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[mmkstarr]

There's no information in the announcements log. It just says they were found dead.

[PatrikLundell]

If they died through combat there ought to be something in the combat log (which might not help). There is also a DFHack command called deathcause or something like that.
If they're found dead in the tavern in a pile of vomit with a spilled goblet of booze they died of alcohol poisoning (or possibly a lethal "non lethal" bar room brawl).

[Shonai_Dweller]

Since all your dwarves are dead, just open Legends Mode and check the cause. "Suffocation" generally means "drank himself to death".

Kind of an awesome way for a fortress to fall. Partied to Death.

[anewaname]

If you have a rough fight and a bunch of dwarfs were wounded, a few might drop dead later from infected wounds.

If there was job cancellation spam about Give Water and Give Food jobs, the dwarfs might have starved to death after getting trapped somewhere.

Some dwarfs walk across ice during late-winter and as the ice melts, fall in and drown. Some are walking in low-water as winter sets in and get caught when the water freezes (you'll find them next spring).

If you see the announcement "Urist was found dead", you check the 'a'nnouncement and can 'z'oom to the location of the death and that often helps determine what happened.

[cyrohound]

Depends on what they were doing. If there's nothing in the combat log, check your food/drink stocks and see if your dwarves have an unimpeded path to them. Failing that, you could have a vampire, but buggy pathfinding is the most likely culprit. You'd think the most common cause of death would be combat in Dwarf Fortress. But for me it's actually my dwarves climbing trees to try to attack a barn owl or something, then being unable to get back down without someone chopping down a tree, and finally dehydrating/starving to death. A close second is Dwarves chasing things into pools and drowning. The 3rd most likely cause of dwarven deaths are people using the architecture in ways for which they were never intended; like jumping down wells, or ignoring that low traffic path and getting run over by a minecart, or jumping/getting knocked off ledges by people/monsters/idiocy/etc.

If your dwarves are getting stuck in trees, cut down the trees periodically, it's not like the elves and their wooden armor have ever been a serious threat to anyone. If your dwarves keep drowning you might want to create your own, artificial pool where they won't be interrupted by things and forget to to paddle (or whatever). If you have dwarves just getting killed by random creatures/monsters/etc. then limiting the time they spend outside with burrows and other such things is a good idea. If you have a vampire look for the dwarf with the thought "Urist McVampire was horrified after seeing Urist McVampireChow die" as that's a dead giveaway that they did it. Or if the vampire has been in your fort a long time, look for the dwarf thinking about not having alcohol in a long time. Vampires can't drink alcohol, but still get alcohol withdrawal; because of course they do.

[Bumber]

Engraving a memorial slab can usually get the cause of death. Not as reliable as legends mode, but you can do it while playing.

[Dunamisdeos]

"How do I figure out how/why all my dwarves died?"...... Trial and error?

[pognivet]

If you have dfhack installed you can do the following:

Hit k
Hover your cursor over the dead body
Switch to the dfhack console window and type "deathcause" and hit enter

It should show you how the creature died.

[Thisfox]

My method is to put another dwarf into the same location with the same job.

Also, slabs are great at explaining what went on. In my fort "dehydration" or "starvation" means "got stuck in a tree".

This might also be relevant to your question.