The Analysis of Burned Human Remains

ISBN-13: 9780123725103 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008

Christopher W. Schmidt; Steven Symes

Opis

This unique reference provides a primary source for osteologists and the medical/legal community for the understanding of burned bone remains in forensic or archaeological contexts. It describes in detail the changes in human bone and soft tissues as a body burns at both the chemical and gross levels and provides an overview of the current procedures in burned bone study. Case studies in forensic and archaeological settings aid those interested in the analysis of burned human bodies, from death scene investigators, to biological anthropologists looking at the recent or ancient dead.

• Includes the diagnostic patterning of color changes that give insight to the severity of burning, the positioning of the body, and presence (or absence) of soft tissues during the burning event
• Chapters on bones and teeth give step-by-step recommendations for how to study and recognize burned hard tissues

Spis treści

1. Fire and Bodies
2. Patterned Thermal Destruction of Human Remains in a Forensic Setting
3. The Recovery and Study Of Burned Human Teeth
4. Analysis of Human Cremains: Gross and Chemical Methods
5. Thermally Induced Changes in the Stable Carbon and Nitrogen Isotope Ratios of Charred Bones
6. Bone Color as an Interpretive Tool of the Depositional History of Archaeological Cremains
7. Time, Temperature, and Oxygen Availability: An Experimental Study of the Effects of Environmental Conditions on the Color and Organic Content of Cremated Bone
8. Heat-Related Changes in Tooth Color: Temperature Versus Duration of Exposure
9. Investigations on Pre-Roman and Roman cremation Remains from Southwestern Germany: Results, Potentialities and Limits
10. In the Heat of the Pyre: Efficiency of Oxidation in Romano-British Cremations - Did it Really Matter?
11. Fire as a Cultural Taphonomic Agent: Understanding Mortuary Behavior at Khuzhir-Nuge XIV, Siberia
12. Putting Together the Pieces: Reconstructing Mortuary Practices from Commingled Ossuary Cremains
13. A Taphonomic Analysis of Human Cremains from the Fox Hollow farm Serial Homicide Site
14. Early Archaic Cremations from Southern Indiana
15. Towards an Archaeology of Cremation