The Analysis of Burned Human Remains

A U.S. forensic anthropologist best known for his expertise in interpreting trauma to bone and a leading authority on saw and knife mark analysis. With 30 years of experience, he has assisted federal, state, local, and international authorities in the identification and analysis of human remains. A sought-after consultant in criminal cases, Dr. Symes has been qualified as an expert for both the prosecution and defense, testifying specifically on forensic tool mark and fracture pattern interpretation in bone, as well as blunt force, ballistic, burned and healing trauma in bone. Certified by the American Board of Forensic Anthropology and recently retired from the Board of Directors, Dr. Symes has lectured, consulted or testified on trauma cases, among them high-profile human rights cases, in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Peru, El Salvador, Indonesia, Kosovo, South Africa and Europe. In addition, he has authored more than 50 publications and delivered over 100 papers, lectures and workshops on a variety of forensic anthropology topics. He is co-editor of The Analysis of Burned Human Remains, Second Edition published by Elsevier / Academic Press.

1. Fire and Bodies
2. Patterned Thermal Destruction in a Forensic Setting
3. Burned Human Teeth
4. Analysis of Human Cremains
5. Thermally Induced Changes 
6. Bone Color
7. Time, Temperature and Oxygen Availability
8. Heat-Related Changes in Tooth Color
9. Investigations on Pre-Roman and Roman Cremation Remains
10. In the Heat of Pyre
11. Fire as a Cultural Taphonomic Agent
12. Putting Together the Pieces: Reconstructing Mortuary Practices from Commingled Ossuary Cremains
13. A Taphonomic Analysis of Human Cremains from the Fox Hollow Farm Serial Homicide Site
14. Early Archaic Cremations from Southern Indiana
15. Towards an Archaeology of Cremation
16. An 11,500-year old Human Cremation from Eastern Beringia (Central Alaska)
17. Italian Iron Age cremations
18. The analysis of heat-induced crystallinity change in bone
19. Death and Community Identity in the Trincheras Cremation Cemetery, Sonora, Mexico
20. Formation times in thermally altered enamel
21. Influence of heating regimes on dimensional and colorimetric changes of teeth
22. The Use Of Ethnographic Information In Cremation Studies: A Southeast Asian Example
23. Bone Color Changes in a Burned Burial Structure from Early Bronze Age Bab adh-Dhra', Jordan