Thanks.
Well, I’ve only read a book vaguely referencing it, but
a) nearly all bones will give you a decent idea of how big the person was;
b) many (most?) bones will let a trained person estimate an age range (people’s bones ossify and change over their life)
c) many bones indicate the sex of the person
d) individuals may have particular characteristics that would show up on bones (including past surgeries, etc.).
e) fillings and teeth are of course famously individually identifiable
and, not bones, but you well might find another item mixed with the bones that could help identify an individual (jewelry, etc.)
With a small list of possible victims, just knowing size, age and sex may well be enough to zero in on one person. Other clues will narrow things down.
I’ll just tack this question on here.
I recently drove past a burned out house trailer. The ruins of the trailer were odd, it looked like the fire consumed the walls and the roof essentially fell intact down to the floor. The roof essentially covering all of the insides of the remaining structure literally at a height of a few inches. Seems like this would be hard to investigate without bringing in heavy equipment and moving the remaining roof off of the floor, which apparently didn’t happen.
The question that occurred to me is; when the fire department showed up at this fire, if the owner of the house was outside safe and sound and said that everyone got out, would the department bother to look through the wreckage. The mystery writer in me wonders, if they don’t examine the rubble would that not be a good way to dispose of a body. Say the owner murdered someone, brought them back to their own house and torched it. With no one at the residence being missing, would the rubble get examined. Or could the owner essentially have the incriminating evidence bulldozed like in the 1945 story and build a new house atop that effectively hiding the evidence forever?
I found this site while doing research for a book I am writing. I was trying to find out if it was feasible in a remote mountain area (oil lamps, straw & ticking mattresses etc.) in 1945 for three adults to not be found (& assumed dead) in the rubble of a completely burned down home? If they were known to have been in the home when the fire started would anyone have even tried to look for remains in that day & age?
1945 is not THAT long ago. They would have looked for victims. Under the conditions you mentioned bodies would not have been totally consumed. They may have been covered with debris, but they would have still been there.