26 April 2004

Forensic anthropology explained

The Professor behind the new forensic anthropology centre at the University of Dundee and a new international forensic anthropology network will share her work with the public at a lecture in the University on Saturday 1 May.

Free and open to the public, Professor Sue Black will divulge some of the details of her profession, identifying not the cause of death but identifying the person who has died.

She will be explaining the role of forensic anthropology within the judicial system and illustrating the talk with cases undertaken both within the UK and overseas.

Sue will discuss what we can be learned from human remains about the deceased and how forensic anthropologists can piece together a picture of the crime and most importantly achieve the name and identity of the deceased.

An international forensic anthropology network that will share an online forensic resource is currently being set up by Professor Black. Based in Dundee the network will include universities in Lydon, Verona, Sri Lanka, Australia and South Africa. The group will tap into an online resource of juvenile bones scanned in the University of Dundee’s Kestrel 3D imaging suite.

Professor Black stresses that the lecture is for an adult audience due to the nature of some of her investigations but that the talk will provide a unique insight into this field of work in the aftermath of war and genocide.

Professor Black is currently preparing a series of taught postgraduates including Human Identification, DNA and Face Reconstruction, and an undergraduate course which will commence in September with approval and ratification from the National Crime and Operations Faculty, the Association of Chief Police of Scotland and the Council for the Registration of Forensic Practitioners. Dundee will be the only university in the UK to offer an undergraduate course in human osteology - studying the bone from its construction to its decomposition.

"Forensic Anthropology - much more than just a pile of old bones" is the penultimate lecture in the popular Saturday Evening Lecture Series at the University of Dundee. The lecture will take place in the Tower Extension Lecture Theatre at 6pm on Saturday 1 May.

The last lecture in the series will be delivered by Professor Cheryll Tickle from the University of Dundee's School of Life Sciences who will talk on "Embryos, genes and evolution" on Saturday 22 May.

By Jenny Marra, Head of Press 01382 344910, out of hours: 07968298585, j.m.marra@dundee.ac.uk