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Assignment 2 Unit 14 - Forensic Anthropology and Archaeology
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A Distinction-Graded assignment written around how i carried out the discovery of a concealed grave at a dig site.
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Unit 14 Assignment B- Discovery of a concealed graveAsh Baish
How I carried out the investigation of the human burial scene
We had been told where the dig site was. When we arrived, we noticed that there were a lot of
brambles and holes in the ground, we also saw that this grave was a shallow grave as there were
bones that were visible, they were poking through the soil. At this point I had started my risk
assessment and contemporaneous notes. (Figure 2) There was also a lip-gloss tube that was near the
grave, I assumed this was an artefact. We had also noticed that some of the bones weren’t near the
grave which showed that there was wildlife in the area. So, one of the first things we did was put
poles in the holes so that no one fell down them. We then decided to move the brambles out of the
way carefully, and we had made sure to wear nitrile gloves so that we didn’t get poked by a thorn.
However, we couldn’t move all of them. We were all wearing appropriate footwear to avoid being
poked by a thorn in the foot. However, a colleague had worn converse shoes (canvas trainers) and
ended up being poked by a thorn in the side of her foot, the next time we went, she made sure to
wear better shoes and be more careful. We had picked our datum point to be a bigger tree which
was near the front of the dig site. Then, we had started to make measurements for the grid map of
the scene. Then, we marked each of the edges of the shape we had decided to use with the string,
then was put about 2 inches off the ground using pegs. Then measured those lengths and had to find
when to put the pegs for the quadrants. As we were measuring, we had placed pegs at equal
increments apart on each of the four sides of the parallelogram shape we had made it. Image of the
sketch of this is Figure 1. We had split the site into 6 quadrants, we then started to collect the
exposed bones before we started to dig up the rest. We had collected a vertebra from the A2
quadrant and put it into the evidence bag.
Then, when we started the dig, we had first noticed that our grid map had been moved by other
college students, we fixed it and then we used the trowel to find the edges of the grave. We knew
that we had found the edge of the grave when we had found the stone layer underneath the soil,
around the four edges. We also knew it was the edges because there was a difference in the texture
of the disturbed and undisturbed soil. After we found the edges of the grave, we then started to look
for other smaller bones in the grave by sifting through the soil with a sieve. However, my colleagues
and I couldn’t find any teeth or smaller bones as I believe they were still connected to the mandible
and skull, so when my colleagues had collected those, I believe they had the teeth too. My team and
I had collected 4 rib bones, 2 cervical vertebrae, 2 thoracic vertebrae and then the sacrum and
coccyx (which were still fused) (Figure 3). After we had collected all the bones available into our
evidence bag, we then took then back to the lab to clean them and sketch them (Figure 4).
->Scene documentation
, Figure 1- Sketch of the Grid Map.
Figure 2- Contemporaneous notes from the
sessions at the dig site.
Figure 3- List of bones collected by my team and me.
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