Susikatze
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I agree. How do they KNOW she was AA if her post mortem range is that long?
You have different guidelines when you take measurements of the skull, in AA, the dental arch is generally flatter, nasal aperture is wider and jawline a bit more protruding than in Caucasians, Asians or Native. But it is by far no exact science and life beats statistics very very often...
I cant count the cases where AA individuals were classified as Caucasian by anthropology because their features did not exactly fit into the AA range...sometimes, AA were classified as Asian. A lot also has to do with the subconscious Caucasian bonus that is still prevalent in science. Most colleagues would first think of a Caucasian when they have an ambigous skull before they would think of an AA.
Rarely as I said you find the opposite... if a Caucasian "deviates" from statistics, they are classified as AA sometimes.
Race estimate in anthropology is a very tricky field and also has a problematic historical background. Also, increasingly, "race" is a fluid concept, many multiracial or racially ambigous people out there.
If I could decide, I would drop the whole "race" estimate in anthropology and just go for autosomal DNA, where possible. That is also of course not an exact science and one that is still evolving, but it is considerably more accurate when it comes to the heritage of a person.