Introduction

Forensic anthropology is the study of the distinguishing characteristic on a person's remains.These distinguishing features can be utilized to demonstrate from a victim's remains the victim's gender, ethnicity, height, age , bone trauma and physical condition. The application of physical anthropology to the legal system is known as forensic anthropology (Upadhyay and Amarnath, 2021). To classify human remains and assist in the identification of crimes, forensic anthropologists use conventional scientific methods originally developed in physical anthropology.

With four historical eras that are widely acknowledged to denote distinct stages of evolution, forensic anthropology is still regarded as a very young scientific field. Before the 1940s, the field of forensic anthropology was confined to anatomists, doctors, and a few physical anthropologists who mostly served as university instructors or museum curators and infrequently provided advice to law enforcement on instances involving skeletonized remains. There was little published research and no formal training in the use of physical anthropology in forensic settings during this early stage. Practitioners were either self-taught or had informal training when it came to the discipline's medicolegal applications, and they were only partially involved in situations with significant medicolegal implications (Ossorio, 2006).

During this period, Harvard anatomy professor Thomas Dwight (1843–1911) published the first comprehensive works on subjects that would later form the basis of forensic anthropology, such as how to determine a person's age, gender, and stature from their skeleton. Thomas Dwight is known as the "Father of Forensic Anthropology in the United States" according to his numerous writings on human anatomy and forensic anthropology, including his prize-winning article. Medicolegal and military organizations began paying more attention to forensic anthropology in the 1940s and early 1970s after realizing how useful it was for identifying fallen soldiers from the Korean and Second World Wars.

Two publications by Wilton Marion Krogman (1903–1987), The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine (1962) and Guide to the Identification of Human Skeletal Material (1939), were significant anthropological events of this era. The advancement of forensic anthropology techniques based on the skeletal remains of fallen troops also increased during this time. Many of the techniques still in use today have their roots in this early research. The field got more professionalized between the 1970s and 1990s, especially after the American Academy of Forensic Sciences established the Physical Anthropology section in 1972 and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology was established in 1977.

A rising number of publications in the discipline include T. Dale Stewart's (1901–1997) Essentials of Forensic Anthropology (1979), another important book. Furthermore, there was a notable surge in forensic anthropology-related research, employment, and graduate program formation, as well as acceptance by the forensic community.