Differential diagnosis on ancient skeletal remains: conventional methods and novel application of the BSE-mode in SEM on a skull tumor of the early Bronze Age.

Tumor-like lesions on skeletal remains put relatively high demands on paleopathological diagnostic methods. In addition to conventional anthropological determination and non-invasive methods of macroscopical description and radiodiagnostic examination, bony lesions can be analyzed more accurately, but also more elaborately by light microscopy of invasive section preparations. In this study an irregular new bone formation on the excavated skull of a juvenile individual was also investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A cut-out block of the lesion was first observed in the secondary electron-mode (SE-mode), and then methylmethacrylate-embedded ground and polished sections were for the first time also evaluated in the back-scattered electron-mode (BSE-mode). Thereby, new insights into the bone structure and the development of this tumor-like lesion could be obtained which led to the diagnosis of a meningioma.