Human Variables in the

Postmortem Alteration
of Human Bone: Examples
from U.S. War Casualties
17
THOMAS D. HOLLAND
BRUCE E. ANDERSON
ROBERT W. MANN

Introduction
Taphonomy, in a traditional sense, has been the study of the transition of remains between
death and fossilization, and thus has been the concern of archaeologists and paleontologists,
but until relatively recently the study of taphonomic processes has not been routinely applied
to human remains in contemporary forensic situations, such as homicides and aircraft crashes.
Familiarity with the variables that contribute to the postmortem alteration of human remains
allows researchers and investigators to more accurately interpret postmortem events and
circumstances involving these remains.
The United States Army has had a long relationship with the anthropological community.
The army first established Central Identification Laboratories (CILs) during World War II
and continued the practice after the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Forensic and physical
anthropologists associated with these efforts form an impressive list: Kerley, McKern, Snow,
Stewart, Trotter, and others. In fact, few skeletal biologists or forensic anthropologists working
in the United States today have not employed techniques first developed and pioneered for
use on American war dead (e.g., McKern and Stewart 1957; Trotter 1970; and Trotter and
Gleser 1952, 1958).
In its most recent incarnation, the U.S. Army Central Identification Laboratory, Hawaii
(CILHI) serves as the executive agent for the United States government for the recovery and
identification of U.S. personnel killed or listed as missing in action from past military conflicts.
The number of missing or unaccounted for individuals includes over 2,000 individuals from
the Vietnam war; 8,000 from Korea; 80,000 from various World War II theaters; as well as
losses from a variety of Cold War incidents. While the mission is worldwide, the focus, certainly
over the last several years, has been Indochina.
Because the goal of CILHI is the recovery and identification of human remains, it is no
wonder that its scientists strive to better understand the taphonomic processes that alter the
condition of the remains and impact on both their recovery and identification.
One aspect of taphonomy frequently dealt with at CILHI is postmortem alteration, willful
or accidental, of human remains. It is important to know when, how, and possibly, by whom,
human remains have been altered before reaching the laboratory. For instance, it may be
vitally important to know whether bones unilaterally received, (e.g., turned in by local villagers
to Vietnamese officials who then turn them over to U.S. authorities) were burned as a result
of slash-and-burn agriculture or from an aircraft crash. Knowing the circumstances of the
alteration can provide evidence to support or refute witness information. If, for example,

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 information supplied by the local villager who initially handed in the remains is contradictory
to the information contained in U.S. records for the incident, the scientists and field investi-
gators must try to reconcile the differences. Contradictory evidence (including witness infor-
mation) weakens a case because it imposes an element of doubt. If a villager turns in human
skeletal remains that exhibit neither perimortem fracturing nor thermal alteration, yet states
that he recovered the remains from the smoldering wreckage of a high-performance jet
aircraft, one is justified in questioning the villagers credibility. In this case, the remains
constitute the best evidence, and the witness testimony is severely undermined.
How important is witness testimony? In Vietnam era cases, the accounts of local villagers
often are absolutely vital to the ultimate identification of an unaccounted for U.S. serviceman.
If the Vietnam War was figuratively fought on the television sets of American homes, it quite
literally was fought in the backyards of Vietnamese homes. The 1000 mph crash of a 26-ton
F-105 Thunderchief in your manioc patch quite likely is one of the singular events in your
life, and one that is difficult to ignore or forget. So are any human remains and mechanical
wreckage that result. Often the sites visited by CILHI are in some of the most materially poor
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regions of the world, and at these locales there are few aircraft crash sites (these being the
focus of the majority of CILHIs recoveries) that have gone untouched. Thus, unlike modern
aircraft crash investigators, CILHI does not have the luxury of arriving on the scene while the
patterns of wreckage and physical evidence are still fresh. Ours is an archaeological endeavor.
By the time a CILHI Recovery Team is on site, 20, 30, even 50 years (in the case of WW II
losses) after the incident, the trail may be unbelievably cold. Wreckage is gone, save for tiny
bits of often unidentifiable melted metal and plastic; remains are scattered and deteriorated;
the jungle has even reclaimed the pattern of scars left by impacting metal and flaming jet fuel.
Very often it is the testimony of witnesses to the event that provides a crucial link on which
the ultimate chain of identification is built. It is thus vital to be able to accurately evaluate
the eyewitness accounts of not only the incident but of the subsequent events, processes, and
conditions.
By understanding the taphonomic variables, CILHI scientists are better prepared to
answer questions such as:

1. Why, in many cases, does an archaeological excavation team recover so few bones and
teeth?
2. Where are the rest of the bones and teeth?
3. Why do excavation teams typically recover more remains of individuals who died as
ground losses (e.g., infantryman shot) and were buried, than individuals involved in
aircraft crashes?
4. Can a body ever be totally and completely consumed/destroyed by an explosion or fire?
5. What factors have resulted in the decay and, ultimately, destruction of human bones
and teeth?
6. Which of the variables causes the most destruction of bones and teeth? Using examples,
this paper will address some of the difficulties and questions arising through field and
laboratory activities conducted by CILHI.

Human Taphonomic Factors

Human remains suffer the same fate as anything else organic; the same taphonomic variables
work their transformation on the remains of a U.S. serviceman lost in a war as they would
on the remains of a musk deer or a water buffalo. Acidic jungle soils, monsoon rains, an
undocumented variety of insect and bacteria, and year-round heat and high humidity without
the benefit of a killing frost wreak their predictable havoc on the dead. And while the jungles
of the Pacific rim are certainly some of the most inhospitable environments in the world for

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 both the living and the dead, the remains of American war dead are exposed to an even greater
range of disruptive forces, simply by virtue of their being American. This is particularly
apparent with remains that have been unilaterally repatriated to the United States, that is,
remains are turned over to U.S. officials rather than recovered at the incident location by a
CILHI Recovery Team.

Artifacts of Curation
We know that the skeletal remains of U.S. servicemen have been curated by foreign govern-
ments. For example, though this fact was for a long time adamantly denied by the Vietnamese
government (this, understandably was and continues to be, a particularly sensitive political
issue), details supplied by a Vietnamese mortician purportedly involved in the official
warehousing of U.S. remains by his government, in fact illustrate how easily existing Viet-
namese cultural practices were adapted to a political end. In Vietnam, especially in the
northern provinces, bodies are placed in primary burials for a set period of time, generally
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around 36 months. At the end of this period, the (now skeletalized) remains are disinterred,
cleaned, and reinterred at a different location in a small ceramic coffin approximately the size
of a small footlocker. This custom seemingly was well preadapted to the need to dispose of
deceased American servicemen, especially aircrews lost over the northern provinces of Viet-
nam. Having learned from their earlier experience during the French Indochina war that
westerners will go to great lengths to get the remains of their dead back (the Vietnamese
government in fact repatriated the skeletal remains of French soldiers in return for some
economic considerations), the North Vietnamese Army established specific protocols for the
retrieval and storage of remains of U.S. servicemen. These protocols built on the existing
burial practices of the north and called for the initial interment of remains near the location
of loss, disinterment of the bones some time after, cleaning and disinfecting the bones at a
location in the north, and finally the placement of the bones in a small box. Instead of
reburying this box as local custom prescribed, however, the remains were stored in a warehouse
environment pending their return, for whatever leverage, to the United States.
In addition, these stored remains underwent periodic conservation. The mortician
reported that an important part of his job included removing the bones from their boxes on
a regular basis and drying them on a grate over a charcoal fire. This measure was taken to
check mold growth on the bones (an important consideration given the high humidity of the
region). After drying, the bones were then treated with an insect repellent solution of water
and oil of citronella, and then were reboxed (without much apparent appreciation of the fact
that reboxing bones damp with water and citronella may be the root of the mold problem).
Obviously, the more items are moved, the more deleterious are the things that can happen
to them (perhaps not surprisingly our success at extracting and sequencing DNA from these
warehoused remains has been mixed). The routine removal of skeletal remains from their box
to a drying grate and back to their box creates the potential for commingling. This procedure
introduces a novel form of bias into the taphonomic process in that it allows for the com-
mingling of individuals who at one time may have been separated in both time and space (by
distances of several hundred miles). Thus the detection of evidence of possible curation
becomes essential in evaluating the circumstantial evidence surrounding a case.

Vivianite Coloring
Over the years some remains recovered from Southeast Asia and brought to the CILHI for
identification have been found to have what appears to be paint or some other surface
application on many of the bones and some teeth. The substance typically appears in small
clusters or patches, can easily be scraped off, and varies from gray to aqua to bright blue in
coloration. Some members of the CILHI scientific staff initially interpreted the deposits as

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 paint that had been applied to the outer surfaces of the remains, thus raising the question of
why would anyone paint bones and teeth? Was it meant to somehow preserve the remains,
was it done for some religious purpose, or was it an inventory means?
In 1992 the Vietnamese government unilaterally repatriated three sets of remains to the
United States. The remains purportedly represented part of an American aircrew lost over
North Vietnam in the early years of the war. Several of the skeletal elements were covered
with large patches of this thick, bright-blue substance that resembled paint. Around most of
the patches, the cortical surface of the bone seemingly had been abraded, in what some
observers believed might have been an attempt to remove by sanding the suspicious substance.
A sample scraping of the blue pigment-like substance from three of the bones was received
and the sample sent to the Conservation Analytical Laboratory, Smithsonian Institution for
compositional analysis. The analysis established that the bluish substance was not paint, but
actually iron phosphate hydrate, a naturally occurring mineral known as vivianite that forms
on some surfaces in contact with soils after a period of about 15 to 20 years (C. Timosa,
personal communication).
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This analysis thus established two significant facts: first, the bones and teeth were not
painted (though they may still have been warehoused) and second, bones with vivianite have
been in contact with soil for at least 15 to 20 years. Far from being the smoking gun that
proved Vietnamese culpability on the warehousing issue, the vivianite deposits actually sug-
gested that the remains were in contact with the ground for a rather lengthy period of time.
The presence of deposits of this type obviously allows the CILHI scientists to ascertain
a minimal interment interval. The laboratory can now provide a scientific explanation for the
substance that in the past has been used to support the belief of purposeful alteration and
warehousing of human remains by the Vietnamese. (Of additional note, vivianite, in a
variety of hues, has now been detected on remains from Cambodia, Laos, Papua New Guinea,
and the Philippines.)

Bone Trading
As strange as any postmortem modification inflicted on bone by nature may be, nothing
compares with that wrought by living humans. As the archaeological record will attest, the
acquisition and alteration of human remains by other humans probably is as old as death
itself. In modern-day Southeast Asia a veritable cottage industry exists for the sale and barter
of U.S. remains, indeed, any skeletal element even suspected of being that of U.S. personnel;
the result is that few Vietnam War era aircraft crash sites have gone undisturbed, regardless
of how remote they may be.
During a Joint Field Activity (a U.S./Socialist Republic of Vietnam joint excavation in
1994) in Vietnam, one of the CILHI physical anthropologists was sent to Saigon to examine
remains in the possession of a Vietnamese farmer who reportedly found them on his property.
The remains were laid out and examined to determine whether they might be American.
Racial affiliation can best be determined by a visual examination of the facial bones and teeth:
Mongoloids generally have broad, flat faces, small nasal bones and shovel-shaped incisors;
the shoveling refers to the raised lingual, i.e., tongue side, edges of the incisors. The teeth of
indigenous Southeast Asian mongoloids also frequently have dark lingual staining (due to
frequent tea drinking and their diet), and moderate to severe calculus and occlusal (i.e., biting
surfaces) wear, widely believed to be a result of an abrasive diet. So, the combination of facial
and dental features typically proves to be the most reliable indicator of race.
When this set of skeletal remains was examined, it was found that two nearly complete
skeletons, including the small bones of the hands and feet, were present. The remains were
in a good state of preservation and exhibited rootlet infiltration, some osseous destruction
(commonly resulting from acidic soils), and were covered with reddish soil. All of the indi-
cators were consistent with prolonged burial in the ground.

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 Examination of the cranium and mandible revealed that the remains were those of two
young adult mongoloid males. What was unusual, however, was that the upper and lower
central incisors were missing from both individuals. The bags containing the remains were
examined, and ten loose teeth were found. This absence was brought to the attention of the
attending Vietnamese officials who then stated that the farmer was actually a known bone
dealer who tried to monetarily benefit by turning in remains believed to be those of missing
American service members. Although he had frequently turned in human remains, he had
yet to be reimbursed for his efforts because the policy of the United States and Vietnam is
that remains will not be bought.
Using an interpreter, the anthropologist posed a series of questions to the farmer to
ascertain what had happened to the missing teeth. The farmer first said that the teeth must
have fallen out when the remains were gathered (exhumed) from the grave. Further ques-
tioning, however, revealed that the remains were taken from the ground and immediately
placed in the bags the bags were placed near the head, and the skulls and mandibles were
placed in them therefore it was unlikely that the teeth had simply fallen out and been lost.
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What taphonomic process had been at work on the central incisors? From questioning,
it became apparent that the bone dealer had learned, by watching previous examinations, that
the central incisors provided significant racial information to anthropologists, so he simply
had removed them. That he selectively removed the incisors is supported by the fact that ten
single-rooted teeth (eight lateral incisors and two canines), also easily lost, were nevertheless
present in the bags. By removing the central incisors the trader hoped to pass the remains off
as American.
The Vietnamese officials were subsequently notified that the remains represented two
indigenous mongoloid males, and the dealer subsequently was arrested by Vietnamese police
accompanying the U.S. investigation team. (It should be noted that the Vietnamese govern-
ment appears to be cooperating fully with U.S. efforts, and the alteration of American remains
described here seems to originate with private individuals.)
Perhaps an even better example of the extent to which the cash-for-bones mentality may
go involves several sets of remains obtained by CILHI in 1990. The bones purportedly were
those of U.S. servicemen lost during the Vietnam War. The remains supposedly were smuggled
out of Vietnam by refugees who were, at that time, residing in a refugee camp in Malaysia.
Of particular interest were four femurs (two right and two left), each measuring somewhere
in the vicinity of 45+ cm (the distal ends were damaged or missing so no accurate measure-
ment could be obtained). Certainly 45 cm is not the proportions of a giant by any means
the femurs of Trotter and Glesers sample of white males in the military averaged 46.9 cm
but it is not exclusive of American servicemen by any means, and by contrast it is somewhat
longer than the average Vietnamese, Laotian, or Cambodian femur commonly encountered
at CILHI. Closer examination, however (and it did not require too close an examination),
revealed that the femurs had in fact been altered. In fact, eight femoral shafts had been cut
transversely four approximately two-thirds down the shaft and four approximately three-
fourths down the shaft and then reconstructed into four longer femurs. The new femurs
were held together by the insertion of a metal re-bar into the medullary cavity, and a mortar
disk measuring about 1 cm in thickness was used to secure the metal rod and to caulk
the joint. The femurs were then covered with a reddish clay slip to camouflage the joint. The
result was four longer femurs that apparently were more Western in appearance (Figure 1A, B).
Further analysis suggested that all of these remains were Southeast Asian Mongoloid in origin.
Certainly, altering the length of femurs represents one of the more ambitious attempts
to modify human remains, but it by no means is an isolated phenomenon. Other examples
of human alteration are common. The use of human remains, especially those purported to
be of Americans, in folk medicines is not a rumor. Human bones are bartered and sold in a
manner little different from tigers teeth and monkey skulls. The receipt at CILHI of human
remains from Southeast Asian sources that have been cut, sawed, drilled, and snapped occurs

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Figure 1 (A) Photograph of femurs altered to increase their lengths, thus making them appear
more Western. (B) Radiograph of same femurs. Note metal rod and cement filler.

with staggering frequency, as bone merchants ply their trade on the unwary. For example, a
common scenario might be: a bone trader approaches a local peasant known to be somewhat
disgruntled and informs him, in a friendly manner, that he has heard that the U.S. government
will reward highly for the return of U.S. remains (or, even better, will relocate the peasant in
the U.S. if he has some remains). The poor unsuspecting villager laments that, alas, he has
no such remains. Youre in luck, the bone merchant informs him, because I do (or heard
more commonly, I have a friend who has a cousin who has an in-law who does) and for
only x number of dollars (or Dong, Kip, Riel, etc.) I can be persuaded to part with them (or
I can convince my friend to convince his cousin). After the villager has rounded up every
penny his extended family has, the bone merchant will supply a bundle of bones (which our
analysis invariably shows to be Southeast Asian mongoloid), or, once again more commonly,
will supply a small fragment of bone, perhaps 2 cm in diameter, freshly cut or snapped from
his store. The undiagnostic fragment, along with an occasional paper rubbing of a U.S. dog
tag, ultimately finds its way to CILHI. In fact, it is not uncommon for CILHI to receive a

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 Figure 2 Bone fragments purportedly from multiple
individuals. Note the uniform size of the fragments. All
indicators suggest that these specimens originated from
a single skull.

package (via some government or nongovernment agency) with several dog-tag rubbings,
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each with an associated tooth and bone fragment. Analysis often suggests that the teeth,
purported to represent several individuals, originated in one mouth, and the bone fragments, all
of uniform size and exhibiting fresh cut marks, originated from a single skull (Figure 2). Like a
dope dealer stepping on his product, a bone dealer can make a single skull go a long way. Almost
always, these types of accessions prove to be indigenous Southeast Asian mongoloids.
Occasionally, the opposite has occurred, and rather than receiving a small bone chip,
CILHI has received a relatively intact set of skeletal remains, usually via a unilateral turnover
by some Southeast Asian government, that subsequently could be identified through dental
and anthropological analyses. Closer examination, however, revealed postmortem damage to
minor elements (e.g., ribs, metatarsals) consistent with having been caused by a knife, side-
cutters, or saw. (Some cases have even displayed score-and-snap breaks of the type so well
known to zooarchaeologists.) Thus alerted to the possibility that this set of remains was being
parceled out by bone traders, the CILHI staff could search through the laboratorys previous
accessions of small, undiagnostic fragments. In several cases, fragments of small, otherwise
nondescript, bone that found their way to CILHI by entirely different sources at entirely
different times could be matched up to these identified remains (Figure 3).

Figure 3 Bone fragments received

at CILHI via different sources at dif-
ferent times. The articulating frag-
ments underscore the manner in
which bone fragments are bought and
sold.

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 Figure 4 Human remains repatriated to the United States as those of a missing U.S. serviceman.
Note that the name written on the bones does not correspond to any unaccounted-for American
from the Vietnam War.
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In addition to cut marks, some of these bone fragments are labeled. If it is remembered
that many of these fragments are being bartered or sold on the assumption that the United
States will provide monetary rewards or arrange resettlement in the U.S., then it follows that
individuals would want to ensure their proprietary interest by attaching their name. Some-
times the bones are labeled with the province where they were obtained, and sometimes they
may be labeled with the name of the individual that the bones purportedly represent. CILHI
has one case, for example, where a tibia is labeled in bright purple paint with the name
Mossakowski (Figure 4); other bones in the accession are labeled with either an A or a
M (the Vietnamese government indicated that these remains were those of an American
named Alphonse Mossakowski). This name association might be a valuable piece of cir-
cumstantial evidence were it not for the fact that Mr. Mossakowski is not an unaccounted for
U.S. serviceman.
It should be noted, however, that Southeast Asians are not the only ones labeling bones.
Though not a routine practice, CILHI scientists sometimes label bones in noncritical areas
to facilitate analysis, thus adding to the postmortem alteration process. The North Koreans
apparently do likewise. Many of the skeletal remains recently received from the North Korean
government that purportedly were dug up in late 1993 bear early 1960s dates neatly pen-and-
inked on them. Other skeletal elements exhibit suspicious, recent-looking, abrasion marks
over faint ink stains, suggesting that an attempt to remove the dates by sanding was made
prior to their repatriation to the United States. Fortunately, thanks to a few less-than-consci-
entious North Korean workers, we now have a better idea of how long these remains have
been out of the ground.
The lucrative bone market of Southeast Asia, superimposed over an agrarian peasant
economy, leads to predictable ends. Crash sites of U.S. aircraft have literally been mined for
their rich yield of scrap metal, personal effects, and human remains. An example of this was
documented by a CILHI search and recovery team excavating a purported grave site in
Southeast Asia. A local villager provided the location of a grave that he claimed contained the
remains of an American pilot whose airplane crashed in the immediate area. Upon arrival at
the site, the search and recovery team noted what appeared to be evidence of the site having
been excavated previously. The team anthropologist noted a marked depression with probable
shovel marks present in the side wall. Immediately adjacent was a small hummock seemingly
formed by backfill. Controlled excavation of both the depression and the hummock yielded
human remains and fragments of a flight suit. The remains, subsequently identified as the
downed flyer, were very sparse, and it was the team anthropologists opinion that the grave
had in fact been excavated previously, possibly in response to the assumption that the remains

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Figure 5 Possible human bone fashioned into a religious icon. The small size and polished nature
of the bone rendered it unidentifiable.

included a mouth full of gold fillings. The few bits and fragments of clothing and human
remains were all that remained from this earlier, clandestine, exhumation.
When the American bone vein goes dry, the miners turn to indigenous cemeteries in
their belief that bones are bones. Partly in response to this, the U.S. government adopted a
policy of not paying for remains in the hope that it will somewhat dampen this market.
Of course Asian peasants are not the only ones to fall victim to the seductive tale of the
bone merchant. Recently, a well-meaning American visited Vietnam and was approached by
an identification-tag dealer (yet another surprising mercantile niche that is exploited with
some frequency). The dealer told the woman that he had information on the whereabouts of
U.S. remains. The woman ended up buying some human remains (ultimately determined to
be Southeast Asian mongoloid) in addition to 1444 U.S. dog tags in the sincere belief that she
was aiding the cause. Unfortunately, not one of the tags represents an American who died or
is unaccounted for in Southeast Asia.
And then, of course, there is the 1985 case involving a 2.5--4-cm polished-bone cross
to which was attached a silver crucified Jesus. The cross, suspended from a long silver chain,
was received at CILHI with the name association of an individual whose partial remains were
identified through the Da Nang mortuary in 1967. Due to the small size and highly polished
nature of the cross, it was impossible to definitively determine whether the bone was human
or nonhuman, and subsequently the item was dealt with as a nonassociable portion (Figure 5).

Incompetence or Intent
Remains unilaterally repatriated to the United States by the Democratic Peoples Republic of
[North] Korea all remains received from North Korea are unilateral since CILHI Recovery
Teams have not had access to that country show an interesting pattern of postmortem
events. A high percentage (over 90 percent of the earlier accessions) of the remains are missing
the bones of the face. A cranial vault generally is present, and sometimes the loose and
fragmented maxilla and mandible are present as well, though it usually is impossible to
demonstrate that these fragments originated from the same individual. Since the face typically

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 is the most racially diagnostic area, attempts to identify these damaged remains are hampered
significantly. In addition, identifiable dental fragments often cannot be linked to the remaining
skeletal elements because of the high rate of commingling seen among the Korean War
remains.
The pattern of postmortem damage was so uniform as to raise questions as to intent.
Were the North Koreans intentionally damaging the crania to preclude identifications? It
certainly seemed a possibility, though the intent remained elusive.
In late 1993 the North Korean government repatriated over 100 sets of skeletal remains.
In contrast to earlier turnovers, the condition of the remains showed some improvement.
Though commingling remained a significant problem, fewer of the faces were damaged. The
answer became clear a few months later. In early 1994 CILHI representatives met with North
Korean officials to discuss potential joint recoveries, and at that time met with a North Korean
archaeologist who had been detailed by his government to oversee the North Korean recovery
of U.S. remains. The archaeological protocols that the North Korean scientist was employing,
while somewhat dated by modern U.S. standards, were having a noticeable effect on the
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condition of recovered remains. It now became clear that the damaged faces previously seen
probably were the result of incompetent recovery techniques. Because the face commonly is
the skeletal region closest to the surface of the ground (in supine inhumations), it also is the
region first encountered by the blade of a shovel or bulldozer. It is very probable that gangs of
poorly motivated, skim-shovelling North Korean soldiers, prior to adequate supervision, had
simply sliced the faces off of the skulls before they even realized that they had encountered bone.
The remains returned from North Korea show some other interesting postmortem alter-
ations. A small minority of skeletons exhibit circular holes in certain bones. The holes vary
in diameter, from approximately 1 cm to 1 mm. All of the perforations are round, or oval,
and are smooth edged. Certainly they give the appearance of probe holes not unlike those
resulting from pot-hunting activities at archaeological sites in the United States. It is not
unreasonable to speculate that the North Koreans used probes to locate buried U.S. remains.
But in at least one case, the pattern of perforations is telling. Upon initial examination
the damage appeared to be random probing by an instrument slightly smaller in diameter
than a clothes hanger. When the skeleton was thoroughly examined, however, the pattern was
resolved. Perforations were located, not on surfaces that would ordinarily be exposed to
probing, but on articular surfaces. Furthermore, perforations of adjacent elements (e.g., the
distal humerus and the proximal ulna) were aligned (Figure 6). Many of the other elements
were missing their articular ends. The most parsimonious explanation is that this skeleton
had been disinterred for some time and that the bones were wired together, most probably
for use as a teaching or display specimen. Analysis of other skeletons repatriated at the same
time as this one revealed similarly damaged articular ends. In one case, the distal fibula tip
was broken and abraded through a perforation. It is possible that, like the abraded bones
discussed above, the articular ends of these long bones were intentionally removed to eliminate
evidence of articulation which would of course be a volatile political issue.

Conclusions
We now have some of the answers to our questions. Why do CILHI recovery teams often
recover so few bones of individuals lost in combat? Where are the other remains? Why so few
at crash sites as opposed to ground losses?
Time is the enemy of any researcher who deals with biological remains. Taphonomic
processes conspire to erase the proof of any organisms existence. Human beings are not
immune; in fact, human agents are themselves among the most potent in the taphonomic
process. The Vietnam War was waged in one of the most beautiful, and yet most inhospitable,
locations in the world. The high year-round temperature, the amazing variety of insect life,

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Figure 6 Holes drilled near the articular ends of bones. The pattern and placement of the holes
suggests that these were used to articulate the remains.

the constant unrelenting high humidity, and the acidic jungle soils and abundant vegetation
of Southeast Asia savage organic remains. Factor two to three decades into the equation and
it is a wonder that anything identifiable can be recovered. But the bones of American service-
men are particularly vulnerable because they are particularly valuable.
The attachment of monetary or other value to human remains is not new, nor is it
restricted to the Vietnamese or the North Koreans, as any visit to a major American anthro-
pology museum will illustrate. (In fact, CILHI recently took possession of a mongoloid trophy
skull in the possession of an American Vietnam veteran.) The difference may be that the
bones of U.S. servicemen have become, for some countries, a type of political tender or script.
They are not war trophies, as such, but are human scrap to be collected, sorted, weighed,
bartered, traded, and sold.

Acknowledgments
This paper would not have been possible without the hard work of past CILHI scientists.
Early drafts of this paper were read and commented on by William Grant, Scotty Law, William
Mayhew, and Johnie Webb, Jr. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not
be construed to represent the U.S. government.

References
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