Browsing by Author "Herrasti, Lourdes"

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    Spanish Civil War: the recovery and identification of combatants
    (Elsevier, 2021-01-28) Herrasti, Lourdes; Márquez-Grant, Nicholas; Etxeberria, Francisco
    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.
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    Twenty years of forensic archaeology and anthropology of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and Francoist Regime
    (Elsevier, 2021-08-02) Etxeberria, Francisco; González-Ruibal, Alfredo; Herrasti, Lourdes; Márquez-Grant, Nicholas; Muñoz, Laura; Ramos, Jordi
    Although the investigation of human rights cases often comes late, especially with regard to living relatives, the current investigations searching for victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and the Francoist regime that followed until the 1970s also comes now with better methods of search and identification, which would not have been available decades ago. Since the year 2000, year in which the first scientific investigation of a Spanish Civil War mass grave took place, over 400 graves or mass graves out of the estimated 2000 in Spain have been excavated, totalling over 9000 victims recovered. This paper provides a current state of affairs, particularly relating to the forensic archaeology and forensic anthropology, in the search, excavation and identification of those killed during this conflict in Spain