Bass Donated Skeletal Collection
Definition
A consent-based skeletal collection of over 1,750 individuals at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, established by William Bass in 1981. All individuals donated their remains ante-mortem. The ethical template for all subsequent outdoor forensic research facility collections.
- Institution
- University of Tennessee, Knoxville
- Founder
- William Bass
- Established
- 1981
- Size
- Over 1,750 individuals
- Basis
- Ante-mortem informed consent donation
Common questions
Why is consent-based donation significant for this collection's use in casework and research?+
Because donors consented before death, the collection avoids the ethical problems attached to older skeletal collections built from unclaimed or non-consensual remains, which makes its data more defensible when cited in forensic testimony and research publications.
What role has this collection played beyond forensic anthropology research?+
It set the operating template that later outdoor forensic research facilities, sometimes called body farms, follow for consent, documentation, and post-study curation, so its influence extends into decomposition research and taphonomy studies well beyond skeletal biology alone.
Related terms
- Cultural Affiliation (NAGPRA)
- The link, established by a preponderance of evidence, between a present-day tribe or Native Hawaiian organisation and human remains or cultural items...
- Culturally Unidentifiable Remains
- Human remains in US museum and agency collections whose cultural affiliation with any present-day tribe cannot be established by the preponderance-of-evidence standard....
- De Montfort Precedent (2018)
- The return by De Montfort University Leicester of skeletal remains (Asaru-Ojo) to the Ogoni community in Nigeria, conducted voluntarily under the Human...
- Hamann-Todd Collection
- A skeletal reference collection of approximately 3,100 individuals at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History, accumulated 1893 to 1939 from unclaimed bodies...
- NAGPRA
- The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (Public Law 101-601, 1990), a US federal statute requiring museums and federal agencies to...
- Population Affinity
- The preferred modern forensic-anthropological term for the relationship between an unidentified individual's skeletal morphology and a modern reference population. Replaces the older...
- Terry Collection
- A documented skeletal collection at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History (Washington DC), assembled from cadavers donated to Washington University's anatomy...
- UNDRIP
- The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (A/RES/61/295, 2007), adopted by 143 states. Articles 11, 12, and 31 affirm indigenous...
- Willed-Body Donation
- The voluntary, pre-mortem consent by an individual to donate their remains to a specific research programme after death. Distinguished from anatomical donation...