Perimortem Trauma
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/past/images/p04106a.jpg
Perimortem trauma
is trauma that is sustained at or about the time of death.
Perimortem
trauma is tricky to distinguish. If you are analyzing trauma
to a bone, and you have concluded that it is not antemortem trauma,
because there are no signs of healing, and you conclude that it is not
postmortem
trauma, because you see differences in colour (staining) of the broken
area with the surrounding area, and the break doesn't look as if it was
broken when the bone was dry. Then the only option left is
perimortem.
This process of elimination method is known as the "perimortem
problem", as perimortem trauma is not cut and dry. It takes a
skilled anthropologist to determine what kind
of trauma has been done to a bone.