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Blood or spores? A cautionary note on interpreting cellular debris on human skeletal remains

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An Erratum to this article was published on 17 March 2016

This article has been updated

Abstract

The identification of red blood cells on both skeletal human remains and decomposed corpses is of remarkable importance in forensic sciences, irrespective of its diagnostic value; their presence is often perplexing and difficult to interpret especially when in the context of decomposition and taphonomical variables. Some clinical research has focused on the morphological changes of red blood cells over time by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), but no research has investigated whether botanical structures can be confused for red blood cells. Since some literature has recently presumed the detection of erythrocyte-like cells on skeletal remains (even ancient) as surely erythrocytes, and most have never taken into consideration the chance of an origin different from blood, such as botanical, the present study aims at verifying the possibility of confusion between erythrocytes and botanical cells by applying SEM analysis and at highlighting the pitfalls in this particular issue through a test submitted to pathologists and natural scientists asked to discriminate between red blood cells and different vegetal structures (60 images obtained by SEM analysis). The results showed that although there are diagnostic features useful in identifying red blood cells from botanical structures, some spores resulted very similar to decaying red blood cells, which calls for attention and great caution when studying decomposed human remains.

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Change history

  • 17 March 2016

    Erratum to: Int J Legal Med (2015) 129:919–926

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Ethical standards

The authors declare that the present study comply with the current Italian laws.

Conflict of interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale e delle Assicurazioni, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via L. Mangiagalli 37, 20133, Milan, Italy

    A. Cappella, B. Bertoglio & C. Cattaneo

  2. Dipartimento di Bioscienze, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Celoria 26, Milan, Italy

    S. Stefanelli & M. Caccianiga

  3. Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via L. Mangiagalli 33, Milan, Italy

    C. Sforza

  4. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, CNR (Centro Nazionale Ricerca), Università degli Studi di Milano, Via L. Mangiagalli 31, Milan, Italy

    A. Rizzi

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  1. A. Cappella
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  2. S. Stefanelli
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  3. M. Caccianiga
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  4. A. Rizzi
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  5. B. Bertoglio
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  6. C. Sforza
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  7. C. Cattaneo
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Correspondence to A. Cappella.

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Cappella, A., Stefanelli, S., Caccianiga, M. et al. Blood or spores? A cautionary note on interpreting cellular debris on human skeletal remains. Int J Legal Med 129, 919–926 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1140-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-014-1140-8

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