Current Research in Forensic Taphonomy

Sorg, Marcella H; Haglund, William D.; Wren, Jamie A

doi:10.1002/9781118255377.ch24

Cited by 23 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 82 publications

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“…In a recent review of forensic taphonomy research, Sorg et al. (:489) comment that “scavengers may not only alter bodies but also may change scenes or obliterate evidence.” Our data unfortunately confirm this statement and suggest that vultures in particular may have serious impacts on bodies left exposed to the Sonoran Desert environment (Fig. ) and complicate (or render impossible) the identification of corpses.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal Scavenging and Scattering and the Implications for Documenting the Deaths of Undocumented Border Crossers in the Sonoran Desert,

Beck

Ostericher

Sollish

et al. 2014

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.-Mexico border without authorization. These deaths have primarily occurred in the Arizona desert. Despite the high volume of deaths, little experimental work has been conducted on Sonoran Desert taphonomy. In this study, pig carcasses were used as proxies for human remains and placed in different depositional contexts (i.e., direct sunlight and shade) that replicate typical sites of migrant death. Decomposition was documented through daily site visits, motion-sensitive cameras and GIS mapping, while skeletal preservation was investigated through the collection of the remains and subsequent faunal analysis. Our results suggest that vultures and domestic dogs are underappreciated members of the Sonoran scavenging guild and may disperse skeletal remains and migrant possessions over 25 m from the site of death. The impact of scavengers and the desert environment on the decomposition process has significant implications for estimating death rates and identifying human remains along the Arizona/Mexico border.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Animal Scavenging and Scattering and the Implications for Documenting the Deaths of Undocumented Border Crossers in the Sonoran Desert,

Beck

Ostericher

Sollish

et al. 2014

Journal of Forensic Sciences

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“…He defined taphonomy as the "science of the laws of embedding" and utilized this term to study the distribution or proportion of animal remains or species at a site and the process of fossilization. Paleontologists and geologists utilized the concept of taphonomy while observing fossil formation and uniformitarianism in an effort to interpret postmortem processes within the archaeological record (Pokines 2014;Sorg et al 2012). In a forensic context, taphonomic processes are studied to understand the postmortem processes that affected a more contemporary set of remains.…”

Section: Anthropology Program Outdoor Research Facility (Orf) Locatedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Organic staining on bone from exposure to wood and other plant materials

Pollock

Pokines

Bethard

2018

Forensic Science International

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“…These parallels and advantages led forensic anthropologists to embrace taphonomy rapidly and rather enthusiastically. Research specifically addressing taphonomic applications in forensic contexts was already being carried out by the mid-1980s (Sorg et al 2012), and the first key publication on forensic taphonomy, Haglund and Sorg's (1997a) edited volume Forensic Taphonomy, appeared only 3 years after Lyman's (1994) tome on vertebrate taphonomy.…”

Section: Taphonomic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…botanists) during the search. Apart from the references quoted earlier, Sorg et al (2012) and Beary and Lyman (2012) discuss the taphonomic approach in detail, providing updated bibliographies. The references in Hochrein (2011) provide a comprehensive view of the wide array of taphonomic subjects and issues that North American forensic anthropologists nowadays consider relevant to their field.…”

Section: Taphonomic Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%