Forensic anthropologist Sue Black: ‘The body is really just layers upon layers of memory’

Exclusive: The professor chosen to deliver Royal Institution Christmas lectures talks about a fascination with anatomy that goes back to plucking pheasants as a child

From a solitary set of finger bones to a fragment of skull in a washing machine, the cases Dame Sue Black has helped solve may seem too gruesome for the joyful spectacle that is the Royal Institution Christmas lectures.

But it is not the stuff of nightmares that Black, one of the world's leading forensic anthropologists, will be exploring as she gives Britain's most prestigious public science lectures this winter.