Forensic Approaches to Buried Remains

John Hunter, Barrie Simpson, Caroline Sturdy Colls

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118374139
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Médecine
• Subtopic: Médecine légale

The field of forensic archaeology has developed over recent years from being a branch of conventional archaeology into a well-established discipline in its own right. Forensic Approaches to Buried Remains takes an innovative approach to the subject by placing the role of the forensic archaeologist within the wider forensic environment; it identifies new areas of interdisciplinary research and practice, and evaluates practical difficulties.

The authors see this book as a reflection of the subject's development, and as a knowledge base for the next generation of forensic archaeologists. Areas covered include:

• Search logistics, integration and specialist search scenarios
• Levels of confidence in site search and elimination
• Urban and rural landscape reconstruction in both short and long term cases
• The integration of cadaver dogs and earth-moving machinery
• The recovery of multiple evidence types
• Sampling strategies, spatial relevance and dating
• Multiple burial scenarios

As part of the Essential Forensic Science book series this book will provide students and practitioners alike with an invaluable resource outlining both the major developments in the discipline, as well as original approaches to the search for, and recovery of buried remains.

1

An introduction to buried remains

1.1 Questions of time

This is a book that deals specifically with buried remains of forensic interest – that is, remains which are germane to a modern criminal investigation; it is about finding these remains and recovering them. It is a book about clandestine burials and concealment, about what can influence search and recovery processes, and about what matters in a forensic sense. It is not a prescriptive manual or a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the specialists involved. The Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) will not find a useful set of ‘tick boxes’ that will guarantee a successful enquiry; nor will the Crime Scene Manager (CSM) find a list of actions that a proper investigation ought to undertake. This book tries to examine how different subject areas interact when it comes to investigating the modern buried past. Successful forensic excavation requires awareness of the component evidential elements and what they signify, together with an understanding of formation processes and how to interpret them. Thus, this is a book about questioning, not about giving answers. This first chapter provides a general introduction to the chapters that follow.

Strictly, the word ‘archaeology’ is a misnomer in a forensic context because the subject of interest, although buried, is not ‘ancient’, which is the usual definition of the discipline. That said, the phrase ‘forensic archaeology’ appears to have become well cemented in forensic literature as well as within archaeological circles, and so this is the phrase used throughout this book. In any event, the approaches to studying ‘ancient’ (archaeological) buried remains and those used to investigate in a modern buried forensic context are largely the same. It matters not whether concealment in the ground occurred yesterday morning or in prehistoric times thousands of years ago. Not only are the processes of finding and recovering evidence from these two chronological extremes much the same, but the methods we use to make sense of that evidence are substantially the same too. It is not really the extent of elapsed time between then and now that is the issue (although it would be incorrect to maintain that it had no effect at all), but the critical difference that lies in the questioning or interrogation of the evidence recovered according to the answers needed.

Take, for example, carbonised grains discovered from a prehistoric hearth: they may tell us about crops grown and thus land use and clearance, while the weeds of cultivation from the same hearth have a direct bearing on harvesting methods and crop processing. Together these prehistoric grains enable us to enquire about a developing farming community and its impact on the landscape. Grains caught in the trouser turn-ups of a victim buried yesterday will identify particular crops in a specific habitat harvested recently or growing naturally; they enable us to take the enquiry to particular landscape locations at a particular time. The physical evidence is much the same in both instances, but we need to ask different questions because of the different purposes to which the answers will be put. Equally, when a small piece of clothing fabric survives in a prehistoric burial, archaeologists will seek to ascertain what the material was, how it was woven and what dye was used in order to learn more about early textiles and dress. A similar piece of fabric found in a grave caught in a victim's clothes may belong to the offender. The forensic scientist will look to define the fibre mix and colour, the type of garment from which it originated and the commercial outlets from where it might have been purchased. The evidence can lead investigators in many different directions according to the nature of the questions posed. In such cases, elapsed time is not a major factor compared to what can be gleaned from the surviving evidence.

1.2 Questions of interpretation

Remains lying under the ground surface – buildings, pits, walls and so on (including the human dead) – become buried according to a host of different processes and are surrounded by, and integrated with, different layers of earth that relate to their deposition and formation. These layers and their study (stratigraphy) are raw materials to the archaeologist; their analysis is the method by which our archaeological sites and ancient landscapes are excavated and understood; their significance is basic to all archaeological textbooks (Figure 1.1) (e.g. Greene 2002, ch. 3; Carver 2009, ch. 1l). The majority of these layers are human-influenced – actions such as building, occupation, fire, demolition or abandonment can all leave archaeological traces in the form of layers of differing magnitude, colour and physical character. Other layers are created by natural processes, for example, silting in river valleys, soil formation over abandoned buildings, sand blow or volcanic activity such as at Pompeii. The two types – anthropogenic and natural – can often occur together (see Case Study 1.1, also Section 6.1).

Figure 1.1 Example of an archaeological matrix of layers during excavation.

Take a simple forensic example – a grave that has been dug and left open for a period of time might accumulate a thin layer of silt from wind-blown soil and leaves. Later, when the victim is buried, the grave may become sealed by natural soil formation, hill wash and vegetation. This combination of natural and cultural events, together form a tangible sequence that is revealed in the ground. Archaeologists identify the actions in that sequence by interpreting the layers that reflect them. This is fundamental to field archaeology; the investigation of layers and their relationships enables us to reconstruct what happened in a given place during a past time. The stratigraphic evidence that the archaeologist records is empirical; it makes no difference whether the buried event occurred yesterday or 6,000 years earlier, the same principles apply.

Understanding layers, beyond their physical attributes, is about interpretation; there are no hard and fast rules as to what a particular layer signifies and each archaeologist will have his/her own idea about the significance of deposits (e.g. Case Study 1.2). Archaeologists tend to work in shades of grey rather than in clear black and white (see Section 1.7). They tend to temper their remarks according to the nature of the evidence and hedge their bets accordingly. Understanding layers is as much about interpretation as fact, about probabilities rather than absolute certainties, and this may create tension or conflict in a forensic environment. Archaeologists are trained to have deductive opinions as opposed to fixed assumptions about what buried evidence means; this applies not just to remains that are chronologically distant, but also to those from yesterday. Layers can be defined and recorded quite objectively, and most archaeological organisations have their own process-driven systems that allow this to be carried out (e.g. MoLAS 1994). Relevant pro-formas will require information on soil type, inclusions, colour, texture and so on, but this clinical data is meaningless unless interpretation is derived from it. The data set can always be returned to by future archaeologists. This process can be summed up in the phrase ‘preservation by record’ used widely in planning circles as a result of mitigating against an archaeological site threatened by building development (PPG 16 1990; PPS 5 2010; DCLG 2012). Once data has been recovered from the ground and recorded in terms of plans, sections, photographs and a written record, those data can always be reviewed. One curious thing about being an archaeologist is that one's interpretations cannot normally be deemed ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and the evidence can be subject to continual reassessment; each interpretation has to be assessed against the data, and some will no doubt be considered more valid than others.

A famous experiment took place in the United States in the 1970s and involved the excavation of an indigenous Indian settlement known as ‘Millie's Camp’ that had recently been abandoned (Bonnichsen 1973). The archaeologists duly collected the material remains and, on the basis of the character, distribution and location of these remains interpreted what activities had gone on, and where. They were astonished, when confronted with the former inhabitants, just how wrong their interpretations had been. It was a corrective exercise that provided salutary food for thought, given that archaeology traditionally concerns itself with timescales well beyond living memory and contemporary society. But it also emphasises the caution needed in interpreting forensic remains that, like Millie's Camp, are also almost certain to be known to living witnesses. The following two cases illustrate this central issue.

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Case Study 1.1

A small boy disappeared in the 1960s (Hunter et al. 1996, 54ff). He was subsequently found over 25 years later partly buried at the edge of a wood beside a collapsed dry-stone wall little more than half a kilometre from his house. Archaeologists excavated and recorded the scene, and identified that the wall had collapsed over the body but not before large stones had first been placed on the body in a probable attempt at concealment. The body had not been buried as originally thought by the police, but had been lying on the ground surface where it had become hidden by natural soil formation and organic matter over the intervening years. Moreover, the archaeologists were surprised to find that the skeleton was almost intact and had not been scavenged, even although it had been lying on the surface. As a result of their excavation the archaeologists suggested that the body must have been wrapped (hence the absence of scavenging) and laid on the ground below the wall. Large stones from the wall top had then been placed over the body. At some later point in time the wall collapsed and the boy's remains became further sealed by the wall rubble. The boy's stepfather, when arrested, was unaware of this interpretation, but when eventually charged with the boy's death he confessed to the murder. The confession matched the archaeologists' interpretation step by step. Apart from providing confirmation of the archaeologists' hypothesis, the case also demonstrates further the interaction of cultural and natural formation processes: the wrapping, the laying down of the body and the placement of stones reflect human activity, whereas the subsequent soil development and the collapse of the wall are natural phenomena.

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Case Study 1.2

A pit was discovered in the flagged cellar of a house where two persons had gone missing, although their bodies were never found (Hunter et al. 1996, 53f). The pit had been cut through the levelling material under the stone flags, and then excavated deep into the natural clay that characterised the local subsoil. Some of the clay had been put back into the bottom of the pit, and the rest of the pit had then been filled in with rubble. The fact that the fill of the pit (rubble) was substantially different from the layers through which it had been cut (clay) suggested that much of the clay had been removed off site, and that rubble had been introduced from elsewhere. When archaeologists excavated the pit they found that various items of interest had been concealed at the bottom under the thin re-deposited band of clay. Their interpretation was that the pit had been dug and used as a temporary place of disposal: first, objects from the murder that the offenders wished to dispose of were thrown in and then sealed with some of the clay. The pit was then probably used to conceal bags of dismembered remains and then covered up. At some later date the bags were removed for permanent disposal; rubble was subsequently brought into the cellar to fill in the pit before the floor was reflagged. The offenders never admitted to this, but equally they offered no alternative justification for the presence of the pit, nor for the character of its fill. The presence of a human fingernail below the clay at the base of the pit suggested that the archaeological explanation may have been reasonably accurate. The case illustrates well how archaeological layers can be open to interpretation.

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This first chapter introduces key elements that will be pursued in the chapters that follow. The elements are undeniably archaeological even although they do not deal with ancient times, and it is difficult to deny that this book has an underlying archaeological theme. However, the authors have deliberately omitted the word ‘archaeology’ from the title. Archaeological techniques and thinking may be central to much that is discussed, but the spectrum is much wider than that. The forensic recovery of buried remains encapsulates, inter alia, aerial photography, psychology, cartography, geophysics, landscape analysis, fieldcraft, cadaver dog handling, ecology, botany, entomology, palynology, anthropology, pathology and conservation; it is about interdisciplinarity rather than multidisciplinarity and, above all else, it demonstrates the extent to which seemingly different fields of endeavour meet up and rub shoulders under a forensic umbrella.

1.3 Forensic archaeology

The use of the word ‘forensic’, by definition, shifts archaeology firmly into modern, criminal scenarios, in which archaeological (i.e. buried) evidence may be presented in a court of law. Usually this will involve the investigation of clandestine graves by adapting standard archaeological techniques (aerial imagery, geophysics, field walking, etc.) in order to locate burial sites, and by employing excavation strategies to recover the human remains they contain. On occasions other types of buried objects/artefacts may be searched for and excavated, typically drugs, firearms, other weapons and, in one famous example, ransom money packed into a holdall (see Section 2.1). Archaeologists may also be asked to resolve issues of date when human remains are discovered during building operations, or when human disarticulated bones are encountered as ‘stray’ finds by members of the public. They may also be asked to take part in formal exhumations undertaken by the police in order for a post-mortem to take place. There have also been instances where archaeologists have been deployed in mass disaster recovery, or even in fire debris where stratigraphic investigation is required in order to ascertain sequences of events. In short, they may find themselves involved in any matter involving buried or sealed remains, or remains which may have been buried, and which become part of a criminal investigation, thus requiring expert operational input or opinion.

Although a relatively new discipline, forensic archaeology has become routinely accepted by police and courts in the UK and has now gained wider recognition in other parts of Europe, notably the Netherlands and Scandinavia (Marquez-Grant et al. 2012). The use of archaeological techniques at scenes of crime is now reasonably well established (see Hunter 1994 or Cox 2009 for history; Cheetham and Hanson 2009 for methodology; Hunter and Cox 2005 and Hunter 2009 for case studies). It also has a widely accepted role in the recovery of victims from mass graves where the scale of application has necessitated the development of new techniques and protocols (e.g. Haglund et al. 2001; Cox et al. 2007). The breadth of involvement and the interdisciplinary nature of archaeology itself have generated novel research areas, notably in geophysics and remote prospection (e.g. Ruffell and McKinley 2008; Kalacska et al. 2009) and in taphonomics (e.g. Haglund and Sorg 1997, 2002a). That said, the discipline is still essentially ‘hands on’; it adapts conventional archaeological techniques and involves fieldwork and excavation.

However, unlike more conventional archaeology, forensic archaeology is normally part of a much wider picture of evidence capture: it requires integration with other, often unrelated disciplines from which other types of evidence are drawn. These can include a wide range of forensic interests, some of which will be familiar archaeological territory (e.g. pedology, palynology and diatoms), some of which may be less frequently encountered (e.g. entomology and DNA) and others that will be novel (e.g. fibres, paint, blood and pathology). Indeed, some of the processes involved in the analysis of evidential materials will be little different from those encountered in the archaeological science laboratory, notably in the referencing of samples to host standards. For example, an archaeologist might take samples from a pottery vessel and endeavour to source the clay, and a forensic scientist might take soil from a person's clothing in order to demonstrate that they had been to a particular place.

However, the similarity largely ends there. In the more distant past the archaeologist who encounters human remains is dealing with an anonymous population and seeks clarification of generic factors, for example, disease, diet, trauma, longevity, mortality rates, etc.). In a forensic context, it is the determination of specifics which is necessary, not least of these being the identification of the victim whose remains have been recovered. Moreover, unlike the collection of evidence in conventional archaeology, the collection of forensic evidence normally relates to individuals recently deceased or still living, either as victim or as potential offender(s) respectively. As a result behavioural sciences are introduced (e.g. offender and geographical profiling), which archaeologists may need to understand and integrate into a larger evidential equation. The overall picture is a wide one: it draws on many disparate skills and areas of expertise of which archaeology is often merely one small element. Archaeology is an annoyingly connective discipline: while a science in its own right, it feeds upon, and integrates with, a host of other disciplines. As one eminent academic is reputed to have said ‘being an archaeologist is like working in the hedgerows, it lies in neither one field nor the other’. It is an impure discipline that has few firm boundaries.

The closest forensic links, however, are likely to be those with physical anthropology, particularly in contexts where the victims are substantially, or completely, skeletal, and where matters of identification and specific trauma require expert interpretation (Figure 1.2) (Natfe 2000; Blau and Ubelaker 2009). In some instances, notably in the excavation of victims from mass graves (below), practitioners ...