Being a student in Forensic Anthropology in fact makes it easier to get through the potentially offensive parts of the book, because there are many things to be learned from the novel. This book reflects real-life issues pertaining to forensic research and crime-related applications to forensic science. The book is dedicated to "All victims of murder, all those who mourn them, and all who seek justice on their behalf."

Bass's "Body Farm" is designed so that cases where bodies are found in similar circumstances may have a foundation in terms of the forensic police personnel being able to know how and when - if not why - the body was dumped in that particular spot.

In the Foreword of the book, distinguished crime reporter and forensic crime novelist Patricia Daniels Cornwell (whose book Postmortem is highly praised for the exactness of forensic anthropology in crime investigations) writes that Bass's research has "revolutionized the field of forensic science," in particular because Bass is credited with pinpointing the "time since death," an extremely important feature for crime solving communities.

The dead have much to say that only special people with special training and special gifts have the patience to hear, despite the assault on the senses," Cornwell writes (xi). And many of those dead bodies have arrived on the Body Farm "through their own selfless choosing" years in advance, by donating their bodies to Bass's "remarkable ongoing study," Cornwell continues. "Daily, wounded and worn-out bodies melt into the earth and are carried away by birds and insects and other predators who are simply part of the food chain and not the least bit morbid."

How can forensic anthropology help solve a real life problem? Identification of missing loved ones, using facial reproduction (or reconstruction) can be an important link in the identification of bones. It is based on the average soft tissue thicknesses over several places on the skull and jaws. Modeling clay is used in this procedure.

The book by Stanley...

Maybe the artist wishes to put a scar on the face (where there was one), or a hooknose, or a pair of large ears, just to add drama; this would be a potential abuse of facial reconstruction.
The FBI gives examples of cases (www.fbi.gov) on their Web site, where positive identification has been made on a skull based on reconstruction by an artist. In one case (1994), a tourist in Cape Province in South Africa discovered the skeleton of a young Caucasian female, and though some effects were found (wristwatch, pendant, handbag) there was no way to identify the remains. A newspaper reporter happened to overhear a forensic pathologist and a police officer, and the reporter remembered covering the story of a missing young woman six years earlier. The FBI, by using the tactics of estimating soft tissue and reconstructing a face, then contacted the family (in Europe) of the missing girl and when the family compared the photo of the reconstructed face with their photo of their child, they knew that their daughter's remains had been found.

Works Cited

Bass, Bill; & Jefferson, Jon. (2003). Death's Acre: Inside the Legendary Forensic Lab the Body

Farm Where the Dead Do Tell Tales. New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons.

Burns, Karen Ramey. (2006). Department of Anthropology Faculty. Retrieved July 29, 2007, at http://www.anthro.uga.edu/people/burns.htm.

Cornwell, Patricia Daniels (1990). Postmortem. New York: Charles Scribner's Son.

McGray, Douglas. (2001). Unearthing Grave Offenses. Foreign Policy, No. 126, 86-87.

Rhine, Stanley. (1998). Bone Voyage: A Journey in Forensic Anthropology. Albuquerque: