William Maples Forensic Anthropology Summary

William Maples is a forensic anthropologist, someone who specializes in the human skeletal system, its variations across the world, and its changes through life and across many lifetimes; not a forensic pathologist, a medical doctor with its residency training in pathology. Maples defends the use of science to understand human nature; he defends the science of forensic anthropology for its usefulness in solving gruesome crimes and historical mysteries. He says that it can pay for itself in reduced court costs and that every state in the United States should have at least one on staff. Decomposition involves two processes: autolysis and putrefaction. Autolysis occurs when digestives juices start to digest the gastrointestinal tract. Putrefaction

Sone of these capital punishment can be needlessly cruel, like hanging. Ideally, hanging dislocates the vertebras, producing a fracture in the second disc that constricts the airways as does the rope itself, but the brain remains conscious for about half a minute. The guillotine does not extinguish life in an instant neither; the brain activity continues for about twenty five seconds because our brain operates as long as it has oxygen, and it takes some time to realize that oxygen and blood are lacking. The gas chamber is like forcing someone to take their own live because the person has to take the fatal breath on his own, even though some people try to hold their breath to prolong their lives a few seconds, but the gasping makes it almost a voluntary act. Electrocution is supposed to be painless and instantaneous because the tremendous charge of electricity sent into the brain scramble the nervous system, making it impossible to sense pain. The most painless and quicker capital punishment is the lethal injection. Maples explains, ”This cocktail paralyzes the respiratory functions, stops the heart by the action of potassium chloride and closes down the brain quietly and painlessly by means of barbiturates.” Many people die when the needle is still injecting in

After the bones is calcined, they are removed and taken to a large magnet where metals are removed and the remains are crushed. Then, the remains are moved to a “processor”, which is a grinder, and they become ashes that are put in an urn. The price of a crematory varies from a few thousand dollars to hundreds of thousands. Sometimes, remains are mixed up or sent to the wrong people, and Maples takes part in these