Reinventing history
Discover how the past has come right up-to-date, changing the nature of history.
"Forensic science is just recent archaeology", says Allan Jamieson, Director of the Forensic Institute, Edinburgh, as he explains how the same science can solve recent crimes and shed light on the past.
You may have the impression from TV programmes like Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, CSI (Crime Scene Investigation), and other such detective stories, that forensic science can unlock the story behind every crime. “Just the facts”, the policeman may ask. Facts are what science is all about. Isn’t it?
Actually the phrase "forensic science" has become confused for many. Forensic science is really just science used in court. But for many this term has become a shorthand for a whole host of tools and techniques; usually used to mean analytic or careful. Forensic science is both of those, but it is much more; and other sciences are also analytic and careful!
Semantics aside, this science can offer a fascinating way of examining the past. I frequently comment that forensic science is just recent archaeology. Many of the techniques used by scientists to unravel crimes today can be used to unravel stories of the past, even though no crime is involved.
Today and in the past, the first priority has been to establish whether there has been a crime at all. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s book The Hound of The Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes remarks “There are two questions waiting for us at the outset. The one is whether any crime has been committed at all; the second is, what is the crime and how was it committed?”
A great example of this kind of investigation is the death of Otzi; "The Ice Man". Otzi is the name given to the body of a man believed to have died over 5,000 years ago. He was discovered high in the Otzal Alps in 1991 in an area that had been frozen for centuries. Of course no-one is out to jail Otzi’s killer, if indeed he was killed, but the findings on and around his body have created intense speculation about how he died. Scientists are of course curious creatures and here is a curiosity.
Not only is Otzi’s death the subject of investigation, but some people think that there is a curse that has killed some of the investigators. Science is a very powerful method for sorting out such tangles. Many of them have been applied to the case of Otzi.
next > Page 1 of 4
Content last updated: 10/01/2006
About our expert
Allan Jamieson is Director of the Forensic Institute, Edinburgh. Along with many university appointments he's also an examiner at Kings College, London (Forensic Science) and Hendon Police College (Crime scene examination and fingerprints). He's currently co-editor in chief of the Encylopedia of Forensic Sciences and is also a judge on the Crime Writers' Association Golden Dagger Awards for non-fiction. Allan is also a member on various boards relating to forensic science and a keynote speaker at forensic science conferences.
