School of Science and Health, Western Sydney University, Australia; Faculty of Science and Engineering, Macquarie University, Australia.
Centre for Forensic Science, University of Technology Sydney, Australia.
Forensic Sci Int. 2018 Oct;291:158-166. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2018.08.022. Epub 2018 Aug 29.
Forensic anthropologists have traditionally relied on their knowledge and experience of the decomposition stages to make an assessment of the time since death. However, recently new and empirical methods have been developed in various regions worldwide that propose to estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI) based on the observed decomposition changes alongside important taphonomic variables. Yet despite these methods being predominantly geographic specific, a number of methods have suggested they are effective universally and it is these 'universal' methods that have been inadequately test in Australia. The current study evaluated the accuracy of two of these methods in an Australian context, specifically the Greater Western Sydney region. The protocol developed by Megyesi et al. (2005) [1] was investigated because it is commonly cited in the literature and the PMI formula created by Vass (2011) [2] was also investigated because of its 'universal' claim. Between December 2014 and March 2016, two experimental trials were undertaken during the Australian summer seasons. Sixteen adult pig carcasses were left to decompose undisturbed on a soil surface common throughout the Western Sydney region and the Megyesi et al. (2005) [1] and Vass (2011) [2] methods were applied to the remains during this period. The results showed the Megyesi et al. (2005) [1] method overestimated the known PMI of remains, whereas the Vass (2011) [2] formula underestimated the time since death of the remains in these trials. The inaccuracy may be attributed to the constants which make up the variables in these formulas and they may not reflect the values of these variables in the Western Sydney region.
法医人类学家传统上依赖于他们对分解阶段的知识和经验来评估死亡时间。然而，最近在世界范围内的不同地区已经开发出了新的和经验性的方法，这些方法提出根据观察到的分解变化以及重要的埋藏学变量来估计死后间隔时间（PMI）。尽管这些方法主要是特定于地理位置的，但有许多方法表明它们在全球范围内都是有效的，正是这些“通用”方法在澳大利亚没有得到充分的测试。本研究评估了两种在澳大利亚背景下的这些方法的准确性，特别是在大悉尼西部地区。研究了 Megyesi 等人开发的方案（2005 年）[1]，因为它在文献中经常被引用，并且还研究了 Vass（2011 年）[2]创建的 PMI 公式，因为它声称是“通用”的。2014 年 12 月至 2016 年 3 月，在澳大利亚夏季进行了两次实验性试验。16 具成年猪尸体被留在西悉尼地区常见的土壤表面上自然分解，在此期间，对尸体应用了 Megyesi 等人的（2005 年）[1]和 Vass（2011 年）[2]方法。结果表明，Megyesi 等人的（2005 年）[1]方法高估了已知的 PMI 遗骸，而 Vass（2011 年）[2]公式低估了这些试验中遗骸死亡后的时间。这种不准确性可能归因于构成这些公式变量的常数，它们可能无法反映西悉尼地区这些变量的值。
