Human Osteology, Taphonomy and Forensic Recovery of Human Remains
This course is hosted by the Whatcom County Emergency Operations Center.
The role of the forensic anthropologist in the medico-legal system is to assist investigators with the identification of deceased individuals, particularly those in advanced stages of decomposition and those who have skeletonized. Forensic anthropologists specialize in the detailed archaeological recovery of human remains from a variety of contexts, conduct biological and forensic analyses of human remains, and have expert training in detecting patterns of trauma, postmortem alteration of remains, and estimating the time since death. Since forensic anthropology employs the principles of anthropology to analyze legal problems involving human osteological material, it is an applied science that embraces both anthropological and forensic studies.