Methods Used in Forensic Archaeology

Forensic archaeology is best understood as a sequence rather than a toolbox. You cannot excavate ground you have not located, and you should not excavate located ground you have not first imaged non-invasively. The four families below build on each other, and the output of one becomes the targeting information for the next.

The sections that follow take each family in turn. None of them stands alone, and the judgement of when to stop one and start the next is what separates a defensible recovery from a damaged one.

Location begins at a desk, not in a field. A desk-based assessment pulls together maps, aerial photographs, witness accounts, and land-use history to narrow a search area before anyone walks it. From there, the work moves outward across scales: satellite and historic aerial imagery can reveal soil and vegetation marks left by past ground disturbance, while airborne LiDAR strips away vegetation to expose subtle ground topography that the eye misses.

• Search strategy and planning sets the coverage pattern so a negative result is meaningful.
• Aerial and satellite remote sensing reads disturbance marks across large areas.
• LiDAR and topographic survey exposes ground micro-relief under tree cover.
• Canine search and probing adds a biological and tactile layer at close range.

Geophysical methods detect a buried feature by the physical contrast it creates with the surrounding soil. A grave disturbs natural layering, traps different moisture, and can hold objects that differ magnetically or electrically from the ground around them. The two workhorse methods exploit different contrasts, which is why they are often run together.

• Ground-penetrating radar sends radar pulses and maps reflections from disturbed soil and voids.
• Magnetometry and earth resistance map magnetic and electrical contrasts across a grid.
• Geophysical data processing and interpretation turns raw survey into a defensible anomaly map.

Forensic excavation is the opposite of digging a hole. Deposits are removed in the reverse of the order they were laid down, so the most recent material comes off first and the original ground surface is reached last. Each distinct deposit, the grave cut, the backfill, the body, a discarded tool, is treated as a separate context, recorded fully, and only then removed. That discipline is what lets an analyst later reconstruct how the scene formed.

• Stratigraphic principles and the Harris matrix govern the order of removal.
• The single-context recording system documents each deposit as its own unit.
• Clandestine grave excavation applies these rules to a concealed burial.
• Surface scatter and the scene of recovery handles remains that were never buried at all.

Recovery is only useful if the spatial record survives the dig. A total station or survey-grade GPS fixes the precise three-dimensional coordinates of the grave, the body, and every find, while photographs and photogrammetry preserve the visual record. This is the evidential backbone of the whole process: it is what turns a recovered object into an item with a provable location and context.

• Total station and GPS survey records coordinates to the centimetre.
• ICMP, EAAF and ICTY recovery protocols show how recording scales to mass-grave work.
• Radiocarbon and other dating methods help separate forensic cases from archaeological ones.

1. Assess before you search
   Gather maps, history, and witness accounts to define and rank the search area.
2. Search non-invasively
   Run walkover, remote sensing, and dog or probe search to flag candidate ground.
3. Image the candidates
   Apply geophysics to candidate areas and map anomalies worth testing.
4. Test, then open
   Confirm an anomaly with a careful evaluation, then excavate stratigraphically.
5. Record continuously
   Survey and document every context and find as you go, never afterwards from memory.