After a frightening period of political strife in East Timor, forensic
anthropologist Mark Skinner was sent there by the UN to evaluate the evidence
for alleged mass graves.
"My observations were, my reports stated, that there were precious few
mass graves....There were quite a few individual homicides that need to be
investigated," Skinner explains.
As a forensic anthropologist, Skinner thinks of himself as an essential
and neutral voice in situations that are otherwise riddled with fear and exaggeration.
"You can imagine the kinds of things that went on in Bosnia and the allegations
flying back and forth about what happened," he says. "In all these situations,
there's...the 'sky is falling' kind of exaggeration."
In East Timor, Skinner encountered a fine example of how fear and history
can impact the way that people think. His expertise helped to set the records
straight about at least one alleged mass grave.
"I was addressing some people and this particular local individual said,
'There were 70 people down that well!'" remembers Skinner. When
he asked the local how she knew the number of bodies left for dead in the
well, she said she could see the ones on top.
"I said, 'Well, that's all there were, the ones on top.'
There were 15, not 70. That's the kind of problem that one encounters
all the time," says Skinner.
Dealing with bodies, says Skinner, is not a problem for forensic anthropologists.
They focus on the task at hand, and the fact that they're dealing with
human remains becomes secondary to the need to solve a mystery or crime.
"Young people do not need to worry about the gross factor," he says. "It's
not a problem. Very, very, very rarely does that obtrude into one's mind....It's
not like that."
If need be, forensic anthropologists simply walk away for a minute to gather
their thoughts and take a break from what's in front of them. "You just
step away,...take a breath of fresh air and go back.
"It's an intensely satisfying, socially relevant and ever-stimulating
kind of work. I would encourage anybody to get into it. You have to have a
good moral character and care about right and wrong in our society," says
Skinner.
After more than two decades in the field, overseas trips are pretty standard
for Skinner. "Most of the work I do now is international. I work abroad --
East Timor, Afghanistan, Bosnia," he says.
For professor and consultant Karen Burns, forensic anthropology is more
about the living than the dead. It's about helping friends and family
understand what happened to victims of crime.
"It's a service to the living. People need to know what happened.
They need to be able to have closure. You're essentially providing the
words for the dead, because the living need it," she says.
Burns stresses the fact that the route to forensic anthropology is not
straightforward. Did she ever think she'd be doing anything quite like
this herself? "Heavens no!" she says.
"I was a zoology major as an undergraduate. I never took an anthropology
course until I was in grad school, and even then I only took [it] because
[the instructor] happened to be a primatologist," she recalls.
Burns' instructor took on a thesis project while she was his graduate
student. The thesis was on identification. Forensics, however, weren't
exactly calling out to Burns.
"I wanted to finish my master's degree at that time and my major advisor
was interested in research of this nature. So, the graduate student usually
does the research -- it was something that I ended up in totally by happenstance,"
says Burns.
Now, Burns can't pinpoint a thing about forensic anthropology
that she doesn't like. "No. For me, no. I enjoy the problems that I'm
presented with and you're working at solutions," she says.