Skeletal Trauma and Identifying Skeletal Pathology
There is a third question that must be answered after: "Who is this person and when did this person die?" That question is, "What was the cause of death?" Unfortunately, in many cases you will not learn the cause of death by examining the skeleton. Most of the time, people are killed by injury to the body's major organs. In partially skeletonized or severely traumatized remains, those organs will have decomposed to the point where that evidence has disappeared. Once in a while you get lucky—skeletal trauma is found that gives you clues to the cause of death. The only way to find those clues is to look at the entire skeleton for unusual discontinuities in the bones that usually result from some kind of skeletal trauma or pathology.
You have to be cautious, though, as not all skeletal trauma is related to your subject's demise. There are three distinct times when trauma may occur: antemortem, perimortem, and postmortem. If there is evidence of skeletal trauma, the first thing you have to determine is when that trauma occurred. That is often difficult, but there may be signs on the bones that help you make that determination.
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