Table 1. The five decompositional stages defined in this study and their descriptions.

Decompositional stage	Description	Literature report
(1) Fresh	From death until the first signs of bloating	[1], [49], [52], [54]
	Autolysis
(2) Bloated	Putrefaction mechanism generates accumulation of breakdown gases causingbloating of the corpse. The first signs of the bloated stage appear in the abdomen.Then the whole body swells	[1], [52], [54], [56]
	Anaerobic fermentations
(3) Active decay	Darkening of the skin	[1], [52], [54], [56]
	The skin is breaking up and the body began to deflate. Protein sources arebroken down into fatty acids and other decomposition products such as skatole,indole, cadaverine, putrescine
(4) Advanced decay	Corpse dries and the remains are skin, cartilage, hair, bones and some fragmentsof flesh	[52], [54], [56]
(5) Dry remains or skeletonisation	The only remains are bones and hair	[52], [54]
	Diagenesis