Humans have buried their dead for the past 50,000 years. Monuments and grave goods of past cultures have been studied for centuries, but recent advances in science now allow the human remains themselves to be investigated. This reveals details about the people and the communities to which they belonged. In this introduction, the author explains how modern methods of forensic anthropology can reveal the age, sex, stature and ancestry of a skeleton, and investigates the evidence of injury and infection on bones and teeth. The applications of DNA fingerprinting in the study of human skeletons are explored in detail.