| Sumario: | Introduction: Determination of bone origin is crucial in forensic investigations, especially when dealing with fragmented skeletal remains. Objective: To examine microstructural differences between human and non-human mammal long bone histology using histo-morphometry, and discuss the literature. Method: About 64 deceased persons from the mortuary and 65 animals from the zoo from Southeast Asia were collected. Thin sections from human and non-human bone samples were assessed for the following microstructural parameters i.e. cortical thickness, medullary diameter, osteon count, osteon diameter, osteon area, osteon perimeter, Haversian canal diameter, Haversian canal area, Haversian canal perimeter and Haversian lamella count per osteon using digital image analysis. Result: Discriminant function analysis showed correct classification rates for 81.4% of cases, with identification accuracy of 96.9% for human and 66.2% for non-human (P < 0.001). Cross-validation showed correct classification rates for 79.1% of cases with identification accuracy of 95.3% for human and 63.1% for non-human. Conclusion: It is, therefore concluded that microstructural parameters are useful in distinguishing human from non-human bones, and that region-specific equations should be used.
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