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One of the goals of the Forensic Anthropology Society of Europe (FASE) is to map the existing education and practice opportunities in the field of forensic anthropology in order to support the development of the discipline and to optimize the training courses provided by the Society. To address this goal, an online questionnaire was sent to European and South African practitioners of forensic anthropology and related disciplines in 2016. The results of the questionnaire showed that the status and roles of forensic anthropologists vary depending on the national legal systems, education, and employment status of the practitioners. Despite the fact that the expertise of forensic anthropologists has been increasingly requested in a variety of investigations and the spectrum of tasks has become broader, including identification of living persons, specialized education in forensic anthropology is still restricted to a few graduate and postgraduate programs in European countries and to annual FASE courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the end of the 19th century, the discovery of diamonds resulted in a massive influx of migrant mine workers to Kimberley, South Africa. The skeletons of some of these migrant workers were excavated in 2003 and the analysis of these remains provided an interesting glimpse into their living conditions. The high prevalence of antemortem fractures and amputations within the population sample suggested harsh living conditions, but also indicated that basic medical and social care was available to at least some of the individuals. Plain radiographical and histological analyses were conducted of the excavated migrant workers' antemortem fractures and amputations to assess post-traumatic survival time as a means of providing additional information on their living conditions and medical status around the time of death. Results showed a wide range of post-traumatic survival times in amputations and fractures. This finding supports the availability of medical care for the mine workers. The assessment of post-traumatic survival time allowed for assumptions on the cause of death, reasons for hospitalisation, and trauma sequence. In addition, the results showed that histology may have an additional value in differentiating between ante- and perimortem lesions, if compared to sole gross anatomical assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]