9 - OTHER BIOSTRATINOMIC FACTORS

Summary

Introduction

Many taphonomic processes may affect animal carcasses and bones between the time of animal death and burial of the carcass or bones. Several of the major human biostratinomic factors are discussed in Chapter 8. In this chapter other biostratinomic factors, several of which are natural processes, are reviewed. Discussion is limited to those factors that have been more or less extensively dealt with in the literature. As well, several basic comparative analytic techniques are described at the end of the chapter.

Weathering

The degree of brittleness of the skeleton gives no information as to age; the nature of the place where it is found must be taken into account. The more the bones are exposed to air, the more quickly they disintegrate. The quantity of precipitation, the number of days below freezing, covering with clay, burial in sand or loam – all these factors play an important role in forensic medicine.

(J. Weigelt 1927/1989:18)

Behrensmeyer (1978:153) defines the weathering of bone as “the process by which the original microscopic organic and inorganic components of bone are separated from each other and destroyed by physical and chemical agents operating on the bone in situ, either on the surface or within the soil zone.” Weathering involves the decomposition and destruction of bones “as part of the normal process of nutrient recycling in and on soils” (Behrensmeyer 1978:150).