Forensic taphonomy and stable isotopes: δ

Stable isotopes in hard, resistant tissues are routinely used to provenance human remains for identification, but stable isotopes have not been thoroughly investigated for their application to soft tissue decomposition in a forensic taphonomy context. This study examined stable isotope trends in nine human donor bodies from San Marcos, Texas over the first three weeks of decomposition in skin and muscle - the two soft tissues most commonly recovered from decomposed remains. The δ13Cskin did not show any discernable pattern of enrichment or depletion throughout the study, and only isolated enrichment points for δ13Cmuscle and δ15Nskin were found. A clear trend, however, emerged with significant increases in δ15Nmuscle where a mean start value of 9.5‰ increased by 1‰ by day-5, by 2.6‰ at day-10, and plateaued thereafter. No differences were found between arm and leg skeletal muscle. This work provides evidence for future uses of stable isotope analysis of soft tissues in forensic case work with possible post-mortem interval (PMI) estimation applications.