title: Luminescence of thermally altered human skeletal remains.
abstract: Literature on luminescent properties of thermally altered human remains is scarce and contradictory. Therefore, the luminescence of heated bone was systemically reinvestigated. A heating experiment was conducted on fresh human bone, in two different media, and cremated human remains were recovered from a modern crematory. Luminescence was excited with light sources within the range of 350 to 560 nm. The excitation light was filtered out by using different long pass filters, and the luminescence was analysed by means of a scoring method. The results show that temperature, duration and surrounding medium determine the observed emission intensity and bandwidth. It is concluded that the luminescent characteristic of bone can be useful for identifying thermally altered human remains in a difficult context as well as yield information on the perimortem and postmortem events.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Embryology and Physiology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. T.Krap@amc.nl.|Department of Life Sciences and Technology-Biotechnology-Forensic Science, Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. T.Krap@amc.nl.|Ars Cogniscendi Centre for Legal and Forensic medicine, Wezep, The Netherlands. T.Krap@amc.nl.
authors.forename: Tristan
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2438-3694
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Krap
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences and Technology-Biotechnology-Forensic Science, Van Hall Larenstein, University of Applied Sciences, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nota
authors.affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering and Physics, Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.|Forensic Technical Solutions B.V, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Leah S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Wilk
authors.affiliation: Centre for Forensic Pathology, Baarn, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Franklin R W
authors.initials: FRW
authors.lastname: van de Goot
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Embryology and Physiology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Jan M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Ruijter
authors.affiliation: Ars Cogniscendi Centre for Legal and Forensic medicine, Wezep, The Netherlands.|University of Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Wilma
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Duijst
authors.affiliation: Department of Anatomy, Embryology and Physiology, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Roelof-Jan
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Oostra
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D050280:Arm Bones / Q000473:pathology*; D000071298:Body Remains; D055700:Cremation; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D006358:Hot Temperature; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D049449:Luminescence; D008297:Male
keywords: Bone; Cremation; Forensic anthropology; Heat; Luminescence