Quantifying the pre-colonization interval with human remains

There is currently a knowledge gap in forensic entomology concerning the pre-colonization interval (pre-CI) of human remains. We aimed to close this gap by generating a human-specific baseline pre-CI dataset. From 2019–2021, we placed 54 human donors (N = 21, 5, 14, 14 in the fall, winter, spring, and summer, respectively) unclothed on the ground surface at the Anthropological Research Facility (ARF;  University of Tennessee). Observations for initial oviposition were taken at least once a day. We also examined the effects of season, temperature, relative humidity (RH), and human body-mass index (BMI) as variables that could affect the duration of the pre-CI. Pre-CI’s ranged from 1.7–96.2 h (22.2–534 ADH) in the fall, 65.5–2760 h (248.9–5664.9 ADH) in the winter, 1–291.3 h (6.7–786.5 ADH) in the spring, and 1–28.5 h (43.9–520.2 ADH) in the summer. Unsurprisingly, significantly longer pre-CIs were observed in the winter (ANOVA, P < 0.001). In the summer, spring, and fall, shorter pre-CIs were associated with higher minimum temperatures (P < 0.010 for all). Shorter pre-CIs were also associated with lower minimum RH ( < 80%) in the summer (P = 0.007) and higher minimum RH ( >30%) in the fall (P = 0.014). Though no significant abiotic effects were found in the winter, higher BMI was associated with longer pre-CIs in winter donors (P = 0.049). Our dataset represents the first effort to quantify the pre-CI with human remains. Future efforts will validate this dataset for estimations of the postmortem interval.