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Amelia Earhart: Island bones 'likely' belonged to famed pilot
Bones discovered on a Pacific island in 1940 are "likely" to be those of famed pilot Amelia Earhart, according to a US peer reviewed science journal. Earhart, her plane, and her navigator vanished without a trace in 1937 over the Pacific Ocean. Many theories have sought to explain her disappearance.
But a new study published in Forensic Anthropology claims these bones prove she died as an island castaway. The report claims they are a 99% match, despite an earlier conclusion.
The study, titled Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones, was first published by the University of Florida and conducted by Professor Richard Jantz from the University of Tennessee. It disputes that the remains found on the eastern Pacific island of Nikumaroro - about 1,800 miles (2,900km) southwest of Hawaii - belonged to a man, as a researcher had determined in 1941.
Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones (open, DOI: 10.5744/fa.2018.0009) (DX)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 11 2018, @08:30PM
The field of forensics in general has advanced a lot since then. Also, the doctor wasn't specifically an expert in this area, so even by the standards of the day it was probably not the best work.
But, keep in mind that the bones were lost shortly thereafter and as a result, there isn't any way of conducting further research other than by using the previous doctors' notes about the lengths and relative size of various bones. Even with modern methods it can be a challenge to tell the difference between a male and female skeleton with certainty.
If we still had access to the bones, there'd be the possibility of a DNA test to prove it once and for all. But, her sister was alive until the late '90s, so getting a suitable sample wouldn't have been much of an issue.
I remember back in the '80s that the bones and the shoes were considered to be more or less proof that she had died there, but for various reasons, couldn't be completely conclusive. At this point, I doubt that anything more reliable is likely to show up. At least not until they find the remains of the plane.