page_title: Forensic anthropology
section_title: Modern uses
hierarchical_section_title: Forensic anthropology / Modern uses
caption_attribution_description: English: An exhumed mass grave in Potocari, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where key events in the July 1995 Srebrenica Massacre unfolded. July 2007.
context_page_description: Forensic anthropology is the application of the anatomical science of anthropology and its various subfields, including forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy, in a legal setting. A forensic anthropologist can assist in the identification of deceased individuals whose remains are decomposed, burned, mutilated or otherwise unrecognizable, as might happen in a plane crash. Forensic anthropologists are also instrumental in the investigation and documentation of genocide and mass graves. Along with forensic pathologists, forensic dentists, and homicide investigators, forensic anthropologists commonly testify in court as expert witnesses. Using physical markers present on a skeleton, a forensic anthropologist can potentially determine a person's age, sex, stature, and ancestry. This is useful in identifying living individuals for legal purposes such as undocumented immigrants. This is extremely important in legal cases where the court needs to decide if they will judge an undocumented individual as an adult or a minor.
context_section_description: Today, forensic anthropology is a well-established discipline within the forensic field. Anthropologists are called upon to investigate remains and to help identify individuals from bones when other physical characteristics that could be used to identify a body no longer exist. Forensic anthropologists work in conjunction with forensic pathologists to identify remains based on their skeletal characteristics.  If the victim is not found for a lengthy period or has been eaten by scavengers, flesh markers used for identification would be destroyed, making normal identification difficult if not impossible.  Forensic anthropologists can provide physical characteristics of the person to input into missing person databases such as that of the National Crime Information Center in the US or INTERPOL's yellow notice database.
  In addition to these duties, forensic anthropologists often assist in the investigation of war crimes and mass fatality investigations. Anthropologists have been tasked with helping to identify victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, as well as plane, crashes such as the Arrow Air Flight 1285 disaster and the USAir Flight 427 disaster where the flesh had been vaporized or so badly mangled that normal identification was impossible. Anthropologists have also helped identify victims of genocide in countries around the world, often long after the actual event. War crimes anthropologists have helped investigate include the Rwandan genocide and the Srebrenica Genocide. Organizations such as the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe, the British Association for Forensic Anthropology, and the American Society of Forensic Anthropologists continue to provide guidelines for the improvement of forensic anthropology and the development of standards within the discipline.
caption: Exhumed bodies of victims of the 1995 Srebrenica Genocide in a mass grave found in 2007.
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