Richard Jantz's guest appearances

Richard Jantz

Chasing Earhart

Forensic Anthropology Companion Podcast

Amelia Earhart

Tom King

Sarah Stewart

Brian Dunning

Lois Frankel

Richard Scott

Jay Faerber

Keith O'Brien

Emily Calandrelli

Jessica Cox

Chris Williamson

Jeff Glickman

Sammie Morris

Tom Dettweiler

Dave Horner

OwlTail

In this episode, I am joined by long-time friend and collaborator Dr. Greg Berg to chat with Dr. Richard Jantz about his paper "Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones: A 1941 Analysis versus Modern Quantitative Techniques" from Vol 1. No. 2.  We take a deep dive into the Amelia Earhart story covering the span between her disappearance in 1937 through Dr. Jantz's initial presentation of the Nikumaroro Bones hypothesis in 1998, a published rebuttal of the hypothesis in 2015, formal development and presentation of the hypothesis in 2018, and moving toward the determination of a positive identification.  A warning, though, this one will be a little bit statistics heavy; however, I feel that it is necessary to have a good foundational understanding of the procedures that Dr. Jantz used and how he used them to be able to critically examine his findings. As you’ll soon find, it is important to provide some, or any, measure of certainty to support your claims.To find out more information about TIGHAR at https://tighar.org/Dr. Richard Jantz is Director Emeritus of Forensic Anthropology Center, Professor Emeritus Dr. Jantz conducts research in the areas of human variation, skeletal biology and forensic anthropology. He is primarily concerned with developing computerized data bases in these areas which can be used to address a variety of research questions.

In this episode, I am joined by long-time friend and collaborator Dr. Greg Berg to chat with Dr. Richard Jantz about his paper "Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones: A 1941 Analysis versus Modern Quantitative Techniques" from Vol 1. No. 2.  We take a deep dive into the Amelia Earhart story covering the span between her disappearance in 1937 through Dr. Jantz's initial presentation of the Nikumaroro Bones hypothesis in 1998, a published rebuttal of the hypothesis in 2015, formal development and presentation of the hypothesis in 2018, and moving toward the determination of a positive identification.  A warning, though, this one will be a little bit statistics heavy; however, I feel that it is necessary to have a good foundational understanding of the procedures that Dr. Jantz used and how he used them to be able to critically examine his findings. As you’ll soon find, it is important to provide some, or any, measure of certainty to support your claims. To find out more information about TIGHAR at <a href="https://tighar.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://tighar.org/</a> Dr. Richard Jantz is Director Emeritus of Forensic Anthropology Center, Professor Emeritus Dr. Jantz conducts research in the areas of human variation, skeletal biology and forensic anthropology. He is primarily concerned with developing computerized data bases in these areas which can be used to address a variety of research questions.

Forensic Anthropology Companion Podcast Episode 5: Vol. 1. No. 2 - Dr. Richard Jantz on the Identification of Amelia Earhart

One year ago, almost to the day of this recording I sent an email to Dr. Richard Jantz of the University of Tennessee. At the time of our initial conversation, Dr. Jantz was mid-way through his anthropological research and analysis of a set of bones originally found in 1941 on then Gardner island now known as Nikumaroro Island. Originally, examined by Dr. D.W. Hoodless, and determined to be male the bones were lost and to this day have yet to be located. Fast forward to 2018, and Dr. Jantz’ comprehensive analysis of the original Hoodless report; it is Dr. Jantz who has determined that in his opinion Dr. Hoodless had it all wrong and the bones that were originally examined many years ago were in fact that of woman. A woman that Dr. Jantz believes is none other than Amelia Earhart. Tonight, on the 39th episode of the Chasing Earhart podcast Dr. Jantz joins us via Zoom from his office in Tennessee do discuss and break down his paper "Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones: A 1941 Analysis versus Modern Quantitative Techniques" in a worldwide exclusive interview. To quote from the abstract of Dr. Jantz’ paper"To address the question of whether the Nikumaroro bones match estimates of Amelia Earhart’s bone lengths, I compare Earhart’s bone lengths with the Nikumaroro bones using Mahalanobis distance. This analysis reveals that Earhart is more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99% of individuals in a large reference sample. This strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart."Is this case closed? Is the mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan solved once and for all? You be the judge.

One year ago, almost to the day of this recording I sent an email to Dr. Richard Jantz of the University of Tennessee. At the time of our initial conversation, Dr. Jantz was mid-way through his anthropological research and analysis of a set of bones originally found in 1941 on then Gardner island now known as Nikumaroro Island. Originally, examined by Dr. D.W. Hoodless, and determined to be male the bones were lost and to this day have yet to be located. Fast forward to 2018, and Dr. Jantz’ comprehensive analysis of the original Hoodless report; it is Dr. Jantz who has determined that in his opinion Dr. Hoodless had it all wrong and the bones that were originally examined many years ago were in fact that of woman. A woman that Dr. Jantz believes is none other than Amelia Earhart. Tonight, on the 39th episode of the Chasing Earhart podcast Dr. Jantz joins us via Zoom from his office in Tennessee do discuss and break down his paper "Amelia Earhart and the Nikumaroro Bones: A 1941 Analysis versus Modern Quantitative Techniques" in a worldwide exclusive interview. To quote from the abstract of Dr. Jantz’ paper "To address the question of whether the Nikumaroro bones match estimates of Amelia Earhart’s bone lengths, I compare Earhart’s bone lengths with the Nikumaroro bones using Mahalanobis distance. This analysis reveals that Earhart is more similar to the Nikumaroro bones than 99% of individuals in a large reference sample. This strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart." Is this case closed? Is the mystery of the disappearance of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan solved once and for all? You be the judge.

Amelia Earhart & The Nikumaroro Bones: A Conversation with Dr. Richard Jantz