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Biological Anthropology

University of West Florida faculty conduct projects related to bioarchaeology and forensic anthropology. Learn more about these projects below.

Investigating Accelerant Signatures on Bone with pXRF

A group of four people prepare wood in corrugated metal fire rings on sheets of plywood in a paved parking lot under a clear blue sky. A person in a neon yellow shirt uses a long stick to arrange wood inside one of the rings.

Students from the Department of Anthropology partnered with the Escambia County Fire Department to conduct hands-on forensic research examining how the use of accelerants affects burned remains. Supported by grant funding from the Office of Undergraduate Research, Dr. McCrane worked with four undergraduate students and two graduate students to test the detection of gasoline, kerosene and lighter fluid using portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF). The students presented their results at the UWF Scholar Symposium in Spring 2026. Please check out the image gallery below of Dr. McCrane and our students at work!

Two women tend to four corrugated metal fire rings placed on plywood sheets in a paved cul-de-sac. Several of the rings contain active fires with orange flames, while the woman in the foreground in a pink shirt adds kindling to a newly lit ring. Other parked vehicles and trees are visible in the background under a bright, clear sky
Three women stand smiling in front of a research poster titled
A top-down, close-up view of smoldering logs and glowing embers inside a corrugated metal fire ring. The wood is mostly charred black and covered in grey ash, with small orange flames and glowing red heat visible in the crevices
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Ongoing Forensic Anthropology Research

Dr. Winburn's primary research focus is on skeletal aging and age estimation, investigating the correlation of osteoarthritis with chronological age. Other ongoing research projects study the biocultural signature of human remains utilized in Afro-Cuban religious practices. Dr. Winburn also conducts research into the effects of cognitive bias on forensic anthropological analyses, with the goal of mitigating human error and subjectivity using quality-control measures.
 
For More Information, visit Dr. Winburn's Website. 

Ongoing Bioarchaeology Research

Dr. Miller Wolf’s primary research focuses on analyzing human skeletal remains from archaeological contexts to answer cultural questions about the past. Her primary interests are in social organization, household archaeology, kinship, migration, mortuary ritual, cultural body modification, and identity. She primarily employs biodistance analysis (cranial and dental morphological and metric data) and isotopic analysis (strontium). Research occurs at ancient Maya sites in Honduras (Copan), Guatemala (Ucanal; Tayasal), and Belize (with the Maya Research Program, Blue Creek) and historical and contact period sites in Guatemala (San Bernabe Mission) and Belize (Belize City). She has also conducted research on various other samples from North America (Late Woodland sites in the Lower Illinois River Valley), Mexico (Aztec), and North Africa (Gobero site).

Selected research from Dr. Miller Wolf can be found here.

Conservation and Bioarchaeology

As a bioarchaeologist and Registered Professional Archaeologist, Dr. Miller Wolf is concerned with the conservation of skeletal samples. She co-organized a symposium on this topic at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the Society of American Archaeologists and then guest edited a special issue of Advances in Archaeological Practice that was published in the Spring of 2019. The issue covered major themes related to field and laboratory best practices; documentation and conservation methods; examples of large conservation projects from Central America, East Asia, and North America; Honduras, Mongolia, North America; and the ethics of skeletal analysis. It can be found in Issue 7(1), DOI: 10.1017/aap.2018.48.