Forensic Anthropology - Status quo and Perspectives in german-speaking Countries

The subject of forensic anthropology has always attracted students and the public. The best example of this is the popularity of the degree programmes in this field that have recently been offered in the UK and/or the USA. Contradictorily, there are hardly any jobs for anthropologists in the institutions of forensic medicine in German-speaking countries.
In this lecture, I will try to give an overview of forensic-osteological casework in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In doing so, I will discuss the status quo of the employment situation, and the legal context in the three countries as well as the differences. Furthermore, descriptive statistics on the casework of selected institutions in the three countries will be presented. This data has been gathered partly from the literature and partly thanks to personal communication from cooperation partners. As an example, I present practical casework and research approaches from our department in Switzerland.
In summary, I try to show perspectives for junior researchers who aspire to a position in the field of forensics.