Burned bones tell their own stories: A review of methodological approaches to assess heat-induced diagenesis. Issue 8 (14th September 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Mamede, Adriana P.; Gonçalves, David; Marques, M. Paula M.; Batista de Carvalho, Luís A. E.
• Is Part Of: Applied spectroscopy reviews. Volume 53:Issue 8(2018)
• Page Start: 603
• Page End: 635
• Publication Date: 2018-09-14
• Subjects: Burned human bones -- neutron spectroscopy -- neutron diffraction -- FTIR -- Raman -- p-XRD; Spectrum analysis -- Periodicals; 535.84
• DOI: 10.1080/05704928.2017.1400442
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0570-4928

Abstract

ABSTRACT: One of the biggest struggles of biological anthropology is to estimate the biological profile from burned human skeletal remains. Bioanthropological methods are seriously compromised due to bone heat-induced alterations in shape and size. Therefore, it is urgent to improve our ability to estimate sex, age at death, stature, and ancestrality, to recognize peri mortem traumas and differentiate them from fractures due to fire, and to determine what was the intensity of burning, namely maximum temperature and heat exposure length. This review focuses on different methodologies to assess heat prompted changes in bone submicrostructure. Some of these are extensively used in burned bones research, namely infrared and Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, while others such as neutron spectroscopy and diffraction are rarely applied to bone samples although their contribution may be crucial for establishing new bioanthropological methods for a reliable examination of burned victims.