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Reference: Kathleen J. Reichs, editor, Forensic Osteology: Advances in the Identification of Human Remains, 2nd edition, with a foreward by William M. Bass, ISBN#0-398-06804-6, Charles C. Thomas, Springfield, Illinois, 1998, 567 pages, $94.95, cloth.
The second edition of Forensic Osteology: Advances in the Identification of Human Remains offers an updated and expanded review of the field of forensic anthropology, adding 22 new chapters and revising three since the publication of the first edition in 1986. This expansion mirrors the rapid growth in public interest and scientific research in the field. Kathy Reichs' first chapter, for example, chronicles this "decade of progress" by analyzing the recent increase in the number of trained forensic anthropologists available as well as the number and different types of caseloads they are handling. Although the greatest number of handled cases is still skeletal, forensic anthropologists are seeing significant increases in fresh, partially decomposed, burned, and mummified body cases. The fact that 18 of the 25 chapters in this volume deal with nontraditional topics related to the analysis of these other types of human remains in a...