https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/08/health/amelia-earhart-bones-island-intl/index.html
Bones found on a remote Pacific island almost eight decades ago likely are those of pioneering pilot Amelia Earhart, new research claims.
If true, the findings would finally solve a mystery that has fascinated generations since Earhart disappeared while attempting to fly around the world in 1937.
The new study re-examined measurements of several bones found on the Pacific island of Nikumaroro in 1940.
Researcher Richard Jantz wrote that what he found “strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart.”
The details were published in a research article authored by Jantz, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, in the journal Forensic Anthropology on Wednesday.
It’s not the first time researchers have examined the bones or pondered a possible link with Earhart — who captured worldwide attention when she became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic in 1932. In 1941, the remains were analyzed by Dr. D. W. Hoodless, principal of the Central Medical School in Fiji, who concluded that the bones belonged to a male. The bones themselves have since been lost.
But the new study contends that when Hoodless looked at the bones the science of forensic pathology was not as advanced as it is now — and that this could have affected his analysis.
“Forensic anthropology was not well developed in the early 20th century,” Jantz said in the study. “There are many examples of erroneous assessments by anthropologists of the period.”
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