Large-scale violence in Late Neolithic Western Europe based on expanded skeletal evidence from San Juan ante Portam Latinam.

This paper explores the nature and extent of conflict in Late Neolithic Europe based on expanded skeletal evidence for violence from the San Juan ante Portam Latinam rockshelter in present-day Spain (ca. 3380-3000 cal. BC). The systematic osteological re-examination has identified 65 unhealed and 89 healed traumas-of which 77 were previously undocumented-consistent with aggression. They affect 23.1% of the 338 individuals represented. Adolescent and adult males are particularly affected (44.9% of the 107 identified), comprising 97.6% of unhealed trauma and 81.7% of healed trauma recorded in individuals whose sex could be estimated and showing higher frequencies of injuries per individual than other demographic subgroups. Results suggest that many individuals, essentially men, were exposed to violence and eventually killed in battle and raids, since warriorship is mainly restricted to this demographic in many societies. The proportion of casualties is likely to have been far greater than indicated by the 10.1% individuals exhibiting unhealed trauma, given the presence of isolated cases of unhealed postcranial trauma and of arrowheads potentially having impacted into soft tissues. This, together with skeletal indicators of poor health and the possible socioeconomic outcomes evidenced in the region, suggest wider social impacts, which may relate to a more sophisticated and formalized way of warfare than previously appreciated in the European Neolithic record.

Intrinsic and extrinsic factors that may influence DNA preservation in skeletal remains: A review.

The identification of skeletal human remains, severely compromised by putrefaction, or highly deteriorated, is important for legal and humanitarian reasons. There are different tools that can help in the identification process such as anthropological and genetic studies. The success observed during the last decade in genetic analysis of skeletal remains has been possible especially due to the refinements of DNA extraction and posterior analysis techniques. However, despite these progresses, many challenges keep influencing the results of such analysis, mainly the limited amount and the degradation of the DNA recovered from badly preserved samples. By now, there is still no wide-range knowledge about post-mortem kinetics of DNA degradation. Therefore, taphonomy studies can play a key role in the reconstruction of post-mortem transformations that skeletal remains, and consequently DNA, have undergone. Thus, the goal of the present review focuses on the assessment of the literature regarding the possible effect of intrinsic (characteristics of the bone) and extrinsic (environmental) factors on the state of preservation of skeletal remains recovered in a terrestrial environment and their genetic material. The establishment of useful indicators describing the state of the remains is a key factor in order to determine their suitability for posterior biomolecular analysis.

Spanish Civil War: The recovery and identification of combatants.

In the context of exhumations of individuals who died during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), since the year 2000, over 780 mass graves have been excavated using archaeological methodology and following forensic protocols. Most of the recovered more than 9600 bodies have tended to be from the Republican civil population, the majority having been executed extrajudicially. However, a number of exhumations relate to the remains of soldiers who died in combat. In fact, approximately 100 individual or mass graves have been investigated and exhumed, containing the remains of combatants. These burials tend to be in the same location where they fell, usually in the front line, or close to the field hospitals where they went after being wounded initially. During the recovery of the human remains, a number of artefacts related to the uniform as well as personal effects have been found. An interdisciplinary approach from archaeology, anthropology, genetics, history and other disciplines has enabled the identification of some of these combatants. The aim of this paper is to present the data obtained from these combatants and highlight the work undertaken in Spain, and the efforts by scientists to exhume, identify and return the remains to relatives where possible.

Genetic identification of a war-evacuated child in search of his own identity for more than seventy years.

V. M. E. was evacuated when he was a young boy in 1939. He left an aunt and cousins in Spain (G. E. family). He was adopted in Belgium by the D. family and thus his new name became V. D. He has been unable to remember his childhood before his adoption, a symptomatology compatible with amnesia for personal identity, presumably because he may have suffered a head contusion before or during his exodus. Identification tests were performed on blood samples from V. D. and V. G. E., a mitochondrial cousin of the missing boy. V. G. E. and the missing boy have a common mitochondrial ancestor, their maternal grandmother. The mitochondrial profile of both samples turned out to be highly specific, which allowed the genetic identification of V. D. as V. M. E. As a result, V. D. has reclaimed his past and reunited with his former family in Spain after more than seven decades. As far as we know, this is the first report describing the application of mitochondrial DNA in the identification of a person evacuated during the Spanish Civil War suffering from amnesia for personal identity.

New radiocarbon dating and demographic insights into San Juan ante Portam Latinam, a possible Late Neolithic war grave in North-Central Iberia.

OBJECTIVES: San Juan ante Portam Latinam is one of a small number of European Neolithic sites meeting many of the archaeological criteria expected for a mass grave, and furthermore presents evidence for violent conflict. This study aims to differentiate between what is potentially a single episode of deposition, versus deposition over some centuries, or, alternatively, that resulting from a combination of catastrophic and attritional mortality. The criteria developed are intended to have wider applicability to other such proposed events. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Ten new AMS 14 C determinations on human bone from the site, together with previously available dates, are analyzed through Bayesian modeling to refine the site's chronology. This is used together with the population's demographic profile as the basis for agent-based demographic modeling. RESULTS: The new radiocarbon results, while improving the site's chronology, fail to resolve the question whether the burial represents a single event, or deposition over decades or centuries-primarily because the dates fall within the late fourth millennium BC plateau in the calibration curve. The demographic modeling indicates that the population's age and sex distribution fits neither a single catastrophic event nor a fully attritional mortality profile, but instead may partake of elements of both. DISCUSSION: It is proposed that San Juan ante Portam Latinam was used as burial place for the mainly adolescent and adult male dead of a particular or multiple violent engagements (e.g., battles), while previously or subsequently seeing use for attritional burial by other members of one or more surrounding communities dead over the course of a few generations. The overall bias towards males, particularly to the extent that many may represent conflict mortality, has implications for the structure of the surviving community, the members of which may have experienced increased vulnerability in the face of neighboring aggressors.

Preserved brains from the Spanish Civil War mass grave (1936) at La Pedraja1, Burgos, Spain.

During the excavation of the Spanish Civil War mass grave at La Pedraja (Burgos, Spain), 104 individuals were found interred within it, 45 of which displayed brains that were preserved but dehydrated and reduced in size. This exceptional finding has resulted in the formation of a multidisciplinary team, with the aim of obtaining as much information as possible and to primarily understand the taphonomic phenomena that has led to the preservation of these brains. The following types of analyses were undertaken on three of these brains: macroscopy, histology, radiology, chemical-toxicology, genetics, chemical analysis of the soil and 3D modelling for stereolithography. The historical context was considered, plus all archaeological and other forensic data provided by the investigation of the mass grave. The results of the analyses on these morphologically identifiable human brains confirmed the presence of nerve structures, fatty acids, and in one case ante-mortem evidence for an intracranial haemorrhage. The fatty acid profile corresponds to the process of saponification. Therefore, the interpretation is that the preservation of these brains at the mass grave of La Pedraja was due to the saponification process, which was influenced by the manner and cause of death, the chemical composition of the brain, the physicochemical properties of the soil and the meteorological conditions at the time.

Digging up the recent Spanish memory: genetic identification of human remains from mass graves of the Spanish Civil War and posterior dictatorship.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and posterior dictatorship (until 1970s) stands as one of the major conflicts in the recent history of Spain. It led to nearly two hundred thousand men and women executed or murdered extra-judicially or after dubious legal procedures. Nowadays, most of them remain unidentified or even buried in irretraceable mass graves across Spain. Here, we present the genetic identification of human remains found in 26 mass graves located in Northern Spain. A total of 252 post-mortem remains were analyzed and compared to 186 relatives, allowing the identification of 87 victims. Overall, a significant success of DNA profiling was reached, since informative profiles (≥ 12 STRs and/or mitochondrial DNA profile) were obtained in 85.71% of the remains. This high performance in DNA profiling from challenging samples demonstrated the efficacy of DNA extraction and amplification methods used herein, given that only around 14.29% of the samples did not provide an informative genetic profile for the analysis performed, probably due to the presence of degraded and/or limited DNA in these remains. However, this study shows a partial identification success rate, which is clearly a consequence of the lack of both appropriate family members for genetic comparisons and accurate information about the victims' location. Hence, further perseverance in the exhumation of other intact graves as well as in the search of more alleged relatives is crucial in order to facilitate and increase the number of genetic identifications.

Marks of autopsy and identification of victims of human rights violations exhumed from cemeteries: the case of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

The presence of autopsy marks in human skeletal remains indicates a medicolegal procedure related to ascertaining the cause and manner of death. We present here four cases where signs of autopsy were observed in the remains recovered from mass graves and cemeteries of prisoners from the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), victims of extrajudicial executions, and of death in prison, respectively. With respect to the former, historical evidence indicate that during the first weeks after the coup, official removal of cadavers and autopsy procedures were carried out to the first victims of extrajudicial killings, whose corpses were found abandoned in the road. Once the civil war was established and systematic extrajudicial killings were systematic, official military orders were issued to stop standard forensic proceedings. Therefore, autopsy marks observed in the remains exhumed from mass graves located in cemeteries may be indicative of an earlier chronology of the killings, and this information proved to be relevant for the identification process in one of the cases presented. In a cemetery of political prisoners, autopsy signs were also observed in two skeletal remains and in the official records of two prisoners, a corroboration of information also relevant for the identification process. These findings indicate that autopsy marks can be found in the remains of victims of human rights violations exhumed from cemeteries. Skeletal and archival information could be useful for the identification process in other cases of large-scale violence, where the first victims of extrajudicial executions were buried unidentified in cemeteries after autopsy procedures.