Bone Damage in the Antemortem, Perimortem, and Postmortem Periods: Looking for Traumatic Indications on Bones for Assesing the Quality of Life of Skeletal Remains

The analysis of damages and changes to skeletal remains may help relate to the circumstances of death and or individual identification. Those changes are, for example, the physical properties of bone. Meanwhile, trauma refers to physical disturbance of living tissue due to external forces. Trauma and skeletal damage analyzes include the approximate time of trauma compared to the time of death, the mechanism, and the kind of forces that have caused the trauma. The materials for this study were 1 individual from the Museum of Anthropology, and 9 individuals from the collection of human skeletal remains at the Department of Anatomy and Histology, Physical Anthropology Section, in Universitas Airlangga. We observed the shape, the colour, and the texture; and analyzed if there were any antemortem trauma and/or abnormality of bones that happened during the life of the individuals. The damage to the skeletons observed in this research were mostly postmortem damage. Most of the damages did not show any healing process and appeared brighter than the surrounding bone, and had a jagged—irregular—and sharp edges. However, we also found signs of abnormal bones that were caused by the poor condition during the life of some of the skeletal remains. Postmortem damage can be differentiated from the antemortem trauma. This finding is important for further study in assessing the quality of life of people in Indonesia in the past, and for giving aids during identification, through unique characteristics observed on the skeletons.