12
Dialogue
November - December 2019
Investigating
bones RESEARCH INSIGHTS
This month sees the launch of an online course in forensic recovery designed in collaboration with the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC). The course was developed by Professor Rebecca Gowland, from our Department of Archaeology, and will be translated into multiple languages to support the work of local forensic practitioners in post-conflict regions such as the Balkans and the North Caucuses.
We caught up with Becky to find out how she became involved with the ICRC and more about her research as a bioarchaeologist. How did you get into this area of research? I never had any aspirations to become an archaeologist at school. I dreamed of becoming a vet, until some work experience really put me off! At school I always enjoyed history and science and archaeology provides the perfect combination of both. I studied archaeology at Durham where I was given the opportunity to study human skeletal remains from a medieval cemetery. I was hooked! I then when on to Sheffield to do a Masters on the subject and returned to Durham to undertake a PhD on Roman and Early Medieval skeletons.