERS AND DEGENERATIVE JOINT DISEASE AS INDICATORS OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS IN THREE SKELETAL SAMPLES AND THE DIFFERENECE SHOWN IN THOSE SAMPLES by Morgan Devlin

• RECONSTRUCTION OF YELLOW FEVER MORTALITY RATES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY NATCHEZ: A CASE STUDY by Nicole Musselwhite

• THE MORAN SITE (22HR511): TEMPORAL EVOLUTION OF SITE FUNCTION FROM CEMETERY TO RESIDENTIAL OCCUPATION by Barbara Hester presented by Lynn Funkhouser

• REASSESING DENTAL PATHOLOGIES OF THE HUMBER SITE IN COAHOMA COUNTY by Amanda Harvey presented by Dr. Danforth

• LITHIC DEBITAGE ANALYSIS OF THE CLARKE LAKE SITE-A SMALL SCALE MIDDLE WOODLAND SETTLEMENT by Michelle Hammond
  

• EFFECTS OF CREMATION ON ANALYSIS OF CRANIAL GUNSHOT WOUNDS by Jessica Manrriquez and Stacy Scott presented by Me

• FROM "IN THE FIELD" TO IN THE MORGUE - A STUDENT'S PERSPECTIVE OF FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY by J. Lynn Funkhouser
  

• SILENCED VOICES AND FORGOTTEN CASES: THE MISSING AND UNIDENTIFIED CASES SITUATION IN MISSISSIPPI by Stacy Scott

All of the presenting Southern Miss people did great! As I said, there were many more departments that participated. However, I am associated with the Anthropology department.
Here is my published abstract:


This paper examines the effects of differential exposure to burning on the appearance and interpretation of cranial gunshot trauma. Two fleshed, untreated, and decapitated skulls were exposed to projectile trauma, one using a shotgun and the other a Meridian Police Department standard issue Glock. They were then placed in a recent model car with a high plastic composition, the former skull on the floor of the front passenger area and the latter skull on the back seat. The car was then set afire and allowed to burn out naturally. Skull #1, which had been shot in the right parietal, had an entrance wound measuring about 30mm in diameter located above the tip of the mastoid. Surrounding the wound were the classic concentric rings of unburned bone, partially burned bone, and charred bone. It ended in calcinated bone of the right parietal. Skull #2 had an entrance wound approximately 17 mm in diameter in the occipital. The wound exhibited radiating fractures from the trauma along with some heat fractures but showed no color banding. There was notable delamination present on the internal surface of the skull surrounding the entrance wound that was a result of the charring affects from the fire. It will be discussed how the damage seen in each of the skulls reflects not only the damage done by the type of projectile used, but also how various placements within the car, and thus degree and length of exposure to the fire, affected the projectile truama.


Click Here for the PDF version of the program, so you can see all the participants' titles and abstracts.