Day 25 - Forensic Archaeology is the specialist application of archaeological techniques to the search and recovery of evidential material from crime scenes, often but not always related to buried human remains.
The main tasks that a forensic archaeologist assists with are:
Evidence searches
Evidence recovery
Evidence recording
Scene interpretation
A forensic archaeologist’s first involvement may be to help the police locate the site where a body and victim’s personal items, or stolen goods are buried, through geological and geophysical surveying techniques, as well as using imaging and photography.
The forensic archaeologist may assist with the excavation by using similar tools and expertise to those used at an archaeological dig. This has to be done slowly and painstakingly, and the archaeologists will record and preserve anything found at every stage and depth (for example paint flakes, hair, clothing or DNA) as it may be vital evidence.
Most sites have become incorporated into the archaeological record and require subsurface archaeological recovery techniques, such as stratigraphy or the analysis of layers of soil in accordance to their time period.
Other general principles followed by forensic archaeologists include:
Law of Superposition - A stratigraphic unit that underlies another must be older than the overlying unit (older is below younger layer)
Law of Inclusion - Any item (or evidence) contained within a deposit must be older than the deposit and the process by which the deposit was laid down. (ex. bricks in a wall are older than wall itself)
Law of Association - The nature of the chronological and spatial relationship between two objects within a stratigraphic unit is determined by the integrity of that stratigraphic unit. ( Items or evidence found in close proximity in the same deposit are assumed to be associated)
Law of Crosscutting Relations - Any feature that intrudes into a deposit must be younger than the deposit into which it intrudes. (ex. A grave is always younger than the soil into which it is dug)
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