Definition
Forensic Geoarchaeology: The application of multidisciplinary, high-resolution analytical techniques from geology, archaeology, physical science, and earth science in the examination, recovery, and interpretation of outdoor crime scenes.
Introduction
Prior to the early 1980s, forensic geoarchaeology essentially did not exist. While the geological “context” of outdoor crime scenes had been scrutinized to varying degrees for more than a century, the use of high-resolution, geoarchaeological analytical protocols in forensic applications was unknown. The genesis of forensic geoarchaeology as a subdiscipline took place as a result of an unusual turn of events. A particular series of geoarchaeological evaluations of criminal evidence, narrowly circumscribed in time, illustrated their power in revealing information useful in a court of law.
In the late spring of 1984, the author was contacted by the then state archaeologist of Utah, D. Brigham Madsen, who inquired into the...
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Bibliography
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Adovasio, J.M. (2017). Forensic Geoarchaeology. In: Gilbert, A.S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geoarchaeology. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0_125
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4409-0_125
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