ANTH 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Forensic Anthropology, Total Station, Azimuth
9 Jun 2020
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Document Summary
Forensic archaeology is the application of archaeological theory and methods to medicolegal cases, including searching for, locating, surveying, sampling, recording, and interpreting evidence, as well as the recovery and documentation of human remains and associated evidence. A location where remains are found is called a scene or recovery scene. Common sense types include surface, burial, submerged, fire, and mass fatality. Similarly to excavating an archaeological site, processing a scene is inherently destructive, permanently altering the context. Documentation and preservation of contextual information is therefore critically important. Methods of locating a scene may include line searches, subsurface probing, thermal imaging, geophysical techniques, or cadaver dogs. Each has limitations, and certain approaches may only be appropriate in certain situations. The recovery process typically involves denuding the scene, establishing a datum, screening, excavation, and collection. Scenes can be mapped using a variety of approaches including triangulation,trilateration, azimuth, baseline, and gri.
