Forensic Anthropology (Taught)

The programme will provide you with the skills and knowledge required to pursue a career in the search of missing people, recovery of evidence and human remains from clandestine graves and identification of unknown corpses by osteological analysis. The programme will develop a broad understanding of these issues, including excavation, laboratory analysis and the courtroom skills necessary to present findings in a trial. You will also have the opportunity to learn analytical techniques, taphonomic analysis, field methods and genetic applications. The programme develops a high profile curriculum, which is supported by a structured lecture programme, workshops and seminars in the department’s well-equipped specialist laboratories. The MSc in Forensic Anthropology is also supported by a skeletal reference collection and staff members are currently involved around the World as practitioners in forensic cases. When you complete the course you will have the skills to continue into academic research or employment as a forensic anthropologist. The programme aims are to help you understand the: Use of techniques from physical anthropology to analyse and identify human remains; medico-legal parameters and techniques for the recovery and identification of human remains; reconstruction of aspects of human identity and osteobiography from the skeleton; physical settings and contexts in which human remains are found; courtroom skills necessary to present the result in a trial. In order to do this, you will learn how to: Apply a broad knowledge base of human osteology and biology to a range of real and theoretical forensic applications; evaluate the burial contexts of human remains and use this to determine the natural and anthropogenic processes involved in creating them; operate in a range of science contexts, and take responsibility for their contributions and outputs; generate information using primary observations of human osteology and use these to form responses to the problem presented.