Background
This paper is concerned with improving the processes involved in locating and recovering buried victims, either from individual homicide events or from mass war graves. Two relatively new disciplines are involved -forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology -and the paper considers the development of techniques, the need for interdisciplinarity in training and research, and the growing importance of satisfying evidential requirements in issues of human rights. Above all, it recognises the need to harmonise research, disseminate best practice and findings, and to develop consistency of standards &roughout EC member states. ~h e s e proposals in training, information exchange and scientific research follow from " existing EU policy documents in the establishment of OISIN (Doc 97/12/JHA), and now reinforce the principles which underlie the creation of a European Police College (CEPOL; Doc 300D0820, articles 6 and 7), while extending development and training into issues of war crime investigations and mass disasters. At local level, buried remains are often the focus of police searches, most commonly resulting from the clandestine disposal of a victim. Individual human burials constitute a relatively small proportion of the homicide total (approximately 9% in the UK), but locating them occupies a disproportionate effort in terms of manpower, general deployment of resources and operational time. Extended searching for victims also generates unwelcome publicity and can place pressure on law 8 The Forensic Science Society 2001