Biological and Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (BAFAL)
The Biological and Forensic Anthropology Laboratory (BAFAL) offers its services to all local, state and federal law enforcement agencies, Coroners, Medical Examiners’ Offices and medicolegal professionals in the recovery, identification and analysis of human and nonhuman skeletal remains. The BAFAL provides education and training opportunities to students, law enforcement, medicolegal investigators, and the general public. The lab can offer assistance with both forensic archaeological recovery and forensic anthropological analysis.
Forensic Archaeology Services
The BAFAL Forensic Archaeology Field Crew can aid in searches, surface surveys, gridding, mapping and documentation of crime scenes, and can conduct forensic excavation in the case of buried, hidden or scattered remains. Our Forensic Archaeology Field Crew will arrive with all necessary equipment for forensic survey, mapping and excavation, including standard excavation equipment, Total Station, metal detector, and photography equipment.
Forensic Anthropology Services
The wet lab is outfitted with a full complement of equipment necessary to process and analyze remains that are skeletonized, decomposed, burned, fragmentary, or otherwise unidentifiable through traditional autopsy. The BAFAL staff can aid in distinguishing human from nonhuman bone to reduce error and to help focus the investigation, and offers photo consultations at no charge. In cases involving nonhuman bone, the lab can assist in identification of the taxon, age and seasonality of death, as well as perform trauma analysis in cases of animal cruelty.
When human remains are found, the lab can identify the specific skeletal elements present to establish a minimum number of individuals, and can help to determine the antiquity of the remains (prehistoric Native American, historic, or modern). The lab will then conduct anthropological analysis, including the determination of sex and ancestry, the estimation of age at death, estimation of stature in life, taphonomic assessment to help determine the sequence of events, radiographic assessment of the bones for antemortem and postmortem trauma or projectile fragments, comparison of skeletal remains with antemortem health records, and radiographic comparison of antemortem and postmortem X-rays. The BAFAL Standard Operating Procedure includes strict maintenenance of the Chain of Custody and is secured with two alarms and swipecard/passcode entry system that ensures the highest level of security for skeletal evidence.
Forensic anthropological analysis can contribute to identification of modern remains and can also provide information regarding the manner of death and treatment of the remains after death, such as skeletal signs of perimortem blunt force trauma, detection and classification of cutmarks on bone, sorting and analysis of burned and cremated remains, and identification of signs of pathological conditions of the teeth or bones, congenital skeletal anomalies, and other identifying characteristics. Upon request, the lab can conduct X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) analysis, digitization of specimens, and can provide secure, short-term cold storage or long-term curation of unidentified skeletal remains. The BAFAL is also able to complete inventory and analysis of Native American remains for NAGPRA compliance reports.
The BAFAL is responsible for the curation and deployment of the Anthropology Department’s comparative osteological collections, which include a series of and high-quality primate and paleoanthropology casts, forensic skeletal casts, a collection of human natural bone specimens, and a small collection of faunal remains. The closely supervised student staff assists with cataloguing the collection, participates in research on osteological materials, and observes forensic analysis when authorized by the presiding jurisdiction.
Training Facilities
Contiguous with the restricted forensic workspace, the Anthropology Department maintains a large teaching space suitable for conducting physical anthropology classroom instruction,public outreach programs and forensic training events. The BAFAL provides organized training programs for law enforcement and medicolegal investigators in forensic anthropology methods and forensic excavation techniques. For more information on upcoming training opportunities, please contact the Lab Director, Dr. Kerriann Marden, at 678-839-6450 or kmarden@westga.edu. The BAFAL is located in the Old Auditorium Building, adjacent to the Anthropology Building on the south side of campus, and is easily accessible via Back Campus Drive.
Lab Director
Dr. Kerriann Marden has been working with human skeletal remains since 1998, and has been author or coauthor on more than a dozen forensic anthropology cases in four states. She was a registered medicolegal death investigator for five years, and she is currently an active member of D-MORT, the mortuary response team of the National Disaster Medical System, assisting in the identification and analysis of human remains in mass disasters. Dr. Marden has also conducted extensive analysis of prehistoric human remains. She was awarded Smithsonian Predoctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships to conduct research at the National Museum of Natural History, and has examined Native American remains at the American Museum of Natural History, the Field Museum, the Maxwell Museum at the University of New Mexico, and the Peabody Museum at Harvard University. She has an ongoing program of research in forensic osteology analysis of trauma, dismemberment, and reassociation of human remains. During the three-year latency period before Dr. Marden can sit for Board certification with the American Board of Forensic Anthropology, three Board certified anthropologists have agreed to serve as consulting scientists on all casework to ensure the highest level of evidentiary support.