The General Section History Committee conducted the following interview with AAFS Fellow Melissa A. Connor, PhD. Dr. Connor is a current professor at Colorado Mesa University.

How did your discipline get started?

There really is not much published on that and I can answer only from my perspective. I would say that the first time the importance of trained archaeologists was focused in a forensic context was in 1986 when Clyde Snow, a well-known forensic anthropologist, started working in Argentina and put together the team that became the Argentine forensic team (Equipo Argentine de Antropologia Forense). He ensured that there were experienced archaeologists on that team. As he later continued his work with Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), he ensured there was always an experienced, professional archaeologist on his team at a time when many biological anthropologists relied on whatever their own skills were.

The difference is really in the focus of more site context than simply body retrieval. Archaeologists are better trained in soils and detecting soil disturbances, better trained in historic material culture, and overall have more excavation experience than most biological anthropologists.

In 2007, I published a book, Forensic Methods: Excavation for the Archaeologist and Investigator. While several other forensic archaeology texts have been published since, to the best of my knowledge, this was the first textbook on forensic archaeology.

Tell me how you became involved in your discipline.

I had been doing field archaeology since I was 17 (1973) and started working for the United States National Park Service (NPS) while working on my doctorate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Eventually, I deferred the doctorate and worked for the NPS full-time. In 1984, the office I worked in started an archaeological project on the Little Bighorn Battlefield, mainly on the mile-square main battlefield. The team, led by Douglas Scott (also a General Section Fellow) was using some innovative (for that time) technology, including a large-scale, systematic metal detector survey and electronic mapping techniques.

In 1985, Clyde Snow offered to analyze the soldiers' remains we were uncovering as part of the project. Snow had already been working in Argentina and was working with the Boston-based PHR in other areas of the world. Snow was sufficiently impressed with the methods that when PHR was assembling a team to go into Croatia in late 1993 under the aegis of the United Nations, he called and asked Scott and me to put together a small team of archaeologists to be a part of the larger team.

In Croatia, we worked with Snow, anthropologist William Haglund, and members of the Argentine, Chilean, and Guatemalan forensic teams. When PHR sent teams to Rwanda after the genocide, Doug Scott and I were part of that team. I continued working with PHR off and on and eventually quit the NPS and began working with the Nebraska Wesleyan University Master of Forensic Science Program, which is when I finished my doctorate.

I also started getting calls from local law enforcement for assistance in grave location and body recovery. With PHR, I have worked in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, and Nigeria on both court cases and human rights cases. With other entities, I have worked domestically and in Grenada and Iraq.

Tell me why you became involved in your discipline.

I became involved in archaeology after taking an archaeological field school, where I realized: (1) it was fun, and (2) it was a real profession that did not require being indoors at a desk or at a lab bench all day. Becoming involved in forensic work was opportunistic, but there was a challenge in working with decomposing human remains and body recovery. The results also had an immediate impact on real, live people I could talk to in a way that working with historic or prehistoric remains did not.

Was there a certification process within your discipline when you entered?

There is a certification for professional archaeologists, the Register of Professional Archaeologists. The RPA started in 1998, so decades after I started doing archaeology, and several years after I started forensic archaeology. There is no specific certification for forensic archaeologists.

When did you become a member of AAFS?

I became a Member in 2006 and have been a Fellow since 2014. I started attending AAFS meetings in 2003, but it took awhile to figure out how and in what Section to apply.

Were education/training a priority in the Academy at that time?

It varies by Section. My opinion would be that in the General Section, training was less a priority than experience

Are there outside education/training opportunities you are involved in?

I make my living as a university professor, so I spend most of my time involved in different forms of training. I teach two undergraduate courses a semester, including "Death Investigation and Forensic Science" and "Professionalism in Forensic Science."

I have done multiple workshops for law enforcement and coroners every year. I have sporadically taught a Human Remains Recovery course since about 2006. I am the former Director of a facility that uses human remains to study decomposition (a "body farm"), and the facility does two workshops a year for cadaver dogs and their handlers. There is also a satellite facility in Colorado at an elevation of about 10,000 feet, and we have done workshops on high-altitude decomposition and death investigation.

Have you been a member of any committees within the AAFS?

General Section:

Program Chair (2016–2017)
Program Co-Chair (2015–2016)
Chair, Disciplines Committee (2017–2019)
Secretary (2019–2021)
Chair (2021–2023)

AAFS:

Nominating Committee (2023–2024)
AAFS Poster Co-Chair (2023–2024)
Membership Outreach (2023–Present)
AAFS Poster Chair (2024–2025)

How did your work on AAFS committees affect your progress through the AAFS?

Committee work is required for progress through the AAFS membership levels. But there is a reason for that. Committee work, and participation in the running of the Academy, allows for networking and an understanding of the workings of the Academy.

What are your thoughts on how to keep advancing the field?

Today, there is a greater respect for seeing body recovery in a buried context as more than simply rolling the body in a bag and leaving. Investigators are more aware of the evidence in the soils, botanical evidence, entomological evidence, and, to some degree, the material culture on and around the body. These are all pieces of evidence archaeologists deal with on every excavation.

The key to advancing forensic archaeology is continuing to educate both investigators and biological anthropologists that it takes years of excavation practice to become proficient. While a week-long course on human remains recovery can impart the basic techniques, it does not give an investigator the experience of a professional archaeologist.

How has the AAFS helped your specialty?

The General Section recognized Forensic Archaeology as its own discipline at a time when many subsumed it under forensic biological anthropology. This recognition also allowed forensic archaeologists a nexus to discuss and advance techniques.

Although you may have stayed in the General Section as a forensic educator, can you describe the benefits of the General Section versus Anthropology?

In the United States, anthropology is a four-field discipline that includes archaeology, biological anthropology, cultural, and linguistics. While some members of the Anthropology Section were supportive of bringing the four-field anthropological approach into forensic work, many members of the Anthropology section did not recognize forensic archaeology, forensic linguistics, or the contributions of cultural anthropologists to human rights and law enforcement work. As a result, Doug and I met some resistance with our Physical Anthropology Section application. (The AAFS Policy and Procedures Manual's Anthropology Section membership requirements did not include archeologists until 2015. And the Physical Anthropology Section changed its name to the Anthropology Section in 2014.) The General Section did have a "Forensic Archaeology" subdiscipline, but we knew few people in the section. Doug and I crashed a General Section reception and asked a firearms examiner he knew to write us recommendations. Overall, the General Section has been a welcoming section and a great place for individuals in new forensic disciplines to find a home.

Since resigning from the NPS, I have worked in higher education (20 years now), and work regularly with death investigators in body location and recovery. The General Section broadened, rather than narrowed, my view of the forensic disciplines. The interaction with death investigators and forensic educations strengthened my work in both sectors.

Would there have been benefits to being in Anthropology?

Initially, the vast majority of my professional colleagues were in Anthropology, but I've made good friends and have colleagues in the General Section. A few of the five papers or posters I've presented in the General Section would probably have had a larger audience in the Anthropology Section. Many of the 18 posters or presentations I co-authored were presented in the Anthropology Section. Of the nine articles I authored or co-authored in the Journal of Forensic Sciences, some are under Anthropology and some under General. So, for dissemination of information, which is a major reason for me to come to meetings, the Section is less important.

In my opinion, the strength of the General Section is its breadth and its ability to work with new, innovative disciplines and create that nexus so necessary to the development of new ideas. In fact, this is one reason to join AAFS overall and to participate in the conferences. It is a place to meet forensic colleagues in all specialties and both absorb and disseminate new ideas.

Interview With Melissa Connor