Trauma Analysis of Skeletal Remains

Abstract

In the study of skeletonized human remains, as in the case of well‐preserved cadavers, identification and interpretation of signs of trauma is crucial for indicating possible cause and manner of death. However, the task for the anthropologist may be more challenging since bones do not have any soft tissue, which may help interpret the traumatic scenario. In fact, as regards the timing of lesions with respect to the time of death, anthropologists are limited to distinguishing between antemortem (inflicted several days or weeks before death), perimortem (around death), and postmortem (a long time after death) trauma. It is impossible at the moment to verify whether a bone lesion that can be classified as perimortem actually occurred a little before or a little after death. On the other hand, bone is a good substrate for tool mark analysis and other signs of trauma. Thus blunt force injury, sharp force injury, and gunshot wounds give a good degree of information and can be studied in great detail. Within bone, one can also find signs of drowning and also of poisoning via microscopic and toxicological analysis, though these must be interpreted with great caution.

Pharmacological History of Missing Subjects: Perspective of a Correction Factor to Aid in the Study of Bone Remains

“…In adults, within the next 40–90 days, the bone callus is formed, while the final remodeling and healing of the fracture is completed within 1–2 years. The time of bone remodeling, and in particular of bone callus formation, is highly variable and is influenced by the subject’s health conditions, environmental factors and genetic factors [ 20 ]. It is crucial to study all possible intrinsic variables of bone remodeling time since fracture dating is important to reconstruct the survival time of a subject between trauma and death.…”