Date/Time
Date(s) - Saturday, June 6, 2015
1:00 pm - 2:45 pm
Location
Williamson County Public Library
Category(ies)
The University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility is the original Body Farm. It is located a few miles from downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, behind the University of Tennessee Medical Center. Dr. William Bass started it in late 1981 to create a facility for the study of the decomposition of human remains. He served as the head of the university’s anthropology department in 1971, and as official state forensic anthropologist for Tennessee.
The Body Farm is a 2.5-acre fenced in, wooded plot. A number of bodies are placed in different settings on the land and left to decompose. The bodies are exposed in a variety of ways in order to learn about decomposition under different, specific conditions. Detailed observations of the decomposition process are recorded such as the process and speed of decomposition, the effects of insect activity, etcetera.
Come learn how the Body Farm gets bodies, aids in trainings of law enforcement officials, and what they have learned from guest speaker Janna M. Andronowski. She received her B.A. and B.Sc. from Simon Fraser University, M.Sc. from the University of Toronto, and is currently a Ph.D. student in Biological Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her research interests are in skeletal biology, particularly from a microscopic perspective, and its applications in Bioarchaeology and Forensic Anthropology. She was formerly a research intern with the Forensic Anthropology Unit at the Office of Chief Medical Examiner in New York City (NYC-OCME), and a research assistant at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Forensic Research, and the Mary Rose Trust in Portsmouth, UK. She is currently an instructor in the Department of Anthropology, and involved with the Forensic Anthropology Center at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
