Paleopathology, Forensic Anthropology and Trauma Analysis of Human Remains

Dear Colleagues,

Human remains constitute the most informative biocultural archives for reconstructing health, disease, violence, mobility, and embodied life experiences across past populations. Rapid progress in imaging, biomolecular investigation, virtual anthropology, and laboratory sciences is profoundly reshaping both paleopathological interpretation and forensic anthropological practice.

We seek contributions that explore pathological conditions, with a focus on trauma within secure archaeological and medico-legal frameworks, integrating methodological rigour with cultural and historical contexts. We particularly encourage scientifically grounded studies that employ differential diagnosis in a precise and transparent manner, clarifying criteria, limits, and competing hypotheses.

We welcome contributions from multiple disciplinary perspectives on trauma dynamics, wound analysis, postmortem alterations–taphonomy, identification issues, funerary treatments, and biocultural interpretations in paleopathology and forensic sciences. Case reports and critical reviews are also particularly encouraged, as well as papers bridging case-based forensic reasoning, population-level analyses, and experimental or comparative approaches. Papers from closely related fields are equally welcome (e.g., archaeozoology/forensic zoology, entomology, crime scene analyses) if they are relevant to the main theme of this Special Issue.

By bringing together specialists in paleopathology, forensic anthropology, medicine, and archaeology, we aim to provide an updated framework for evaluating pathological and traumatic evidence and to strengthen methodological standards while fostering dialogue between disciplines concerned with the materiality of the human body in time.

Dr. Elena Varotto
Dr. Francesco Maria Galassi
Guest Editors

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