| Summary: | Hair is an important piece of evidence in forensic and archaeological
investigations. Analysis of the morphological features of hair has been reported since at
least the early 1800's. However, many questions still remain unanswered such as, how
can human groups (or local populations) be analyzed and possibly distinguished from
each other based on the morphology of their hair?
This investigation successfully established a set of procedures for analysis of
human hair morphology and explored the possibility of separating populations by
examining a case study of 40 hairs from five sample populations (Mongolian, English,
Vietnamese, Native American Sioux and Oneida). The methodology leads the
investigator from the point of receiving a single hair to acquiring a list of specific,
discernible traits characterizing that hair. These methods included a variety laboratory
procedures (cleaning, casting, mounting and microtome sectioning of the hair) and
examination procedures (microscope and computer imaging and developing a key and
database).
Statistical analysis was then utilized in order to determine the variability and/or
relationships between the populations. Although the results were not statistically
significant, they weakly support a division of three groups: English, Mongolian and
Vietnamese, and Sioux and Oneida. The small sample size and overlap between the five
populations is a limiting factor in attempting to discriminate between populations and
should be taken into consideration in future investigations. === Graduation date: 1999
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