To date over 30 people have agreed to donate their cadavers to Australia’s first body farm. The operation is called the Australian Facility for Taphonomic Experimental Research (or AFTER for short). It is the facility outside if the U.S. to study the decomposition of human corpses.
As New Scientist magazine tweeted: “Human bodies decompose differently in Australia, so Shari Forbes opened a body farm there.”
The base operated within a 48-hectare bush site owned by the University of Technology, Sydneyin the lower Blue Mountains. The first bodies were interned earlier this year.
Taphonomy is the study of what happens to an organism after its death and until its discovery as a fossil. While there are different applications of the science, forensic taphonomy is concerned with the study of the decomposition of human remains, particularly in the context of burial sites.
The aim of the body farm is study how bodies decompose under different conditions. The first wave of experiments, The Sydney Morning Herald reports, is to allow forensic scientists to simulate the mass war graves of Iraq, Syria and the Balkans.
Those involved with the study include police, forensic scientists, anthropologists, archaeologists and entomologists. With the police service, for example, Australian police and forensic investigators currently rely on experiments conducted on pig cadavers to work out things like time and location of death in relation to a murder victim.
Discussing the logistics of opening the facility, Dr. Shari Forbes told New Scientist magazine: “It’s been three years in the making. We needed three things to set it up: land in a remote yet accessible location, a body donation program, and approval to build it. It was the approval process that took the most time. It was a challenge for the local council, but they were willing to work with us to make sure everyone was happy with the outcome.”
She added that the biggest challenge came from those living nearby, although matters have since been resolved. Science papers relating to new facility will begin to emerge over the next year. Although the facility is not open to the public, Un-Silent Majority (@UnSilentNews) has already declared, via Twitter, that the idea makes it one of the “20 Creepiest Places in the World Including, “The Body Farm”…”
