Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
CHAPTER
8
Investig
ation of Skeletal
Trauma
Anne M. Kroman, Steven A. Symes
INTRODUCTION
As the fields of biological and forensic anthropology have grown, bone trauma has
become an increasingly vital component in the analysis of skeletal remains. Biological
anthropologists require a correct understanding of skeletal trauma and injury biome-
chanics for the assessment of remains from both the recent and distant past to help tell
many things about the population being studied. For example, acute injury
1
patterns
help determine the circumstances that may have surrounded the death of an individual.
Chronic injury patterns may contribute to an increased awareness regarding the overall
health and welfare of the individual as well as the rate of survivable trauma. Just as physi-
cians and medical researchers examine medical records to study health in contemporary
populations, skeletal evidence provides us with our best glimpse into injury and pathology
in past populations.
In the forensic arena, anthropologists are working close at hand with forensic pathol-
ogists in increasing numbers, and are being called on to examine skeletal trauma to help
with the diagnosis of cause (e.g., gunshot wound) or manner of death (e.g., homicide). In
the analysis of skeletal trauma, the interpretation of fractures plays a critical role. Correct
fracture pattern interpretation is useful in determining such things as the type of trauma
(i.e., blunt trauma, ballistic trauma,orsharp trauma), number of impacts or blows to the
body, location of these impacts, and amount of force that was used, just to name a few.
The forensic anthropologist, along with the forensic pathologist, is able to reach these
conclusions by understanding the science of physics and knowledge of the material prop-
erties of bone to correctly “read” fractures.
While the analysis of skeletal trauma is not a new concept to biological or forensic anthro-
pology, there has been a recent expansion of the methodology used in trauma research.
Historically, trauma and injury has always been studied from a retrospective approach by
looking at collections from the archaeological record or case samples retained from forensic
1
All bolded terms are defined in the glossary at the end of this volume.
