UP Forensic Anthropology Research Centre

The Forensic Anthropology Research Centre performs evidence-based forensic case analyses for the South African Police Service, conducts research in biological anthropology and trains future scientists. Currently directed by Professor Ericka L'Abbé, the centre has a research focus on human variation in modern populations, particularly South Africans, for applications in orthodontics and medico-legal investigations, namely facial approximations, presumptive identifications, patterns of decomposition and interpretations of traumatic injury to bone. The FARC researchers also have interests in the evolutionary history of South African fossil hominins as well as education in biological anthropology and expertise development in the discipline of forensic anthropology. The Forensic Anthropology Research Centre (FARC) at the University of Pretoria was established within the Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Health Sciences in 2008. Currently directed by Professor Ericka L'Abbé, the centre has a research focus on human variation in modern populations, particularly South Africans, for applications in orthodontics and medico-legal investigations, namely facial approximations, presumptive identifications, patterns of decomposition and interpretations of traumatic injury to bone. The FARC researchers also have interests in the evolutionary history of South African fossil hominins as well as education in biological anthropology and expertise development in the discipline of forensic anthropology. Through Erasmus+ co-funded grant projects the FARC is leading research and innovation in micro-CT and 3D printing human skeletal material in southern Africa through collaboration with local and international partners.