NEW YORK (CBS NEWS) – A new forensic analysis indicates that bones found on a remote South Pacific island in 1940 are very likely those of legendary American aviator Amelia Earhart, according to a researcher at the University of Tennessee. Richard Jantz, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Tennessee, used modern bone measurement analysis to determine the bones were likely those of Earhart, who went missing while on a pioneering round-the-world flight with navigator Fred Noonan. A press release announcing the findings also notes that the search party which recovered the bones in 1940 also found a part of a woman’s shoe, a box designed to hold a Brandis Navy Surveying Sextant, and a Benedictine bottle, which Earhart had often carried. Using a computer program called Fordisc, which estimates sex, ancestry, and stature from skeletal measurements, Jantz re-examined seven bone measurements done by Hoodless -- four of the skull and three of the tibia, humerus, and radius bones. A statement released by the university says the analysis showed that the bones “have more similarity to Earhart than to 99 percent of individuals in a large reference sample.”

The university says that in 1940, physician D. W. Hoodless conducted seven measurements on the human remains and concluded they belonged to a man. “This strongly supports the conclusion that the Nikumaroro bones belonged to Amelia Earhart.”

Jantz believes Earhart died as a castaway on Nikumaroro Island, though some theorists believe she died on Mili Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Jantz concluded that “until definitive evidence is presented that the remains are not those of Amelia Earhart, the most convincing argument is that they are hers.”

The new study is published in the journal Forensic Anthropology.
Emeritus University of Tennessee Professor Richard Jantz claims that bones found in 1940 on Nikumaroro, Kiribati, almost certainly belong to lost aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart.