A Bibliography Related to Crime Scene Interpretation with ...

Introduction
The following bibliography consists of resources that contain information related to the
recovery of evidence in outdoor contexts. In practice, archaeology and criminalistics share the
goal of systematically documenting, collecting and interpreting physical evidence for the
purpose of understanding the factors which affected the depositional history of that evidence.
Archaeological method and theory can extend far beyond the recovery of buried remains. The
goals of forensic science in general, and archaeology specifically, are similar in many ways.
This is evident in their respective definitions. Archaeology may be defined as “the systematic
recovery by scientific methods of material evidence remaining from man’s life and culture in
past ages, and the detailed study of this evidence” (American Heritage Dictionary, 1978:67). If
the temporal references in this definition are removed it becomes interchangeable with broader
definitions of “forensic science”.
One of the most often addressed areas in forensic science literature is that of homicide
victims. Among outdoor crime scenes, an often used means of concealment is burial. Forensic
archaeology is almost exclusively thought associated with the recovery of buried bodies. It is
hoped however that this and past editions of the bibliography are used in considering all types of
evidence and the processing of crime scenes in general. Crime scene burials do not always
involve matrices of soil, just as they are not limited to concealing human remains. Several of the
listed sources may not discuss excavation techniques per se but are related in their discussions of
mortuary practices, photography, mapping procedures, geological and pedological studies,
geophysical sensing applications, and environmental parameters affecting entomological,
botanical and taphonomic research.
When the crime scene is located outdoors the potentially vast number of extrinsic factors
(such as geological, environmental, plant and animal disturbances) often leads to a sense of
futility toward fully documenting and ultimately interpreting the range of factors affecting the
final disposition of the evidence. Forensic archaeologists, unlike most crime scene experts,
focus upon the collection of a plethora of evidence in order to reconstruct events of the, very
often, distant past. Standard documentation procedures in the archaeological investigation of a
site/scene include descriptions of the physical setting, climatic setting, botanical remains,
entomological remains, architectural features, and specifics of the associations of all of the
physical evidence to the entire contextual setting. These details are documented via written
notes, photographic and videographic images as well as through the production of detailed maps
of the spatial distribution of evidence relative to topographic and other features of the physical
setting.
In an attempt to bring archaeological methods out of entirely subterranean contexts,
resources are included which contain information applicable to most crime scenes. For example,
mapping protocols developed by archaeologists for data collection in confined spaces such as
rockshelters or caves, have direct use indoors at scenes requiring precision documentation of
ballistic, blood spatter, and other positional evidence. Published methodologies for collecting
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