Human Remains

The importance of human remains from sites of conflict

Occasionally, human remains are found on or in close proximity to battlefields and if these are studied osteologically, they may provide invaluable data on the nature of the conflict.

Human remains are a vital source of information on past conflicts, as they can provide evidence, which might support or dismiss historical documents or propaganda.

Human remains can provide evidence for the ferocity of battles, the types of weapons used, and the way prisoners were treated, supply information on either disrespect by mutilation, or by careful treatment, dignity and respect. They can also offer information on the sex and age of the combatants, as well as their health status. For example, the soldiers may have been of a specific height, or may have been chosen at random from the general populace.

The skeletal remains can also give an insight into whether individuals had fought in earlier battles and were experienced soldiers, or whether they were young and inexperienced. Analysis of human bones may also provide particulars on the type of treatment available in a given period for injuries following a conflict.

The discovery of human remains from conflicts can also provide a glimpse into post-battle practices. Were the dead combatants buried where they fell, taken to a cemetery and buried individually, gathered together and placed in a mass grave on or off the battlefield or left unburied and exposed on the battlefield? Were the combatants stripped before burial, interred in an apparently religious manner or simply dumped into pits? Or were they taken back to their ancestral burial grounds to be interred in specially constructed elaborate tombs as befitted their status?

Following the Battle of Agincourt, for example, the body of the recently killed Duke of York was boiled down and his bones returned to England for burial (Curry 2000, 165). Evidence of such treatment to the skeleton might, to the untrained eye, resemble practises similar to those of cannibalism.

Human remains from battle sites are thus extremely important in order to understand the archaeology of conflict and should not only be treated with the respect that human remains demand, but also as a valuable archaeological resource.

Possible circumstances of skeletal discovery

Human remains have been reported from battlefield sites from a variety of contexts. These include the following:

Mass graves

Mass graves are the most well-know form of burial of dead combatants. This type of burial has been applied to individuals who died as a result of conflicts from a range of periods, from the Neolithic to the present day. Mass burial is an effective manner of disposing of a number of individuals who have died at the same time.

Individuals may be laid out in mass graves in an orderly manner side by side or head to toe, or may be completely intermixed. It can often be observed that human nature has taken over from religious practices and individuals were interred using the most space-saving method possible. This is especially so if a large number of dead require burial. Similarly, pre-existing negative features, such as ditches or pits might be used in order to speed up the disposal of the dead.

Exposure on the Battlefield

A common type of disposal of human remains in some periods following a battle was simply to leave the dead on the battlefield. This might have been done deliberately, with the aim of using the dead as an example of one’s power and brutality, or alternatively to be able to leave the area quickly and avoid further conflict. Following the Battle of Agincourt, the English army, fearing they were not yet out of danger from the still larger French forces, left most of the dead on the battlefield (Curry 2000).

Exposure might also have been practised for religious or cultural reasons, such as in the Viking period, when ravens were supposed to pick at the dead warriors, thus it was believed that they would be able to enter Valhalla, the eternal hall of the slain (Simek 1996).

Human Remains in Pits

It is also possible, as in an example from the battlefield of Towton (1461) that individuals had been interred in pits in the centre of the battlefield, but had later been disinterred, in order to be reburied in a Christian manner in consecrated ground. There are historical records from Towton, which suggest that such burial pits were opened in 1484, 23 years after the battle, on the orders of King Richard III.

These have been discovered and archaeologically evaluated as part of the Towton Battlefield Archaeological Survey. The pits contain human remains, which consist almost entirely of disarticulated teeth, small bones or bone fragments, with the exception of a few articulated bone elements.

The discovery of semi-articulated bone elements suggests that the bodies were still at least partly fleshed upon excavation in 1484. The archaeological and osteological interpretation of these bones infers that they were missed or were disregarded by the medieval excavators who emptied the graves.

Other Burial Contexts

Other battle-related contexts containing human remains include those of ships, such as the seventeenth century Swedish warship, the Kronan, which sank with 500 seamen and 350 soldiers on board. Excavations of the ship started in 1981 and the human remains discovered have shown that a vicious struggle took place to get off the ship before it sank (During 1997).

Battle victims may also be interred within buildings, possibly under collapsed walls, such as at the 12th century crusader garrison of Vadum Iacob Castle, Galilee, Israel, where individuals bearing sword and arrow injuries were found under a collapsed wall within the castle (Mitchell et al 2004).

Individuals may alternatively be buried in individual graves near the battlefield (several individuals were found in such graves at Towton) or within a churchyard cemetery, such as at the medieval cemeteries of Fishergate House, York (Holst 2005), and Hull Magistrate’s Court, Hull (Holst et al forthcoming), where several of the male skeletons bear fatal weapon injuries.

Charnel houses or burial chambers may also contain battle victims. In these cases, it is probable that the bones are disarticulated, and it is therefore unlikely that individual skeletons can be reconstructed. The caves at Baumes-Chaudes and L’Homme Mort in France were used during the Neolithic period for charnel and contained individual bones exhibiting injuries (Wilson 1901).

Leglislation regarding human remains

A principal assumption is that all human remains should be treated with dignity and respect at all times. They should also not be disturbed without good reason. However, when they have been disturbed, it has been shown that they are a vital source of scientific information (Church Archaeology and Human Remains Working Group 2004). The basic legislative framework regarding human remains is listed in Appendix F.

English Law

It is against the law in England to disturb human remains without lawful authority (English Heritage and the Church of England 2005).

The Home Office can authorise the disturbance of human remains (Church Archaeology and Human Remains Working Group 2004, 6), although both Planning Conditions and Ancient Monument consent (Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979) may also affect authorization to disturb human remains.

Ecclesiastical law applies to those cemeteries subject to the legal effects of consecration, although this is not necessarily so if the burial ground is no longer in use (see the Disused Burial Grounds Act 1884 and its Amendment Act of 1981, English Heritage and the Church of England 2005).

Scottish Law

In Scotland, it is a crime to disturb, or attempt to disturb human remains without lawful authority (Historic Scotland 2003, 21).

In Scottish law, there is no distinction between burial in formal cemeteries and interment in other places (ibid, 22).

Any human remains discovered should be reported immediately to the local police or Procurator Fiscal�s office and further disturbance must cease until permission to continue has been granted by the legal authorities (ibid, 11). If human remains are known to be at a site, which is about to be disturbed, the police should be informed prior to commencement of work at the site.

Welsh Law

There is currently no law, which applies specifically to human remains discovered in Wales, although generally speaking laws that apply in England should be seen as being pertinent to Wales. It is therefore important to seek advice in specific cases.

Excavation of human remains from sites of conflict

Any human remains should be treated according to the guidelines listed below. The Institute of Field Archaeologists Technical Paper No. 13 in particular, lists how human remains should be excavated and treated during post-excavation processing and analysis.

During the excavation of human remains from sites of conflict, a metal detector scan should always be undertaken at regular intervals, so that fragments of metal associated with the bones can be identified in situ. These might represent complete artefacts or fragments of artefacts that have broken off during the conflict.

It is also important to radiograph all, especially ferrous, artefacts found in association with the skeletal remains as soon as possible following their discovery before they deteriorate further.

Instant artefact interpretation should be avoided, especially if such an interpretation has an influence upon how the artefact should be treated. Some medieval arrowheads look remarkably similar to square section carpentry nails. The false assumption that the excavation has been contaminated by the latter might allow important evidence to go un-investigated.

Human remains from sites of conflict can present particular problems, such as mixing of individuals in mass graves, danger of loss of those bone elements that were severed during the conflict and essential reconstruction of fragmented skulls.

Consequently, it is paramount to have trained osteologists on site, or to work with archaeologists who have been sufficiently trained in osteology to be able to separate the bones of intermixed individuals.

The order in which the skeletal material in a mass grave is lifted and bagged is also important. For example, the small bones of the hands and feet should always be lifted prior to the rest of the limbs to which they belong as it is easy to forget which hand or foot belonged to which individual when several are in close proximity to each other.

At the mass grave from the Battle of Towton (1461), it was found that excavation of separate individuals would have been extremely difficult for non-osteologists. Excavation of mass graves without osteologists can lead to the loss of the integrity of individual skeletons, thus causing enormous loss of information, including age, sex, general health, previous injuries and so on.

Such was the case when the mass graves from the Battle of Visby, Gotland, Sweden (1361) were excavated in the early decades of the twentieth century (Thordeman 1940). The burial area at Visby was divided into grids and all the bones from one grid square were excavated and recorded by the square in which they lay, leading to the fragmentation or complete loss of information on individual skeletons.

It is vital to excavate mass graves from the edges of the graves, or from planks or cradles above the grave, with the aim of causing the least amount of disturbance as possible to the skeletal remains. Each skeleton should be exposed individually, in stratigraphical order. If feasible, as many skeletons as possible should be exposed at once so long as the integrity of the information remains intact.

The skeletons should be photographed vertically using photograph markers, such as a scale of set length. Ideally, four markers, photographed and surveyed in place using a Total Station, or electronic theodolite should be used. The photograph can then be downloaded onto a computer, rectified using the four recorded points and the outline of the skeleton drawn using a Computer Aided Design (CAD) program. These can then be superimposed upon each other to view the deposit, as it would have been before excavation (Figure 2).

However, in cases of mass graves, it is vital to survey in as many points as possible on the skeleton so that it’s three dimensional aspect can be recorded. At the mass grave at Towton, sixteen set points of the skeleton were surveyed using an EDM (Sutherland 2000b). These included a point on top of the centre of the sphere of the skull, one on each shoulder, elbow, wrist, hip joints, knees and ankles and three on the length of the spine. This enabled the excavators to reconstruct the skeletons in 3D form on the computer, providing a model of the mass grave, which could be viewed from all angles. This model aided in establishing the sequence and manner of burial.

Each individual skeleton should be lifted separately and the bones should be placed into clearly labelled finds bags, stating the individual skeleton number.

It is paramount that all bones and fragments of ossified cartilage belonging to the skeleton, such as the thyroid, are carefully sought, with the aim of gaining the maximum scientific information possible on the individual skeleton. Care must be taken not to lose fragmented skull elements, or elements within the skull such as the small bones within the ear, finger and foot bones, as well as those bone elements, which have been severed from the main parts of the skeleton at the time of death or during any subsequent disturbance by human means or taphanomic processes, such as tree roots, rodent activity, etc.

Disarticulated human remains in pits should be excavated with the same care as individual skeletons. In such cases, it might be possible to establish whether some of the bones were still anatomically connected when the primary excavation of the burials took place.

Again, it is important that individuals with thorough osteological training excavate the skeletal remains. In this instance it is also vital not to lose those bone elements that have been severed or fractured off. Surveying of a 3D position of each bone fragment, which is then placed in a small bag with the survey data on it, can aid in the later creation of a computer reconstruction model. In case of charnel burials, it is essential to attempt to identify, whether it is possible to recognise the bones of individuals on site, or in which order individuals have been deposited. This may aid in matching the bones of single individuals and in interpreting the deposit.