This online, Continuing Education 8-hour course will introduce participants, including law enforcement investigators, medicolegal professionals, and university students to the principles, practices and methods of Forensic Archaeology and Forensic Taphonomy as applied to the fatal fire scene involving a human victim. 

 

These scenes are some of the most difficult forensic scenes encountered by the medicolegal death investigator since the scene, the evidence and the human remains are significantly modified and information fleeting. Major topics to be covered in the course include: 1) how to properly locate, document and recover fatal fire victims from house structures, car fires, and outdoor fire pits through forensic archaeological practices and protocols; 2) details of how human bodies (soft and hard tissues) burn; 3) approaches to skeletal trauma analyses of the fire-altered human remains; and presentations of many actual forensic cases.

 

This is a proceed-at-your-own-pace, on your own time, course containing 8 hours of content, specifically, well-illustrated and informative PowerPoint lectures presented by renowned experts in the field of forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology.

 

​The course will be available through the Teachable online platform. In order to obtain continuing education credit, HD Forensics is utilizing software provided by Teachable to monitor the percentage of video viewed. Participants must view 90% of a module video in order to progress on with the course.

 

This course is currently approved for continuing education credits through the Pennsylvania Coroner’s Education Board. If you are interested in receiving CE credit through another organization, please let us know and we will look into it further.

​

Course Participants: The course is geared to medicolegal investigators, fire investigators, and law enforcement, forensic anthropologists (professionals and students), and other forensic professionals.

 

Participants are encouraged to email questions to hdfornesicllc@gmail.com or 

dcdirkmaat@gmail.com. Live online Q&A sessions with the lecturers can be scheduled for more in-depth conversations.