A Study on Mineral Changes on the Weathering Human Hair after Burial using EDX

Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, College of Medicine, Hanyang University, Seoul, Korea

Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Health Science, Eulji University, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi, Korea

Department of Anatomy, Catholic Institute for Applied Anatomy, College of Medicine, Catholic University, Seoul, Korea

Division of Forensic Medicine, National Forensic Service, Seoul, Korea

Department of Funeral Science, College of Health Industry, Eulji University, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi, Korea, hks@eulji.ac.kr

This study was undertaken to investigate mineral changes in weathered scalp hair after burial. EDX (energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy) analysis was performed to measure the presence of minerals on the hair surface. Twelve scalp hairs, buried for 5-40 years, were chosen from deceased individuals buried in tombs in Soha-Ri, Kyonggi-Do, and other regions in Korea. Three normal hairs were used as the control group. EDX data showed that carbon, oxygen, and sulfur were detected in hair collected from all three burial grounds. In contrast, calcium was only detected in hair collected from tombs in Soha-ri. The amounts of calcium and sulfur were found to decrease with time for hair collected from tombs in Soha-ri. Similar results were observed with sodium for hair collected from other regions. These results show region specific mineral detection and a decrease in the concentration of minerals with time. Consequently, it is suggested that changes in minerals concentration in weathered hair could be used as basic data in the field of forensic medicine.

Key Words : Weathering, Human scalp hair, Minerals, Energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, Forensic science

Original article