University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility
anthropological research facility in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States
The University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility, better known as the Body Farm and sometimes seen as the Forensic Anthropology Facility, was conceived in 1971 and established in 1972 by anthropologist William M. Bass as the first facility for the study of decomposition of human remains. It is located a few miles from downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, behind the University of Tennessee Medical Center, and is part of the Forensic Anthropology Center, which was established by Dr. Bass in 1987.
It consists of a 2.5-acre (10,000 m2) wooded plot, surrounded by a razor wire fence. Bodies are placed in different settings throughout the facility and left to decompose. The bodies are exposed in a number of ways in order to provide insights into decomposition under varying conditions. The facility has expanded from just 20 exposed bodies in 2003 to around 150 in 2007.
History
Origins
The Anthropological Research Facility, the first body farm created, was founded by Bass to generate information about what a corpse experiences when exposed to various experimental conditions. On this farm, human corpses yield to the elements of nature in many re-enacted scenes such as a car accident unseen for days, or a murder victim buried in a shallow grave. Prior to the creation of this institution, no advances had been made in the study of long-term body decomposition since the days of Song Ci in 13th century China.
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This entry incorporates text from “University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.