Research Article Understanding the Crystallinity Indices Behavior of Burned Bones and Teeth by ATR-IR and XRD in the Presence of Bioapatite Mixed with Other Phosphate and Carbonate Phases Giampaolo Piga, 1 David Gonçalves, 2,3,4 T. J. U. Thompson, 5 Antonio Brunetti, 1 Assumpció Malgosa, 6 and Stefano Enzo 7 1 Department of Political Science, Communication, Engineering and Information Technologies, University of Sassari, Viale Mancini 5, 07100 Sassari, Italy 2 Research Centre for Anthropology and Health (CIAS) and Department of Life Sciences, Universidade de Coimbra, Calc ¸ada Martim Freitas, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal 3 Laboratory of Forensic Anthropology, Department of Life Sciences, Faculdade de Ciˆ encias e Tecnologia, Universidade de Coimbra, Calc ¸ada Martim Freitas, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal 4 Laborat´ orio de Arqueoci` encias, Direcc ¸˜ ao General do Patrim´ onio Cultural and LARC/CIBIO/InBIO, Rua da Bica do Marquˆ es 2, 1300-087 Lisbon, Portugal 5 School of Science & Engineering, Teesside University, Borough Road, Middlesbrough TS1 3BA, UK 6 Unitat d’Antropologia Biologica, Department de Biologia Animal, Biologia Vegetal i Ecologia, Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Ediici C, Bellaterra, 08193 Barcelona, Spain 7 Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Via Vienna 2, 07100 Sassari, Italy Correspondence should be addressed to Giampaolo Piga; giapiga@uniss.it Received 4 November 2015; Accepted 3 January 2016 Academic Editor: Jozef Kaiser Copyright © 2016 Giampaolo Piga et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. We have critically investigated the ATR-IR spectroscopy data behavior of burned human teeth as opposed to the generally observed behavior in human bones that were subjected to heat treatment, whether deliberate or accidental. It is shown that the deterioration of the crystallinity index (CI) behavior sometimes observed in bones subjected to high temperature appears to be of higher frequency in the case of bioapatite from teeth. his occurs because the formation of the -tricalcium phosphate (-TCP) phase, otherwise known as whitlockite, clearly ascertained by the X-ray difraction (XRD) patterns collected on the same powdered specimens investigated by ATR-IR. hese results point to the need of combining more than one physicochemical technique even if apparently well suitable, in order to verify whether the assumed conditions assessed by spectroscopy are fully maintained in the specimens ater temperature and/or mechanical processing. 1. Introduction he study of burned human remains is of considerable impor- tance in archaeology, forensic anthropology, and crime scene investigations. We can have the presence of ire in many sit- uations such as accidents and homicides. In fact ire is a com- mon method for attempting to conceal evidence of criminal activity inlicted on human victims. To know the temperatures at which a bone was subjected is a great index to better understand the modiications sufered by bone structures due to combustion [1] to pro- mote the diferentiation between natural and anthropogenic phenomena and to better interpret the techniques used in the resolution of forensic cases where cremation or other ire damage to remains is present [2–6]. At this microscopic scale, there are two key features inlu- enced by heating that are worth exploring: changes to the ele- mental composition and changes to the crystalline structure of the bone. Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Spectroscopy Volume 2016, Article ID 4810149, 9 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/4810149