A Followup Field Survey Lost Grave Sites: Cataraqui Shipwreck, King Island Tasmania (original) (raw)
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Forensic archaeologists have been working for the past four decades, in locating mass graves, to unearth the victims of war, genocide and crimes against humanity. The application of geophysical surveying techniques to find these mass graves has been relatively idle, due to a lack of research into their practical uses. This paper tested three of the main geophysical techniques available for locating clandestine burials: Ground Penetrating Radar, Earth Resistivity, and Electromagnetic Induction. Each method was used to survey a recent simulated mass grave of four deer and a site containing multiple mass graves of deer skeletons as old as 2005 and earlier, capturing both early and late stages of decomposition. Three main conclusions were drawn: Resistivity can produce reliable results by the sixth week of decomposition in dry alluvial sand and clay deposits; EM is not suitable for locating a mass grave in the same deposits however produces strong results over graves in late stages of decomposition; and GPR results across decompositional stages are confusing without prior knowledge of burial locations. This research supports the use of Electromagnetic Induction at sites with advanced stages of decomposition and resistivity at mass grave sites within the early stages. Further research is needed into the window of time resistivity can be used on mass graves and the use of GPR in locating mass graves in complex geological sites.
Research Strategies for the Location of Graves
2016
Detection of unmarked burials with geophysical methods of survey have had mixed results in the past, both in the archaeological domain as in the forensic science domain. Each method has shown several limitations on their own. The application of multiple methods on a single site has been investigated on three different sites in order to evaluate the effectiveness of interpreting multiple datasets against each other to locate unmarked burials. The sites selected offered relatively known locations for possible burials, allowing for easier verification whether a possible burial was detected. The interpretation of these multiple datasets has shown that it provides a higher degree of confidence when interpreting possible burial locations, as opposed to relying on a single interpretation.
The ‘Burials and Identity’ team of the Desert Migrations Project carried out two main excavations in the 2009 season, at the monumental Garamantian cemeteries of TAG001 and TAG012, by the Taqallit headland. In addition, a detailed survey was made of cemeteries and other sites on the west side of the Taqallit headland, to set the two main cemetery excavations in context. A total of over 2,100 individual burials was recorded in this small area of a few square kilometres. This cemetery survey was combined with further research on the well-preserved foggara systems in this area, which originate at the escarpment among the cemeteries and run in a north-westerly direction towards the valley centre, where some additional Garamantian settlement sites were also located. The foggara research also involved excavation at four locations to try to elucidate issues relating to the dating of these. A total of 22 burials was investigated at TAG001, an imposing cemetery of stone-built stepped tombs that had been badly damaged by illegal bulldozing in the 1990s. Although these had been subjected to robbing at some point in the past, many preserved considerable parts of the skeletons buried within and some surprisingly complete artifact groups. Of particular importance are a series of Garamantian necklaces in ostrich eggshell, carnelian and glass beads, which we were able to lift in perfect sequence and restring. At TAG012, about 2 km north of the Taqallit headland, we excavated an area of a mudbrick cemetery, exposing 12 square/rectangular tombs. Two further burials were excavated at the dispersed cemetery TAG006, in both cases involving tombs that had an interesting stratigraphical relationship with foggara spoil mounds
Queensland Archaeological Research, 2022
The Spanish Influenza of 1919 had a devastating effect on Aboriginal Australian communities, particularly Cherbourg (formerly known as Barambah Aboriginal Reserve), which resulted in a loss of ~15% of their population. Deaths happened so quickly that coffins were not built and, in some cases, trenches or mass graves were used to inter the dead in addition to individual graves. Although the trench locations were formally unknown by the Cherbourg community today, a major concern of the Cherbourg Elders is that they wanted to memorialise those affected by the 1919 pandemic, especially 100 years later. One attempt to locate the mass graves was to apply geophysical methods in the New and Old Cherbourg cemeteries to detect these unmarked burials. Our paper demonstrates how ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and magnetic gradiometry were used along with oral histories and Indigenous knowledge to detect three mass graves associated with the Spanish Influenza. Outcomes such as this play an important role is supporting 'Truth Telling' for the Cherbourg Aboriginal community.