Skeletal Remains

Module 1
BIO3021
 Forensic Anthropology
• Forensic anthropology is a specialized branch of physical
anthropology, which deals with the medico-legal
investigation.

• This branch of science grew out of need for skeletal &

anatomic expertise in criminal investigations.
 DIFFERENCE FROM GENERAL
ANTHROPOLOGIST

• The critical distinction between a forensic anthropologist

and a general anthropologist is the former’s focus on
human identification.
• Forensic anthropology is the
study of human remains.
• Forensic anthropologists are
educated in osteology, or the
study of bones.
 FOCUS OF AN ANTHROPOLOGIST

• The main focus of a forensic anthropologist is to assess

crime scenes, skeletal remains, develop a biological
profile, compile supportive documentation and testify in
the provincial and federal courts.
• Their knowledge of the human body contributes to the outcome
of a death investigation by providing law enforcement agencies
with expert opinions & conclusions, which ultimately aid in solving
any given case.
 Skeletal anatomy

• a. 206 bones
• b. Man = 12 lbs woman
= 10 lbs
Biology of Bone

The bodies of human remains begin to decompose shortly after death. The rate of
decomposition of human remains varies greatly with environmental conditions such as
climate, bacterial growth, and the presence of insects and other animal scavenger.

 However, soft tissues may be lost first while more stable bone tissues may remain.
Identifying human skeletal remains can be applied in a variety of cases including mass
fatality incidents, missing persons, fires, explosions, and violent crime cases involving
skeletal remains.

 The shaft of a long bone, such as an arm or a leg bone, consists largely of an outer layer
of cortical (or compact) bone, which is solid and strong. The shaft of a long bone forms a
marrow cavity, which is filled with a specialized type of connective tissue called bone
marrow.

 Long bone is called the epiphysis, which is composed largely of cancellous (or spongy)
bone, and can bear the force of compression. A flat bone can have primarily either cortical
or cancellous bone.
 Bone, which is a connective tissue, contains a matrix and cells. The bone matrix
consists of an inorganic and an organic matrix.

 Calcium and phosphorus are the major components of the inorganic matrix, which
consists mainly of hydroxyapatite crystals, Ca10(PO4)6(OH)2. The organic matrix
consists of collagens, primarily type I collagen, which are insoluble fibrous proteins.
With the deposition of calcium hydroxyapatite crystals around the collagen fibrils, bone
becomes a weight-bearing hard tissue.

 Developing bones contain small numbers of osteoprogenitor cells. These cells can
divide to produce cells that differentiate into osteoblasts. Osteoblast cells regulate the
calcification of the bone matrix.

 Osteoblasts that are embedded in the bone matrix are termed osteocytes and are
the most abundant cells in bone. Osteocytes play a role in maintaining the surrounding
matrix and repairing damaged bone.

 Another type of cell that can be found in bone tissues is osteoclasts.

These cells are giant cells containing 50 or more nuclei and are responsible for dissolving
and recycling the bone matrix.
Bone as Source of DNA Evidence

A number of methods are used to identify human remains, for example: the identification of
facial characteristics; the recognition of individualizing scars, marks, and other special body
features; the matching of dentition with premortem dental x-rays; and the comparison of fingerprints.

In some situations, these methods cannot be used because of the extensive decomposition
of the remains. The mass fatality terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in 2001
serves as an example of a situation where common identification techniques may
not be useful.

Large quantities of compromised human skeletal fragments were recovered at the fatality site. In these
cases, DNA typing is a powerful tool for identifying human remains.
Microgram quantities of DNA can potentially be obtained from a gram of bone. Thus, compact
bone tissue should contain sufficient amounts of nuclear DNA for analysis.

However, the skeletal fragments recovered from burial sites are often subjected to decomposition.

During the decomposition process, both nuclear and mtDNA can be degraded.
 Additionally, burial conditions with high humidity and temperature promote the degradation
of DNA. Thus, the identification of partial DNA profiles or the complete failure to obtain DNA
profiles can occur after samples from decomposed remains are analyzed.

 The outer surfaces of bone fragments are usually removed by using a mechanical method such as sanding.
However, to avoid cross-contamination of samples, the bone dust that is generated by sanding must be removed.

 Additionally, special protective equipment and safety procedures are necessary to protect analysts
from exposure to blood-borne pathogens.

 The bone samples can be grounded to powder to aid in DNA extraction.

 The osteocytes containing DNA are embedded in a calcified bone matrix, which is a barrier for extracting DNA
from the osteocytes

 The bone matrix must be A decalcification method can be utilized to dissolve calcium ions to soften the bone
tissue.
 Additionally, the application of proteinase can be used to digest the matrix proteins, thus increasing the yield of
DNA that is harvested from osteocytes
 Role of the Forensic
Anthropologist:
• Are they really bones?
• Are the remains human or animal?
• How many bodies?
• How long dead? ‐Recent or old
• Cause of death?
• Time since death?
• What is the race of the individual?
• What is the sex of the individual?
• What is the age of the individual?
• What is the stature of the individual?
• What bony pathologies did the individual
have?
• What traumas did the individual have?
• What individual traits did the individual
have?
Identifying the remains

Individuality may be determined:

 from surgical procedures
 from broken bones
 Determination of Age from Bones
• Ages 0-5: teeth are best – forensic odontology
• Ages 6-25: epiphyseal fusion – fusion of bone ends
to bone shaft
- epiphyseal fusion varies with sex and is
typically complete by age 25
• Ages 25-40: very hard
• Ages 40+: periodontal disease, arthritis, breakdown
of pelvis
• Age estimation is not an exact science – age
estimates are usually expressed in a range of years
eg. this individual was 40-50 years of age at the
time of his death
Determination of Age from Bones

Occupational stress wears Skull at Different Ages

bones at joints
Sex
Determination of Sex
1. Pelvis best
• females have wider subpubic angle
• females have a wider sciatic notch
• females have a broad pelvic inlet
Determination of Sex
2. Cranium second best
• Crests and ridges more
pronounced in males (A, B,
C)
• Chin significantly more
square in males (E)
• Jaw (I, E), mastoid process
wide and robust in males
• Forehead slopes more in
males (F)
Determination of Sex
Other bones are not usually as good an indicator
regarding sex
Race
Determination of Race
The cranium is the only reliable bone and, even then,
can only tell general category as below:
• Mongoloid (all of Asian decent and Native American
decent)
wider cheekbones, concave incisors,
width between eyes greatest
• Negro (everyone of African decent and West Indian
decent)
more prominent ridges, wider nasal opening
• Caucasian (all ‘white’ individuals) narrow everything
How do bones grow?

Bones are hard structures. So how do they grow? Well, bones are a living tissue. They
have a blood supply. You are consistently making new bone. In fact, the human
skeleton is replaced every 7-10 years. But how do bones grow? From their ends,
where they have cartilage.

Growth and Development of Bones

Early in the development of a human fetus, the skeleton is made entirely of cartilage.
The relatively soft cartilage gradually turns into hard bone through ossification. This
is a process in which mineral deposits replace cartilage.

Ossification of long bones, which are found in the arms and legs, begins at the center
of the bones and continues toward the ends. By birth, several areas of cartilage
remain in the skeleton, including growth plates at the ends of the long bones. This
cartilage grows as the long bones grow, so the bones can keep increasing in length
during childhood.
Long bones ossify and get longer as they grow and develop. These bones grow from their ends, known as the epiphysis, and
the presence of a growth plate, or epiphyseal line, signifies that the bone is still growing.

In the late teens or early twenties, a person reaches skeletal maturity. By then, all of the cartilage has been replaced by
bone, so no further growth in bone length is possible. However, bones can still increase in thickness. This may occur in
response to increased muscle activity, such as weight training.
 Estimating Height

• Measuring long bones like femur or humerus can help estimate height
– Databases established that use mathematical relationships
– Different tables for males, females, and races
– Example
Recent Study done :- Comparison of Body Height and Femur
Length among North Indian Students.
  For Male: Height = 147.85 +0.5922x F*
For Female: Height = 143.76+0.3615x F*
F - Femur length
Determining Time of Death

• Naked eye appearance is unreliable:

• Tags of soft tissue ligaments etc. indicate less
than 5 years old.
• Soapy texture of surface indicates age less than
a few decades.
• Light, crumbling bones are likely to be a century
or more old.
Determining Cause of Death

 Sharp force trauma (bone cut)

 Blunt force trauma (broken bone)
 Antemortem vs. postmortem breaks
 Perimortem Injuries

Injury occurred at or around the time of death and may

have even caused the death
Now, radioactive decay occurs at a very fixed and regular rate,  and for carbon-14, we
know what the rate is an we measure that the rate by the so-called half-life. 
 
A half-life is the time it takes for half the atoms in your sample to undergo radioactive
decay. 
So Willard Libby, who won the Nobel Prize in 1960, developed this as a dating method 

and he was able to calibrate it against historical objects, so we can have a great deal of confidence
 In carbon dating, scientists use computers to determine if there is carbon-14 or carbon-
12 in an organism. Carbon dating is a method for determining when a previously living
organism died, by calculating the amount of carbon-14 that is still in the organism.

 Carbon dating can be used on substances that are close to 60,000 years old. It is mostly
used to find the age of animals or human beings.

 Carbon-14 is an atom that is radioactive and has 8 neutrons and 6 protons. It is used to
find the age of a once living organism. An organism will absorb carbon-14 when it is
alive. Scientists can determine when an organism died by how much carbon-14 is still in
the organism. 5,730 years after the death of an organism, it would lose half of the
carbon-14 that was in the organism.

 An Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) is a machine that can tell the difference
between carbon-14 and carbon-12. The AMS system uses a gas ionization detector to
count ions.
 In addition, peat bogs form in areas lacking drainage and hence are characterized by almost completely 
anaerobic conditions. This environment, highly acidic and devoid of oxygen, denies the prevalent
subsurface aerobic organisms any opportunity to initiate decomposition.

As new peat replaces the old peat, the older material underneath rots and releases humic acid, also known as bog
acid. The bog acids, with pH levels similar to vinegar, conserve the human bodies in the same way as fruit is
preserved by pickling
Bodies that have become mummified in a peat bog have been called “bog bodies” or “bog
people.” Most of these specimens have been discovered in northwestern Europe, including
many that are estimated to be thousands of years old. It is believed that many of the
individuals were killed and deposited into the peat bogs as part of cultural practices which
may have included human sacrifice (Fischer, 1998).

The conditions in peat bogs that facilitate this degree of preservation include having low
oxygen, low temperature, and high acidity. The soft tissues such as the skin and organs are
often well preserved while the bones and teeth are often decalcified due to the acidity
(Brothwell and Gill-Robinson, 2002).

 The most famous bog body is that of “Grauballe Man,” a very well-preserved body
discovered in 1952 in Denmark. It is estimated to date from the 3rd century BC.
Researchers discovered that conservation also required that they place the body in the bog during the winter or
early spring when the water temperature is cold—i.e., less than 4 °C (40 °F). This allows bog acids to saturate
the tissues before decay can begin. Bacteria are unable to grow rapidly enough for decomposition at
temperatures under 4 °C.
Forensic scientists at the University of Portsmouth have discovered a new way of presenting fragile
evidence, by reconstructing a 'jigsaw' of human bone fragments using 3D printing.

In the first known study of its kind, researchers took fragmented burnt human bones and tested the ability to
make 3D models suitable to be shown to a jury in court.

1.Amber J. Collings, Katherine Brown. Reconstruction and physical fit

analysis of fragmented skeletal remains using 3D imaging and
printing. Forensic Science International: Reports, 2020; 2: 100114 DOI: 
10.1016/j.fsir.2020.100114
Algor mortis is the cooling of the body after death (Knight, 2002). As body
temperature is controlled by the hypothalamus, this homeostatic feature can no
longer be maintained after death. Thus the body temperature will begin to change
toward the ambient temperature of the room or surroundings in which the remains
are found.

During life, the body maintains a temperature of approximately 98.6°F (37°C),

which is an optimum operating temperature for many of the body’s chemical
reactions. After death, the body no longer maintains this temperature, so it begins
to cool and equilibrate to the ambient temperature.

The rate at which this cooling occurs depends on the temperature differential
between the body and the environment (elevated body temperatures and cool
ambient temperatures will increase this rate), but as a general rule, the body cools
at a rate of about 1.5°F (0.8°C) per hour during the first 12 hours.
 Rigor mortis is muscle stiffening caused by the binding together of muscle fibers.

 Muscles require a molecule called adenosine triphosphate (ATP) in order to

release from a contracted state (Knight, 2002); after death, the body’s ATP
 reserves are quickly exhausted and muscles remain contracted until the muscle
fibers themselves start to decompose.

 Rigor mortis is typically seen first in the small muscles of the face and jaw.

 Rigor generally begins several hours after death, peaks around 12 hours after
death, and then subsides over the next day or so with decomposition of the muscle
fibers (Knight, 2002).

 The timing of rigor mortis is dependent on environmental conditions such as

temperature, as well as the physical activity of the decedent around the time of
death.
Livor mortis
is the pooling of the blood in the body due to gravity and the lack of
blood circulation as a result of the cessation of cardiac activity (Knight,
2002).

This is also known as lividity and is the settling of blood in capillaries

and veins as a result of gravitational pooling (Tibbett, 2008).   

These factors cause the blood to pool in the lowest points of the body,
giving the skin a purplish-red discoloration. Livor mortis typically begins
around 30 minutes to 4 hours after death, and is most pronounced
approximately 12 hours after death.
Decomposition is the process by which organic material is broken down into simpler forms. It
occurs systematically in all biological organisms with the cessation of normal life functions (Gill-
King, 1997; Marks et al., 2009), and begins immediately following death. Decomposition results
in many physical and biochemical changes that can be observed macroscopically and
microscopically.

Decomposition occurs through two primary chemical processes: autolysis and putrefaction. They

often occur in tandem, but one may predominate in certain conditions.

Autolysis (or “self-digestion”) is the destruction of cells through the action of their own enzymes.
Autolysis typically occurs most rapidly in the pancreas and stomach and may be the predominant
decomposition process in more arid environments.

Putrefaction is the microbial deterioration of tissues caused by the proliferation of bacteria

associated with the digestive system. Putrefaction causes color changes in the body including
various shades of green, purple, and brown due to the release of pigments from the breakdown of
internal structures. 
 Also associated with putrefaction is the production of gases. These gases, primarily located in
the abdomen, cause the body to become distended or bloat .

 This bloating can cause the affected areas of the body to expand dramatically. Over time the
affected areas may rupture or the gas may subside naturally. Skin slippage, or the shedding of
the epidermis from the body caused by the deterioration of the junction between the dermis and
epidermis, is also associated with early decomposition processes .

 Many local environmental factors affect the decomposition process, including temperature,
moisture, and soil chemistry, but the processes of autolysis and putrefaction are responsible for
the chemical breakdown of tissues (Knight, 2002).
Ancient Egyptian mummification preserved the body for the afterlife by removing internal organs and
moisture and by wrapping the body with linen. 

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ancient-art-civilizations/egypt-art/beginners-guide-egypt/v/the-
mummification-process
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141029-maggot-flies-bodies-video-forensics-science/
 Maggots, which are actually the larvae of flies, have helped doctors 
clean wounds on and off the battlefield since Napoleon's time. Now,
they're also helping to catch criminals. Forensic entomology—the
study of how insects interact with dead bodies—can help law
enforcement and lawyers in criminal investigations, and maggots are
a big part of that.

 The presence of flies or maggots on a dead body can give researchers a

sense of when a person or animal died.

 When an animal dies, microbes begin to break down its tissues and
produce gases.

 The flies home in on moist cavities like the mouth, nose, and eyes to
lay their eggs. The young that hatch out are the maggots, which
proceed to eat their way through the surrounding soft tissue.

 Different fly species have different dietary requirements, The black

soldier fly maggots are omnivorous also beetles that consume the
skin, hair, and cartilage will appear.
Machine learning can help maggots solve crimes
Trained algorithms can identify maggots and read clues like time of death

Maggots don’t have fingers, but they do produce chemical

“fingerprints” — a blend of chemicals unique to their species.
Different maggot species feed on corpses at particular stages of decay.
Forensics teams actually use this information to 
estimate a person’s time of death. The problem is that maggots, which
are  immature flies, are tricky to identify and rearing them to flyhood is
time-consuming and expensive.

University of Albany researchers developed a machine learning

technique to rapidly distinguish maggot species by their chemical
fingerprints.

https://massivesci.com/notes/maggot-forensics-machine-learning/
Colonization of the Dead
The forensic entomologist studies flies and maggots in his laboratory to figure
out just what factors influence when the insects colonize human or animal
remains.

 Time of colonization can vary from one decomposing body to the next. A
better understanding of colonization times would "allow forensic
entomologists to better predict the actual time of death of the person in
question.“

 Not much is known about what attracts insects to a decomposing body.

Researchers suspect that the odors released by the microbes as they break
down a body are a major factor in that attraction.

 Nutrients are used to create a living animal, and when it dies the nutrients
are returned to the environment and play an important role in how an
ecosystem operates.
What we covered so far
What is Forensic Biology?

The scope and its applications.

Hair as an evidence.

What we can extract from Skeletal Remains.

Time of Death

Decomposition
How insects may help to solve crime scenes

Case studies
https://www.sciencefriday.com/educational-resources/forensic-entomology-body-farm/