Abstract
Postmortem changes to human remains are universal and are categorized by the environmental factors that impact them, e.g., weather, burial customs, and animal scavenging. Forensic anthropologists borrow theory and methods that geologists use to describe fossils and their stratigraphic contexts because human skeletal remains are affected by the same processes whether laid beneath the ground, underwater, or on the earth surface. The postmortem alterations reveal clues about when and how the individual was buried and collectively reveals how a particular society cared for their dead. This study complements and expands on previous research that evaluated cemetery remains in the northern terrestrial climates of Massachusetts and Canada through comparisons with a subtropical sample from the Key West Cemetery.
This study specifically evaluates environmental variables that alter bones and funerary artifacts including the soil sediment (soil adherence and oolite limestone), fluvial erosion, soil erosion, coffin erosion, soil delamination, scavenging, cultural modification (e.g., hip implants, trocar buttons, surgical sutures), and plant modification. Staining to the bone is evaluated using Munsell soil color standards because staining may be the result of soil, water, plant, animal, artifacts, and cultural modifications to the remains. The burial artifacts are also categorized and accounted for to potentially help in explaining any deterioration or staining to the bone. Bone deterioration was assessed by examining the completeness of each bone, e.g., 50% of the humerus was present. I focus upon these 12 taphonomic characteristics due to their prominence within the Key West sample which consisted of nine individuals totaling 5,606 bone fragments and 2,301 burial artifacts. Overall, the sample was highly fragmented with only 16% of the sample having nearly complete bones (i.e., an individual skeletal element being 75 – 100% complete). Unlike the northern published data, the Key West sample exhibited no dried/embalmed tissue and only 1% of the remains presented with coffin erosion. The soil presence, specifically oolite limestone, marked 25% of the Key West sample which was a soil type absent in the northern regions. However, fluvial erosion impacts the presence of soil sediment on the skeletal material within the entire sample (x2 = 71.437, df = 9, p = 7.954e-12). Fluvial erosion is the taphonomic alteration most prominent with the frequency of the other variables being prominent within 86% of the sample. The sample exhibited higher percentage of soil erosion (52%), soil delamination (87%), and soil sediment (90%). These findings help establish a baseline for taphonomic alterations found within subtropical coastal environments that experience high sea levels. The findings of this study are compared to previous research with the following findings: artifact presence, coffin erosion, cultural modifications, plant presence, and localized and uniform staining (Pokines, Zinni, & Crowley, 2016; Rogers, 2005). However, the northern data lacks expansion in high fragmentation, oolite limestone presence (i.e., region specific geology factors), and impact of fluvial erosion. Establishing a baseline will help inform skeletal analysts of what to expect when performing exhumations in coastal environments with low elevation that negatively impact the preservation of skeletal remains.