[A case of examination of skeletal remains--how many bodies did they come from?]

We examined skeletal remains, with the main intention of estimating how many bodies they had come from. The samples were a skull with defect of its base, an upper jaw, two lower jaws (No. 1, No. 2) and two skeletal bodies (No. 1: with no skull, No. 2: consisting mainly of the lower extremities). In examining the mutual relationship among them, we utilized adjustability between the skull and the lower jaws at the temporomandibular joint, and between the lower jaws and the upper jaw in the biting manner of their teeth. We concluded that the most probable combination was of two bodies, i.e. [skull + lower jaw No. 1 + skeletal body No. 1] and [upper jaw + lower jaw No. 2 + skeletal body No. 2]. Beside the above presentation, we did comment on several problems in personal identification and estimation of postmortem interval.