Recording skeletal completeness in cases of fragmentary human remains: a pilot technical study using computed tomography volume rendering applications

ABSTRACT

Documenting skeletal completeness is an essential element of the physical anthropology examination. Methods available to calculate skeletal completeness, that is how much of the complete skeleton is available for analysis, remain limited and subjective. This study aimed to develop an objective and standardized technique for recording skeletal completeness in adult individuals by establishing percentage values for complete and fragmentary skeletal elements. Percentages were established from 14 adult individuals from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine’s post-mortem computed tomography database. Using Syngo.via’s digital editing tools, the volume of each whole bone and bone segment was measured. Percentages were established by calculating the proportion of each bone’s volume relative to the volume of the complete skeleton. Mean percentage values for each bone and bone segment from eight of the individuals were taken as the reference percentage value. Percentage values from the remaining six individuals were used to validate the reference percentages. Between 33.33% and 85.71% of the percentages calculated were congruent with the reference percentages. Results indicate this technique in its current form is not reliable or accurate and thus these reference percentages are not recommended for use. Rather, this study has identified a novel technique that, with further development and refinement, may provide a standardized means for recording skeletal completeness appropriate for use in forensic anthropology and biological archaeology practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Physical anthropology
• forensic anthropology
• skeletal preservation
• biological archaeology
• standardization
• percentages

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine for providing access to their post-mortem computed tomography collection and Deakin University for their support during this research.

Disclosure statement

This research was completed for an Honours thesis at Deakin University in 2018 and was presented as a poster at the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Science Society Symposium in Perth, Australia in 2018. Poster title: Recording Completeness of Fragmentary Skeletal Remains; Poster Authors: Katerina Bredhauer, Annalisa Durdle and Samantha Rowbotham.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.