Draft Thesis Proposal
March 25/2002
Owen Ferguson – 96092978
Thesis Topic Statement, or Précis:
The physics of chronological forensics. Ideally, retrieval of cadavers and other human remains for scientific study will be carried out by trained medical personnel. Because of the varying rates of decomposition of such remains, collection may need to be done by non-medical personnel. This thesis will provide guidance for the retrieval, preservation and removal of cadavers and remains in the field, be they days or millennia old, with special emphasis on maintaining peaceful relations with local indigenous populations and local legal authorities.
My academic history:
In the six years since my graduation from high school I have been an enrolled student at both the University of Waterloo (in the Independent Studies program) and at Ryerson Polytechnic University (in the Bachelor of Applied Arts: Journalism) program.
At the University of Waterloo I enjoyed the freedom of spanning traditional academic disciplines looking for archetypes that crossed the boundaries of traditionally structured learning paradigms. This often caused me to fall behind in actual course work, and left me with many incomplete courses or failing marks on my Waterloo record.
At Ryerson Polytechnic University I exhibited my ability to excel in a narrow, codified academic environment aimed at a specific career goal. During my first year I was not only recognized by many of my professors as an exceptional talent, but also received news story of the year award from the student newspaper and managed to secure a full-time summer job at a monthly magazine, with an offer to remain in their employ permanently that fall.
I was, however, interested in completing my bachelor’s degree, and so turned down that offer to return to Ryerson. That same week I was approached by the Toronto Star, with an offer of a part-time student internship in the Police and Emergency Services division of their City desk. As the youngest person ever recruited to the division I was honoured by the offer and I accepted, not anticipating the stress that working night and weekend shifts would have on my in-class performance. I suffered a rather serious stress-related breakdown in March of 1999, and was eventually hospitalized.
Since then I have been doing a significant amount of reading, preparing myself for my eventual return to the University of Waterloo and the completion of the task I committed myself to over six years ago: Graduating with a Bachelor of Independent Studies degree.
Prior to this term (Spring 2002) I was incapacitated and unable to attend classes in person. I attempted to maintain, through UW distance education, study in various fields that interested me, including human physiology, sociology, microbiology and the mathematics of complex systems. The distance education model simply did not work for me, as I found myself too easily distracted by the minutia of day-to-day life to focus on the seemingly endless reels of audio-tape and pages and pages of photocopied loose-leaf that comprised my five concurrent distance education courses.
While looking simply at my post-secondary academic background one may reasonably assume that I haven’t the requisite experience to produce an acceptable scholarly essay on the legal and social ramifications of dead and fossilized humans and their remains. However, I feel strongly that such a work would represent the culmination of the first third of my life’s work.
Some of my earliest memories are of doing work in this field. Before middle school (Ontario Grade 4) I was enrolled in summer day camps at the Royal Ontario Museum where I practiced flint knapping and was exposed to much of the museum’s collection that now remains hidden, including the drawers and drawers of mummified toes. I also took tours of various medical specimen libraries with my uncle Dr. Chris Naus, the recently appointed chair of Anatomy at the University of British Columbia. None of this led to the slightest physical or psychological upset, and all of it helped me come to terms with the frailty of the human form at a very young age.
Much of my study outside of class has also focused on the preservation of sites related to human fatalities and the social implications of attempts at preservation and documentation of these and other sites. While my academic transcript probably indicates that I left the University of Waterloo after an initial year in Independent studies with a rather diverse set of classes and a spotty grade record, it doesn’t mention that I spent that summer working for the Ontario Provincial Police, doing everything from note taking and marine piloting to assisting with the analysis of video tapes found with corpses, and working hand in hand with officers who dealt with death and tragedy on a daily basis.
While maintaining cordial relationships with Metropolitan Toronto’s numerous Police and Emergency teams for the Toronto Star, I was slowly digesting the newspaper’s extensive crime scene reporting library, titles ranging from Practical Homicide Investigation to The Medico-legal Investigation of Death, texts written by a former police detective and team of forensic pathologists, respectively. At the same time, I was busy chasing down yearbook photos of freshly deceased accident and homicide victims for the newspaper, and often would be the first person to contact their close friends and relatives, as my tightly honed journalist’s intuition coupled with my familiarity with police procedure had me moving one step ahead of the police bureaucracy.
Eventually, I realized that I had to stop. There are only so many times you can be that person, the person on the other end of the phone line when the news of great tragedy is delivered.
So now I feel the need to take this experience, quantify it, codify it, and present it to the world, as a permanent record, for analysis and peer review. I believe what I have to write can be of use both as a tool for people working in a variety of fields, and as a general work of contemplation.
Thesis Description:
My thesis will take the form of a scholarly essay, currently projected at 200 pages of typescript, in recto format, and several thousand digital photographs, shot at a 740x400dpi resolution and archived, with no data compression, on a CD-ROM to be inserted in a pocket at the back of the thesis. This should allow for easy reproduction, cataloguing and microfilming of the text, as well as proper digital preservation and reproduction of all image data.
Contents description:
Part 1:
Introduction: “A chapter describing the audience to whom the thesis hopes to speak; those who are likely to encounter human cadavers. Sources will be strictly personal.”
Familiarity: “A chapter describing various venues at which one may commune with deceased persons before one is called upon to report and secure the location of a corpse. Sources will include museums, churches, news media and academic journals.”
Meditation: “A chapter describing various relaxation techniques to assist the aspiring Coroner in dealing with the stress caused by social stigmas associate with those who work with the deceased. Sources will include transcripts of interviews with anthropologists, emergency rescue team members, medical doctors, funeral directors, members of the clergy and legal professionals.”
Part 2:
Indications: “A chapter describing some of the physical indications of human remains one might observe in the field. Sources will include various texts on forensic procedure.”
Relations: “A chapter flow-charting the securing of an area given a number of speculative but likely discovery scenarios. Sources will include published reports of chain of custody and chain of command confusions that have lead to the loss of valuable anthropological specimens and/or judicial miscarriages.”
Reservations: “A chapter describing various high-speed methods of initially documenting the site with little social or environmental impact, with a focus on producing documentation that allows the initial discovery site to be recreated.”
Analysis: “A chapter offering some personal suggestions on analyzing available data and artefacts before recreating the discovery site and/or discharging biological remains.”
Part 3:
Dismissing: “A chapter describing various methods of path-working backwards through the chain of command scenarios flow-charted in the ‘relations’ chapter. Sources will be varied, as the nature of reverse path-working through speculative chain of custody and chain of command issues is in and of itself varied.”
Documenting: “A chapter dedicated to the art of combining physical site analysis with proper dismissing, with the emphasis on creating documents that are durable, concise, truthful and easily to accurately reproduce.”
Discharging: “A chapter describing generally accepted practices for distribution, preservation or destruction of unclaimed or unidentifiable human remains. Sources will include published cases from the cannons of both civil and criminal law, with an attempt by the author at universal moral applicability.”
Timeline:
I intend to start with the reading, so that I may develop the knowledge base required to conduct intelligent interviews, and conclude the thesis period with writing and editing.
Receiving interview ethics approval and advisor approval of my list of interview subjects: Months 1 and 2
Reading: Months 1 through 5 (Reading the books in the bibliography, in the order listed)
Scheduling interviews: Months 2 through 4
Conducting interviews: Months 4 through 6
Writing, editing and photo post-production: Months 5 through 8
Proposed Bibliography:
American Anthropological Association. "Handbook on Ethical Issues in Anthropology." Publication 23. 1987. Washington.
Weeks, John M. "Introduction to Library Research in Anthropology." 2nd. Ed. 1998, Westview Press. Boulder.
Greisheimer, Esther. "Physiology and Anatomy." 6th. Ed., 1950, J. B. Lippincott Company. PhiIadelphia.
Silverthorn, Dee. "Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach." 1998, Prentice-Hall. New Jersey.
Silverthorn, Dee. "Human Physiology: An Integrated Approach: Student Workbook." 1998, Prentice-Hall. New Jersey.
Duncan, J. Morse, D. & Stoutamire, J. "Handbook of Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology." 1983. Rose Printing. Tallahassee.
Ferguson, Kraeer. "Surgery of the Ambulatory Patient." 5th. Ed., 1944, J. B. Lippincott Company. PhiIadelphia.
Quigley, Christine. "Skulls and Skeletons: Human Bone Collections and Accumulations." 2001, McFarland & Co. Jefferson.
Hall, Roberta L. "Sexual Dimorphism in Homo Sapiens: A Question of Size." 1982, Praeger Publishers. New York City.
Ubelaker, Douglas H. "Human Skeletal Remains: Excavation, Analysis, Interpretation." 1978, Aldine Publishing, Chicago.
White, Tim D. "Human Osteology." 1991, Academic Press. San Diego.
Rogers, Spencer L. "The Human Skull: Its Mechanics, Measurements and Variations." 1984, Thomas Books. Springfield.
Henschen, Folke. "The Human Skull: A Cultural History." 1966, Thames and Hudson. London.
DeVilliers, Hertha. "The Skull of the South African Negro: A Biometrical and Morphological Study." 1968, Witwatersrand University Press. Johannesburg.
Morton, Samuel G. "Crania Americana: A Comparative View of the Skulls of Various Aborigional Nations of North and South America." 1978 reproduction bu University Microfilms International. London.
Scott, G. Richard and Turner, Christy G. the 2nd. "The Anthropology of Modern Human Teeth." 1997, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
Poirier, Frank E. "Fossil Evidence: The Human Evolutionary Journey." 1997, The C.V. Mosby Company. St. Louis.
Wheeler, Margaret. "History Was Buried: A Source Book of Archaeology." 1967, Hart Publishing. New York City.
posted by OwenF at 3/25/2002 10:11:00 AM 