Anthropology

This course introduces the field of forensic anthropology, which involves the application of biological anthropology methods to a medico-legal context. To identify human remains, forensic anthropologists assist law enforcement by determining age, sex, ancestry, stature, and unique features from skeletal remains. Using decomposition rates, they can provide an estimate of the postmortem interval. Course topics include: establishing a forensic context, methods of scene recovery, estimating the postmortem interval, reconstruction of demographic information, and identification of bone pathology and trauma.