Infectious osteitis in paleopathology: Significance of X-ray analysis

Faced with numerous expressions of diseases, both the experienced and novic e paleopathologist is forced to rely on early reports and modem cases studi es to diagnose lesions in dry bone specimens. Most often, he or she is comp elled to accept the most likely diagnosis from among a suite of probable ca ndidates. We used X-Ray diffraction, X-Ray Fluorescence and Scanning Electr on Microscopy in order to determine if some cristallographic and elemental patterns were present.