University of Tennessee Anthropological Research Facility - History - Beginning

Beginning

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's in 13th century China. Many advances have been made about how to determine postmortem interval due to the Body Farm. During the 1970s, donated and unclaimed bodies were macerated at an abandoned farm owned by the university. During the early 1980s, the "body farm" began with one body, a small plot of land, and a novel idea. By that time, Bass had been in the position of head of the anthropology department at the University of Tennessee for a little over a decade, and had been appointed as the first state forensic anthropologist of Tennessee. As the state's forensic anthropologist, Bass was the official called on to determine cause and time of death. This first body was part of an actual crime investigation in which Bass was needed to determine cause of death, and it was instrumental in helping Bass realize the importance of needing a place to study and observe postmortem events.