Forensic archaeology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Forensic archaeology is the application of archaeological techniques and methods to the Medico-legal field, normally the enforcement of criminal law.

For example forensic archaeologists have been employed by police to excavate grave sites in order to reconstruct the events that took place prior to the burial of the victim. Excavating a grave under archaeological conditions can provide valuable evidence on the circumstances of burial and in some cases the manner of death, how long the grave was open, the tools used, how long it would have taken to create and even the time of year that it was dug.

Associated disciplines can aid in the fine detail from such excavations, for example the analysis of pollen, plant remains and ash from within a grave by a forensic botanist may allow the reconstruction of the environment a victim has been in prior to their burial in the grave. It may also provide an indication on the time of year that the burial took place in.

Whilst the excavation of buried bodies is popularly thought of as the main work of a forensic archaeologist, the location of buried remains, be they a human body, personal effects, weapons or even stolen goods (a bag of bank notes for example) that defines forensic archaeology. For this reason forensic archaeology has developed alongside several disciplines including archaeological object conservation, as a knowledge of the chemical and biological processes involved in the degradation of materials (known as taphonomy) is required for both forensic archaeology and archaeological conservation. The forensic archaeologist wishes to understand (and predict) the survival of items buried within the ground in order to explain the pattern of evidence found, whereas the archaeological conservator wishes to understand these same processes in order to stop them further destroying archaeological artefacts that may now be put on display in museums etc. Forensic archaeology has extended this by incorporating the degradation processes of a human body after death as the body itself has a large effect on the survival of items within the ground and the level to which trace evidence (fingerprints, hairs, DNA, paint flakes etc) will survive to be useful evidence for the prosecution.

The use of this broad knowledge paired with field-craft and archaeological experience to identify small and often otherwise unobserved changes in the landscape is an important skill needed by the forensic archaeologist and when used in conjunction with other search personnel can be a powerful tool in Police investigations.

In addition a forensic archaeologist may use a number of technology based techniques to help locate buried objects. The most common of these being geophysical prospection, aerial photography, satellite imagery, and surveying. These techniques require experience and expertise to interpret the data they provide and to understand the best use of a technique in any given situation.

When dealing with human remains the traditional disciplines associated with archaeology can also be of benefit to an investigation and the study of osteoarchaeology (the archaeological study of the skeleton) has lead in the UK to the adoption of the US field of study of forensic anthropology which uses the human skeletal remains to help determine the manner of death, age, sex, height etc of an individual. The addition of techniques from palaeopathology (the study of human skeletal remains to understand the health of individuals in the past) to forensic anthropology has allowed the examination of injuries prior to (anti-mortem), around (peri-mortem) and after (post-mortem) the time of death of a victim as well as helping identify individuals from their medical records.

Prior to the development of forensic archaeology in the UK and particularly the work of John Hunter and Rob Janaway at Bradford University in the mid 1990s, it was more common for police to dig out a grave hurriedly in pursuit of the body without looking more closely at its Archaeological context. The use of 1m grids often lead to a confused evidential record with items found in the soil from a grave being associated with several grid numbers instead of labeling the grave soil & body (a context number) and associating items found in the grave (evidence) with that label.

As well as being used in individual criminal cases, forensic archaeologists have been employed by international organisations like the UN to excavate war crime or genocide graves at several sites in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Iraq. There is also a role in the developing area of Disaster Victim Identification (or DVI) where archaeological approaches to large disaster scenes may help with both the correct identification of bodies or body parts and also any later police or other authorities investigation (in terrorist attacks or in plane crashes for example).