Animal Attacks and Injuries: Anthropological Findings

Human and animal interaction can lead to conflict. Animal attacks taken place for many reasons including means of self-defence, hunger, protection, and scavenging. Most animals under specific conditions will attack a corpse. Further, most animals have been reported as having bitten and attacked living humans. In these attacks, morphological characteristics are often left behind on the bone. These features can help identify the species of animal involved, and the wider context of the interaction. This chapter describes the recognizable characteristics that different species of animals leave on the bone and the different imaging methods available to help describe and identify the specific trauma.