Page 100 - Veritas Vol 3, Issue 2

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FORENSIC

TAPHONOMY

Abstract:
Forensic Anthropology can be defined as the application of Anthropological

methods and theory in legal matters, especially in recovery and analysis of
skeletons. A scientific approach to examining human remains found from crime

scenes is called Forensic Taphonomy ,a branch under Forensic Anthropology.

Forensic Taphonomy is therefore essentially the study and analysis of
postmortem modifications to the body. It helps in reconstruction of events that
occurred between the deposition of remains and their recovery. It can be

described as the integration of Archeology and Forensic science expertise.The

estimation of postmortem interval can be done by using Forensic Taphonomic
techniques.It is also known as time since death,which is a time period between

death and recovery and examination of body.It can give informations such as
when crime was committed and helps investigators to reconstruct the death

scene.Several researches are happening in the field of forensic taphonomy since
it has an important role in solving a crime. This paper deals with advancements

in forensic taxonomy and their impact on forensic analysis.

Keywords: Forensic Anthropology ,Forensic Taphonomy,reconstruction of
events ,Archeology ,Forensic science ,postmortem interval, crime

Introduction:
Consider a scenario that a person finds a putrefied body from the woods and
informs the nearest police station. The police arrives at the scene for

investigation.Even though the examination of body should be done by a person

who is expert in that field. Here comes the role of forensic taphonomy. The
term “taphonomy” was derived from two Greek words “taphos” which means

burial and “onomy” meaning the system of rules or law.It was first coined by a
Russian paleontologist Ivan Efremov in 1940s.

VERITAS VOLUME: 3, ISSUE: 2 WRITER: SAJAN SAHADEVAN