Opportunities in forensic anthropology
Description of the minor in forensic anthropology
Doing forensic anthropology in tandem with excavating local historical cemeteries gives students at U of L the unique opportunity to help build and preserve an important part of the history of Louisville. Students interested in participating and potentially digging their own body should contact Phil Diblasi directly.
The Program is an operating archaeological laboratory and curation facility. The curation facility is approved and recognized by the federal government. The Program curates materials from 1825 archaeological sites, of those 768 are federally owned. Several US Army Corps of Engineer districts curate materials here as does the Department of Defense, Federal Highway Administration, and the Federal Aviation Administration. In addition, artifacts owned by both the City of Louisville and Jefferson County Government (as of 2003, Louisville Metropolitan Government) are curated here. The total number of artifacts is approximately one million. Since 1982, the collections held by the Program have been catalogued both manually and digitally. In other words, there are both hard copy artifact cards and computerized databases that can be used to locate and analyze collections. The database used is a plain English database - FileMaker. In addition to the actual artifacts, the Program holds an entire set of 7.5 minute USGS topographic quadrangles for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. On these maps, all archaeological sites have been plotted. A second, partial set of topographic quadrangles are used in the field to plot sites.
For each archaeological site in collections there is a completed Kentucky Archaeological Site Survey form on file. In addition, photographs are curated. The Program occupies 58,287 square feet. Archaeological collections occupy 2615 square feet or 45% of the space. A wet lab, 245 square feet, and two dry laboratories, totaling 710 square feet, occupies much of the remaining space. Human remains, photographs, slides and paper documents are curated in climate controlled areas. The restrooms are handicap accessible as is the entire facility.
The Program holds sufficient field equipment to support approximately 20 field workers. Each worker can be provided with a complete field kit including hand tools, measuring and recording devices. The Program owns a single late model four wheel drive sport utility vehicle to transport limited numbers of field crew members and equipment. The Program conducts field and others types of research in Kentucky and southern Indiana. The staff archaeologist is approved on both the Indiana and Kentucky State Historic Preservation Officer's lists of archaeologists. The majority of the Program's archaeological activity consists of Phase I and Phase II investigations. Recently a number of historic cemeteries have been investigated and mitigated. The Program has complied with the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act of 1991. Grants have been acquired for additional consultation with all of the affected federally recognized Native American groups. On site consultation was conducted with each of the federally recognized groups in 1999-2000.
In addition to the archaeological materials and documents curated at the Program, there are a number of special collections held. The entire cemetery and burial records for Eastern, Greenwood and Schardein Cemeteries are presently curated. In addition, efforts are being conducted to enter the entire dataset into computerized databases.
A very successful student project by one of our recent graduates...