Journal
JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES
Volume 68, Issue 1, Pages 252-256Publisher
WILEY
DOI: 10.1111/1556-4029.15175
Keywords
bioarchaeology; biological anthropology; biological profile; forensic anthropology; heat-induced changes; height; postmortem thermal damage; stature estimation
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Bone heat-induced changes complicate osteometric stature estimation of human remains from forensic settings. The validity of current methods has not been tested to a great extent. Stature estimations obtained from chemosteometry were found to be more precise than other approaches.
Bone heat-induced changes complicate osteometric stature estimation of human remains from forensic settings. The validity of current methods has not been tested to a great extent. Our aim was to determine how precise are stature estimations obtained from three different approaches, namely by using (i) Rosing's method (Rosing 1977), (ii) a 10% shrinkage correction factor (Strzalko et al. 1972) and (iii) chemosteometry (Goncalves et al. 2020). For this purpose, pre- and post-burned head measurements from the humerus, radius and femur were used. The sample comprised 46 human skeletons of known sex and age-at-death. These were experimentally burnt to maximum temperatures ranging from 700 to 1100 degrees C (attained after 90-188 min) for other research purposes. Stature estimations were performed through measurements in both pre-burned and burned bones using the three approaches and based on the method of Olivier and Tissier (1975). Mean absolute differences and the relative technical errors of measurements (TEM%) between the pre-burned and the estimations were calculated. Absolute mean differences indicated that the chemosteometric approach allowed for potentially more precise stature estimations than the other two procedures. However, the TEM% was very low for all approaches (smaller or close to 1%), and stature estimations were thus well within the error margin reported by Olivier and Tissier (1975). Results suggest that the chemosteometric approach enables more accurate predictions of the actual heat-induced shrinkage of each bone thus rendering more precise stature estimations. Nonetheless, the other procedures also provided quite reliable estimations although they require confirmation that the bone is calcined.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available