THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN DETERMINING THE CAUSE OF DEATH
The positon of the bodies found in Pompeii suggests that the victims suffocated dying agonizing deaths due to the hot gases and ashes that had flooded the air they were breathing. Some of the plaster body cast depict people attempting to cover their mouths and noses as if in an attempt to prevent them from breathing in the air around them. Through scientific analysis we can be certain that the deaths of these people were indeed excruciatingly painful. After just one breath, the mix of hot carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen chloride and sulphur dioxide, would have seared the respiratory system. Then once these gases mix with fine ash, it formed a kind of cement in the lungs. The second breath would then thicken this mixture and on the third and final breath, the wind pipe closed eventually killing them.
(http://decodedpast.com/how-did-the-people-of-pompeii-die/7674)
(http://decodedpast.com/how-did-the-people-of-pompeii-die/7674)
SCIENTIFIC DATING METHODS
Potassium-Argon dating is a precise method of dating and is reliable in dating objects that are two thousand years old or younger, Potassium-Argon dating is a extremely important technique in the documenting Pompeii and Herculaneum.
In order to gain certainty on whether or not the eruption of Mount Vesuvius did in fact occur during 79AD, historians and archaeologists used the method of Potassium-Argon dating. It gave an accurate age for the pumice shot out by the volcano, confirming the date of the eruption to be 79AD. This confirms that the bodies found in both Pompeii and Herculaneum died in 79AD.
(http://www.pompeiana.org/News/1997/08_28_97%20-%20Precise%20dating%20of%20the%20destruction%20of%20Pompeii%20proves%20argon-argon%20method%20can%20reliably%20date%20rocks%20as%20young%20as%202,000%20years.htm)