Research trends in forensic anthropology: A bibliometric analysis

Abstract

This paper aims to examine the worldwide research development and trends in forensic anthropology by using bibliometric analysis. Scopus database was used to identify published papers on forensic anthropology from 1948 to 2020. A total of 4,499 records were analyzed for yearly publication productivity, authorship and citation pattern, types of documents, most productive journals, organizations, authors, and countries, frequently cited papers, most used keywords, countries of collaboration, and three-field plot analysis in the domain of forensic anthropology. The results indicated that the highest grand total publications were between the years 2016 and 2019, while the highest multi-authored publications were in the year 2018. The most productive journal, author, organization, and country were the 'Journal of Forensic Sciences' with grand total publications of 934, 'Cattaneo, C.' with 97 publications, 'Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique' with 130 publications, and the United States with 1020 total cited papers, respectively. The document with the highest number of citations was 'Buckberry and Chamberlain, 2002, Am J Phys Anthropol' with a total of 387. Three-field plot analysis regarding the most outstanding keyword-source-country was "Forensic anthropology"- "Journal of Forensic Sciences" and "Forensic Science International"- "USA", "France", and "UK". The predomination of certain countries over others in the field of forensic anthropology limits its prosperity as ethnic variety is of important regard. Research collaborations were mainly observed between the United States and European countries, which highlights the need for strengthening collaborations between developed and developing nations.

Keywords: Bibliographic data; Bibliometric analysis; Forensic anthropology; Global output; Publication trend; Research trend.