Identifying Postmortem Microstructural Change to Skeletal and Dental Tissues using Backscattered Electron Imaging

A number of papers have been published over a 100 year period describing postmortem microstructural change to bone and teeth in humans and other mammals. Much of the work is descriptive and has used a number of microscopic methods, which introduce changes during preparation, and are limited by the resolving power of that technique. Backscattered electron imaging in a scanning electron microscope (BSE/SEM) has been used successfully applied to on normal skeletal tissues and is an excellent method to document postmortem changes to bone and tooth microstructure. In forensic science, archaeology, and paleontology there is a collective interest in understanding early death history and subsequent treatment and deposition of the body. To this end the main microstructural changes are provided as a means of identification, and practical suggestions to circumvent misinterpretation due to artifacts created by employing the BSE imaging method.