Macro- and microstructural identification of animal bone remains and soft tissues after thermal exposure

Abstract

The research goal was to identify the macro- and microstructural features of animal bone remains and soft tissues under thermal exposure. The study was conducted in the autopsy and histological laboratory of the Department of Anatomy, Pathological Anatomy and Surgery of the Institute of Applied Biotechnology and Veterinary Medicine of the Krasnoyarsk State Agricultural University. The material for the study was bone remains and fragments of soft tissues of an animal after thermal exposure to an open flame found in a forest burned area. The main research methods were anatomical, topographic, cytological and morphometric ones. It was found that the examined fragments represented the burnt remains of an animal (a mammal of the canid family - a domestic dog - Canis lupus e. familiaris) with varying degrees of temperature exposure. Based on macroscopic (anatomical and topographic) and microscopic (cytological) studies of the burnt bone remains and soft tissues, it may be concluded that thermal exposure to animal tissues leads to charring of bones to a state of black and gray heat, and the formation of undifferentiated bone chips as well as burnt and smoked soft tissues. Tubular bones as well as vertebral bodies built of lamellar bone tissue are more resistant to high temperatures as compared to flat bones built of coarse-fibrous bone tissue; that allows them to be identified at the organ and species levels. Skeletal striated muscle fibers and connective tissue fibers after exposure to high temperatures may be identified at the cellular level which is probably due to the fixing effect of high temperatures preventing postmortem autolysis.