The work of forensic anthropologists who work with police departments is making inroads debunking myths about race.

Changes in forensic anthropology are blowing away myths about race! It’s a rather new field began in 1903, but the foundations laid by Ales Hrdlicka were faulty. He was a eugenicist who looted human remains in his search to classify humans into different races based on appearances and traits. Turns out skeletons can show age, height, sex, certain aspects of ancestry, but not race–that is because it is not possible.  The skull can be more telling and for a while there was a trait called a post-bregmatic depression, which  forensic anthropologists thought was only among those they called negroid. But that depression turned out to be present in other skulls as well. Since 1903 there has been a series of steps, each a step forward  to debunk the myth of race. The four racial groups Hrdlicka was eager to find made way for the concept of ancestry. But that proved to be inadequate. For example the skulls of Panamanians is distinct from those of Colombians, and that is due to the history of slavery and intermarriage. The preferred term now is population affinity. But it is still a controversial subject and not all forensic anthropologists  agree to go with population affinity—at least for the present.  One of the issues in finding the right terminology is what is deemed as possible mindsets associated with police departments. Since forensic anthropology deals with crime, contacts with police is part of their work. Police departments tend to prefer more categorical classifications. Yet the more progress there is in the field, the more the idea of race is shown to be the myth it is.