The acetabular region is often present and adequately preserved in adult human skeletal remains. Close morphological examination of the 242 left male os coxae from the identified collection of Coimbra (Portugal) has enabled the recognition of seven variables that can be used to estimate age at death. This paper describes these variables and argues their appropriateness by analyzing the correlation between these criteria and the age, the intra- and interobserver consistence, and the accuracy in age prediction using Bayesian inference to estimate age of identified specimens. Results show significant close correlation between the acetabular criteria and age, nonsignificant differences in intra- and interobserver test, and 89% accuracy in Bayes prediction. Obtained estimated age of the specimens had similar accuracy in all ages. These results indicate that these seven variables, based on the acetabular area, are potentially useful to estimate age at death for adult specimens.

Discriminant functions have long been used to classify individuals into groups according to the dimensions of their bones. Although lengths, widths, and diameters have been extensively used, the circumferences have not been adequately validated. In this work, the importance that the circumferences of long bones can have in assigning the sex of ancient human remains is demonstrated. The functions produced by using just one circumference achieved accuracies higher than 80%, and circumference at the radial tuberosity of the radius is able to classify 92.8% of skeletons from the Late Roman site of Mas Rimbau/Mas Mallol (Spain). When functions are produced by using more than one circumference, they can achieve the uppermost classification attained in this sample. The functions also showed that the arm circumference functions are more useful than those of the leg, probably because male individuals of the population had greater mechanical stress than did females. The classification percentages, as well as other statistical values for the functions, demonstrated the great ability of long bone circumferences in helping to classify the sex of individuals of other sites of the Mediterranean area besides the ones examined in this study.

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In view of the difficulties in extracting quantitative information from burned bone, we suggest a new and accurate method of determining the temperature and duration of burning of human remains in forensic contexts. Application of the powder X-ray diffraction approach to a sample of human bone and teeth allowed their microstructural behavior, as a function of temperature (200-1000°C) and duration of burning (0, 18, 36, and 60 min), to be predicted. The experimental results from the 57 human bone sections and 12 molar teeth determined that the growth of hydroxylapatite crystallites is a direct and predictable function of the applied temperature, which follows a nonlinear logistic relationship. This will allow the forensic investigator to acquire useful information about the equilibrium temperature brought about by the burning process and to suggest a reasonable duration of fire exposure.KEYWORDS: forensic science, cremated remains, burned bones and teeth, hydroxylapatite, powder X-ray diffraction, forensic anthropology The study of burned human remains is of considerable importance in forensic science, forensic anthropology, and crime scene investigation. An understanding of the changes that the body has undergone as a result of burning can provide significant information regarding the context and conditions of the burning event itself. Such crime scene information can include the temperature of the fire, the position of the fire, and the presence of accelerants. Unfortunately, the act of burning also causes a number of substantial changes to occur within the skeleton, which in turn can affect attempts to provide an identification of the deceased. Research has shown that both morphological and metric methods of anthropological assessment are affected (1,2), in addition to methods of dating (3) and stable isotopic analysis (4) (an analytical technique of increasing importance in the forensic field). Extracting this contextual information from the remains, in addition to determining the level of anthropological inaccuracy created by the burning event, is dependent upon being able to determine whether the skeletal remains have indeed been burned. Beyond this, one needs to be able to correlate the changes in the skeleton to this contextual information with confidence. Traditionally, a visual inspection of the remains has been used to suggest whether the bones have been subjected to fire (5-7), and beyond this, associations have been made between bone color and fracturing with fire temperature and presence of soft tissues (8,9). However, this can be complicated, and the links spurious. Furthermore, it has also been shown both experimentally and statistically that the most important changes in bone that can predict burning context involve changes within the skeletal microstructure (10). With all this in mind, it has been argued that a better and more reliable means of addressing these issues is with the powder X-ray diffraction (XRD) approach, possibly combined with other types of microscopic approaches (11),...

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Methods to estimate adult age from observations of skeletal elements are not very accurate and motivate the development of better methods. In this article, we test recently published method based on the acetabulum and Bayesian inference, developed using Coimbra collection (Portugal). In this study, to evaluate its utility in other populations, this methodology was applied to 394 specimens from four different documented Western European collections. Four strategies of analysis to estimate age were outlined: (a) each series separately; (b) on Lisbon collection, taken as a reference Coimbra collection; (c) on Barcelona collection, taken as a reference both Portuguese collections; and (d) on London collection taken as reference the three Iberian collections combined. Results indicate that estimates are accurate (83-100%). As might be expected, the least accurate estimates were obtained when the most distant collection was used as a reference. Observations of the fused acetabulum can be used to make accurate estimates of age for adults of any age, with less accurate estimates when a more distant reference collection is used.

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