Forensic Taphonomy: Reading the Silent Stories of Decomposition

Forensic taphonomy investigates the dynamic processes that affect human remains after death. This includes decomposition, interaction with the environment, and preservation processes that have occurred to human remains. It continues to investigate the changes that all remains undergo over time and under varying environmental conditions. This process can assist with estimates of the postmortem interval (PMI). The time elapsed since death helps elicit the events surrounding death. Forensic taphonomy takes decay processes and translates them into useful forensic evidence. When a body is discovered, it is unlikely to provide its own narrative. It is possible that if a body is badly decomposed, burned, or if only skeletonized remains are recovered, traditional analyses, like fingerprint analysis or DNA analysis, would not yield useful results. This is where taphonomy comes in. Taphonomy provides interpretable results to scientists about how processes such as temperature, humidity, soil composition, insects, and microbial action influence rates of decomposition. By examining these natural processes in taphonomic research, forensic taphonomists determine not only when a person has died, but also where the body has been positioned and what sort of conditions it has undergone since death.

As stated by Miles, Finaughty, and Gibbon (2020), forensic taphonomy serves as the “ecology of death” and serves as a bridge between forensic science and other disciplines, like biology, chemistry, and environmental science. It isolates, if not every stage of decay from initial discolouration to skeletonization into data points, each relevant to deciphering answers about identity, cause, or timing of death.

Background:

Forensic taphonomy emerged as a field, or sub-discipline of taphonomy to be more precise, in the late 20th century when scientists began systematically examining human decomposition in situ. Most of the early studies simply visually examined human decomposition, observing how a body decomposed over several days or even months. Modern taphonomy has become a highly interdisciplinary science, combining soil chemistry, insect succession, and microbiology to describe and understand the decomposition process (Miles et al., 2025).

When a body decomposes, organic compounds are released into the soil, creating the zone around the body known as the cadaver decomposition island (CDI), a nutrient-rich zone below the body. The soil chemical signatures change considerably over the following time, specifically, during the decomposition process, when nitrogen increases, soil pH shifts, and microbiological activity increases. Even years later, when any soft tissue is gone, soil chemical signatures may still provide insight into the time frame and conditions of decomposition.

This process and movement of decay of organic matter can be influenced considerably by the habitat conditions of the body. For example, temperature, moisture, and aerial oxygen can push the process faster or slower; hot and humid habitat is typically accompanied by faster rates of microbial activity and insect activity, while in colder habitats, decomposition decay may be delayed for months or even years. This variability has encouraged researchers to develop more regional decomposition databases in order to increase the accuracy of estimating time since death. There is also an intersection between forensic taphonomy and forensic entomology, the latter of which is the study of insect colonisation on remains. Blowflies and beetles will arrive in stages, and even their life stages (e.g., eggs, larvae, pupae) can indicate the PMI (Miles et al., 2020). In some cases, insect evidence corroborates the timing of death established by taphonomic observations. 

Moreover, with advances in science and technology, the tools and capabilities of taphonomists have increased. Tools such as ground penetrating radar, 3D imaging, and remote sensing can help identify and locate buried bodies prior to excavation. Chemical sensors can also detect gases released from human decomposition emissions and assist body recovery efforts in mass disasters. These advancements provide not only better accuracy but also preserve the descendants’ dignity by avoiding invasive procedures. 

Nevertheless, advances in forensic taphonomy are still required. There are limited research facilities to study human decomposition (worldwide) because of ethical or cultural reasons. Therefore, human decomposition research incorporates animal models, with pig studies being most frequently utilised due to their similar body morphology, although they decompose slightly differently than humans. Even though there are multiple factors impacting decay, including soil type, climate and fauna, most of the factors can be regionally influenced. Ongoing research aims to improve models for more accurate methods and techniques related to forensic taphonomy. Forensic taphonomy is a critical element of contemporary death investigations.

Conclusion: Forensic taphonomy serves as a reminder that a human body continues to convey information even after death through its chemistry, ecology, and respective deposits. By using decomposition as a source for forensic evidence, forensic taphonomy assists in determining the time and context of the death when traditional methods and assumptions cannot be used, such as age. As science evolves, taphonomy can be coupled with new machine learning solutions, spectroscopy, and soil microbiome analysis. These represent exciting possibilities for a more accurate assessment and use of postmortem changes. This can enrich and enhance the reliability of investigations, in addition to respecting human remains.

Forensic taphonomy represents a relationship of sorts in the balance between nature and investigation; each insect, molecule, and grain of soil acts as a witness to the death. In an effort to tell the story that began at death, forensic taphonomy assures that the truth is never buried in silence.