Searches Reading the Bones

A pile of bones, six teeth, some clumps of hair and a pair of rotting trousers. Such are the meager contents of the grave at Embu. Somewhere in this grisly heap, forensic scientists last week sought to find a series of identifying fragments of the Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. The task, experts say, is a tough one, even with some of the best forensic minds in the world applying their talents. There is no doubt that certain facts about the skeleton will be established. The question is, will a complete identity emerge? Even in the most difficult cases, says Clyde Snow, an American consultant on the Mengele case, "it's amazing what a little piece of bone can do."

Though forensic medicine has become highly refined in recent years, the trained eye is still among the most reliable tools. Sex, for instance, can be identified by the shape of the intact pelvis: generally, a woman's has a wider opening to permit childbirth. Height can be calculated, within an inch or two, from the lengths of the major arm or leg bones. Race can be indicated by the texture of the hair or from certain features of the skull, among them the shape of the eye sockets and the spacing of the nasal apertures.

The Brazilian team has already concluded that the remains are those of a Caucasian male. Their estimate of his stature conforms with Mengele's recorded height of 5 ft. 8 1/2 in.

Age is a more difficult problem. Because bone growth in humans occurs according to a more or less predictable timetable, forensic experts can usually tell the age of a skeleton of a child or young adult. But most of the skeletal changes are complete by about age 45, when the flat bones of the skull have fused.

Thus clues as to whether the skeleton from Embu belonged to Mengele, who would have been 67 when the body was buried, or to a man ten or even 15 years younger, must be gleaned from studying subtle degenerative changes in the teeth and microscopic changes in bone tissue.

Teeth provide important clues. Their alignment, the shapes of the roots, the patterns of wear and dental work are different in each individual. "It may be one tooth that puts the whole story together," says Snow, a forensic anthropologist from Norman, Okla. The rest of the skeleton can also yield information. Gunshot wounds, fractures and other major injuries often leave lifelong traces. So can diseases such as syphilis and tuberculosis and bone disorders like osteomyelitis, an infection from which Mengele is said to have suffered.

In addition, "bone responds to what we do," says Anthropologist Stephanie Damadio of the Smithsonian Institution. A clarinetist's jaw will sometimes suggest his profession or a waitress's developed arm strength may be evident in the bone.

The skull holds clues. Photosuperimposition, in which video cameras are used to merge an image of the skull with a photograph of the suspected dead person's face, can often reveal a matching structure. The face can be reconstructed on the skull with some degree of accuracy by applying layers of clay.

- But the success of the Mengele investigation will ultimately depend on the availability and quality of old documents, dental charts, X rays and medical records. "This is the decisive point and, I think, the weak point in the Mengele case," observes Rainer Knussmann, an anthropologist at the University of Hamburg. Mengele's 1938 dental records (a written description of the teeth, not including X rays), received last week from West Germany, proved to be "imprecise" and "incomplete," according to Ayrton Martini, director of the Sao Paulo state police scientific department. Also, there is scant information on a pelvic fracture Mengele is said to have suffered in a wartime motorcycle accident. The injury seems to accord with hip abnormalities found on the skeleton, but unless old X rays of Mengele's pelvis turn up, it may be impossible to prove a correlation.

Forensic scientists ultimately come to a verdict much as a jury does, judging from the preponderance of carefully examined evidence. "We deal with the law of probabilities," says Dr. Marcos Segre of the University of Sao Paulo. "We are scientists and not magicians."