PAST CRIMESmedicine was available. Other injuries can indicate that the person was
executed–by hanging or decapitation, for example.
People can die in a number of ways–naturally, as a result of age or illness,
violently in war or as a result of murder, accidentally or by suicide–self
murder. Archaeopathologists will try to establish which of these is indicated
by a close study of any visible wounds, identifying, if possible, the types of
weapon or accident that could cause the particular damage visible. This may
involve experimental use of tools or weapons on animal carcasses, to assess
whether a suspected weapon could reproduce the exact wound found on the
bones being studied. Was a sharpedged instrument used, or a blunt one? From
which direction and what height did the blow come? Was the victim standing
up, kneeling or lying down? Determination of these factors can sometimes
show whether a person was murdered, or judicially executed.
The bones recently attributed to Richard III, found in a car park in
Leicester, have been studied and they have been shown to have belonged to a
man in his late twenties or early thirties, matching the recorded age at death of
Richard III, which was thirtytwo. The bones belonged to a man of slender
build, who had enjoyed a rich diet with plenty of protein. But he had suffered
from scoliosis, probably in puberty, causing him to stoop and hold one
shoulder higher than the other.^6
Ten injuries were found on the bones, mostly to the skull, which happened
at or around the moment of death. The cause of death was one or two blows to
the back of the skull. It appears that his arms were tied together when he was
buried.
Historical cases can also benefit from archaeological forensic work. A
famous example from the United States is the Battle of the Little Big Horn,
where General George Armstrong Custer’s troops were massacred in 1876.
Archaeological work at the site has established the range of types and
capabilities of the weapons used by the Lakota and other Native American
people against Custer and his men, the exact locations of some of the action,
the manner of death of many of the soldiers and how their bodies were treated
after death. We even now know the identity of the occupant of one of the
graves, which proved to hold the remains of one of Custer’s scouts.
The survival of bones in the soil is subject to a number of considerations–
the soil chemistry, the depth of the burial, the presence of scavenging animals,
insects, moulds or bacteria, the age of the individual and so on. If the soil is
acidic, bone survival is very unlikely– sandy soils and granitic soils in
particular rarely preserve bone. Many ancient burials, as well as those of more
recent murder victims, tend to be shallow, which means that there is more