IT may seem a strange link, but historic evidence discovered during battlefield archaeology can assist modern forensic investigations.

That’s the theory American Professor Douglas Scott will explain as part of the Munro Lecture Series on Thursday, November 23, at the Meadows Lecture Theatre at Edinburgh University.

Although studies of conflict are almost as old as warfare itself, archaeological investigation of such sites is a relatively new discipline at just over 30 years old.

In his lecture, Scott will outline research that is changing the way in which conflict and war are studied using archaeological methods.

Site-specific studies and detailed artifact analyses are central to battlefield archaeology. Archaeologists are using data to gain a greater insight and understanding both specific past events and conflict in general.

The lecture is the latest in a series that began when Edinburgh University graduate and celebrated medical practitioner Dr Robert Munro established the Munro Trust in 1910. A keen archaeologist, he retired from practice in 1885, at the age of 50, to devote himself to the subject.

He established the lecture series to bring scholars from across the globe to Edinburgh so they could share their expertise on anthropology and archaeology.

Scott, the latest Munro lecturer, retired from US National Park Service in 2006 after more than 30 years. He is currently a visiting research scientist at Colorado Mesa University and is noted for his expertise in battlefield archaeology and firearms identification.

He has conducted most of his fieldwork in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West, and has also worked on human rights and forensic cases in Rwanda, Croatia, Bosnia, and Cyprus.