Forensic Osteology and Field Recovery Methods - MSc

This new MSc programme equips you with the ability to excavate and analyse human remains.

Overview

Learn the practical skills needed to recover human remains in the field. Gain the theoretical knowledge needed to reconstruct biological profiles from hard tissue, supported by laboratory based training.

You learn from a team of internationally respected academics with extensive professional experience. You have the opportunity to access one of the largest human skeletal collections in the UK, with extensive skeletal pathology and accompanying radiographs. The collection is curated by the Skeletal Biology Research Centre, in the School's Human Osteology Research Laboratory.

The programme is suited for students from a wide range of BA and BSc backgrounds. This MSc will provide a firm foundation for continued work, or PhD research, in anthropology, archaeology and related forensic fields.

Teaching and assessment

Modules are taught using a variety of methods including practical based modules taught in the field, lectures and seminars, demonstration, group projects, weekly bone quizzesand practical lab sessions that are supported through textbooks. Current journal articles on methodologies and theories support both the labs and lectures.

Assessment will be though practical demonstrations during lab sessions, lab reports, independent and group course work exercises and research dissertations.

Programme aims

The programme aims to:

• Provide an excellent standard of higher education.
• Provide teaching informed by research and scholarship.
• Develop a sound knowledge of laboratory-based scientific methods, and other skills, which will be of value within forensic osteology, but can also be transferred to archaeology, biological anthropology, and bioarchaeology.
• Develop an awareness of professional and ethical standards and practices.
• Attain a deep knowledge, and experience of, techniques relevant to forensic osteology, as well as their practical application.
• Critical awareness of, and engagement with, current research methods and techniques.
• Develop the ability to learn independently.
• Prepare students for employment, or further post-graduate doctoral study in Forensics, Biological Anthropology, and Archaeology.
• Provide learning opportunities that are enjoyable, involve realistic workloads, based within a practical framework, with appropriate support for students from diverse backgrounds.
• Provide high quality teaching in a supportive environment with appropriately qualified and trained staff.

Careers

Higher degrees in forensic anthropology create opportunities in many employment sectors including academia, archaeology, police sector, the civil service and non-governmental organizations through work in areas such as human rights. A forensic anthropology degree also develops interpersonal and intercultural skills, which make our graduates highly desirable in any profession that involves working with people from diverse backgrounds and cultures.