Soil Analysis in Forensic Taphonomy: Chemical and Biological Effects of Buried Human Remains PDF

Preface

Forensic taphonomy is an applied discipline that is coming of age. To date, however, the major advances in the field have been captured in publications that deal primarily with the cadaver and associated items rather than the grave itself. This book provides, for the first time, a collection of chapters from leading scientists in their fields that deal primarily with the burial environment. Our focus is on the processes of decomposition in soils, the decomposers in the soil, and the basic physiochemical composition of the soil as it relates to forensic science and taphonomy.

The book aims to provide the reader with an up-to-date overview of fundamental scientific principles and methods used in forensic taphonomy from a soils-based perspective. Soils are the materials that make up most clandestine graves but are often given scant consideration. This is a shame, as soils can contain an enormous amount of information within them—if you know what to look for and how to find it. The purpose of this book is to illuminate this search for forensic information in the soils generally and at gravesites particularly. Of particular importance here is the detritusphere, the soil immediately around the cadaver. This soil is the most altered by the decomposition process and can contribute to the decomposition process. Many biological and chemical effects of buried human remains can be found here, and the analysis of soils around a cadaver for forensic use, though in its infancy, is progressing apace.

The terrestrial environment has been much studied as a decomposition environment for materials of little forensic value, such as leaf litter or dead roots. These provide the basic methods and framework for studying and understanding decomposition of materials in soils. It is only in recent years that this has been applied to forensic taphonomy, in which studies have been conducted with mammalian tissues and cadavers. The burial environment is a complex and dynamic system of interdependent chemical, physical, and biological processes. These processes influence, and are influenced by, the inclusion of a body and its subsequent decay. Though this book deals with what is known in this context, much still remains to be discovered, understood, and applied to forensic science.

We believe this book is timely, as soils are receiving increased attention as physical evidence. Thus far, the twenty-first century has seen an increase of peer-reviewed publications related to soils and forensic science of at least one third from the last decade of the twentieth century. We hope that this book will provide a solid foundation for forensic taphonomists, anthropologists, soil scientists, entomologists, bacteriologists, and mycologists who aim to use the processes of cadaver decomposition in terrestrial ecosystems to solve crime.