ABSTRACT
Commingling is a problematic aspect of many anthropological analyses. Regardless of whether the context is archaeological, such as a Native American ossuary, or forensic, such as an aircraft crash, commingling of human remains complicates every facet of the process from recovery to final disposition. Most analyses that can be Conducted by anthropologists pertain to individual remains, and the desired end-state is typically a set of skeletal elements attributable to one person. One of the earliest articles to address the topic of commingling was by Charles Snow (1948), in which he outlines protocols used in the anthropological analysis of American war dead from World War II. Despite the significance of the subject, relatively little attention has been given to the analysis of commingled remains until somewhat recently (Ubelaker 2002; Byrd & Adams 2003; Adams & Konigsberg 2004; Adams & Byrd 2006; Adams & Byrd 2008, 2014; Nikita & Lahr 2011; Osterholtz, Baustian, & Martin 2014), all of which provide comprehensive lists of references on the tonic.
