D. Troy Case

Biography

I received my M.A. in Bioarchaeology from Arizona State University in 1996, and my Ph.D. in Physical Anthropology from Arizona State in 2003. My primary fields of teaching and research are in human osteology and bioarchaeology. Areas of specific expertise include congenital anomalies of the hands and feet, their utility in identifying family members in ancient cemeteries, and the study of prehistoric skeletal remains and their mortuary contexts in order to better understand the social organizations and world views of past peoples. I am also interested in relative size variation in the bones of the hands and feet. I teach Introduction to Physical Anthropology and Disease and Society at the undergraduate level, as well as Human Osteology and Bioarchaeology at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. From 2000-2001, I spent a year in Denmark as a Fulbright scholar while conducting my dissertation research on congenital anomalies among skeletons excavated from several medieval church cemeteries. I have also conducted research on skeletal defects in Great Britain, Japan, and Thailand, and have published several journal articles on these topics. In 2006, I joined a select team of physical anthropologists to study the 9300 year old Kennewick Man skeleton, one of the oldest and best-preserved ancient skeletons ever discovered in North America. We recently published a monograph on the subject entitled Kennewick Man: The Scientific Investigation of an Ancient American Skeleton. I have also published two books on the social organization and ritual practices of the prehistoric Ohio Hopewell Indians. I am co-editor of Gathering Hopewell: Society, Ritual, and Ritual Interaction (2005), and coauthor of The Scioto Hopewell and Their Neighbors: Bioarchaeological Documentation and Cultural Understanding (2008). More recently, I have been focusing my attention on two research projects in Thailand. In 2009, I joined with Dr. Thanik Lertcharnrit of Silpakorn University in Bangkok, and Dr. Scott Burnett of Eckerd College in Florida, to excavate an Iron Age cemetery in the Lopburi Province of Thailand. As of 2015, we have completed four field seasons excavating at the Promtin Tai site, and have analyzed 24 burials. The other project is a collaboration with Dr. Pasuk Mahakkanukrauh of the Faculty of Medicine at Chiang Mai University. In 2013, I received a Fulbright Teacher-Scholar Grant to Thailand to consult with Dr. Mahakkanukrauh on establishing a Ph.D. program in forensic osteology, and to conduct research on size variation within the upper limbs of modern Thai skeletons.

Research Interest

Human Osteology, Bioarchaeology, Skeletal defects and anomalies, Metric Variation ,Thailand