This week’s New Scientist magazine carries an interview with Brown University anthropologist Richard Gould, who moonlights as a “disaster archaeologist”.

Gould describes the practice of disaster archaeology:

“We clear up the human remains and physical effects left behind following a disaster after everyone else has gone home, so the victims can be identified, giving closure for their loved ones and also for forensic and legal purposes. We bag up all of the remains and record exactly where, when and how they were found.”

What Professor Gould and his colleagues do is similar to the work carried out by Israeli volunteers who recover body parts from vehicles, roads, walls and trees following terrorist atrocities. I have often wondered what kind of person can do this kind of work and remain sane. In the interview with Richard Gould we have a character portrait of just such a man.

Gould was involved in the cleanup following the 9/11 attack in New York:

“I went down to ground zero and found fragmented remains all over the place. Lower Manhattan was covered in grey ashy stuff we call “kitty litter”, and amidst it I saw things like pieces of human scapula. No-one had prepared me for this. I knew that something had to be done.”

So Gould made a nuisance of himself with the authorities, and eventually – though unfortunately after much of the evidence had been cleaned away – they agreed to cooperate. The result was the foundation of the group Forensic Archaeology Recovery.

How does one train to be a forensic archaeologist?

“We once dressed a 90-pound sheep cadaver in a vest bomb and put it in a car and blew it up. We then did a full recovery of sheep bits. We found hundreds of pieces incredible distances – up to 150 metres – outside the crime scene, so it was like ground zero on a smaller scale.”

With 9/11 in New York, paper containing human bloodstains was found as far afield as Brooklyn, which is several miles from Manhattan. And human remains were even found underground in pipes. Three thousand souls are thought to have been lost in the twin towers, and today some 1200 people remain unidentified or unaccounted for.

“We are very careful with how we treat human remains: our job is to do this with respect. It is a tough thing to deal with, and it is not for everyone. I never know how I will feel about the next disaster. Disaster archaeology is incredibly rewarding, but it is stressful. One day I may have to stop.”

Richard A Gould is professor of anthropology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. He is the author of “Disaster Archaeology”.