Some of us may have learned as students that there is little erosion underwater because there is no rain. Erosion is not absent everywhere in the oceans, as deep exhumation (> 1 km) can occur physically, for example by turbidity currents and mass movements (Hampton et al., 1996; Mitchell, 2014; Shepard, 1981) and chemically by dissolution of carbonate rocks (Paull et al., 1990). However, in places where erosion has not occurred, the features can be well preserved, so underwater versions of different types of currents can sometimes appear less altered underwater than on land. For example, compare the surface morphologies of evaporite flows in the Red Sea (Figure 3; Mitchell et al., 2010) with Namakiers in Iran, where rainwater dissolution has significantly altered its surfaces (Talbot and Aftabi, 2004) (underwater evaporite flows are protected from dissolution by covering hemipelagic mud (Ross and Schlee, 1973)). Improvisation in forensic practice and social ritual converge during rehumations, triggered by the recovery and identification of other remains. These are carried out collectively: since July 2006, forensic doctors working to identify Srebrenica have unearthed 212 cases five times.22 There are currently several hundred more cases that will need to be reburied. Although close family members may participate, it is primarily a legal and scientific procedure with representatives of the District Court, the Podrinje Identification Project, the Institute for Missing Persons, pathologists, anthropologists and technical support staff, all present to supervise and carry out the arduous task of searching the coffins, examine the newly recovered remains and recover them with the bones already buried. to connect. Remarkably, rehumations are not religious occasions – at least not formally. Unlike the collective burial (dženaza) on 11 July, no cleric supervises interrupted graves and excavated remains; When prayers are made, it is at the private and individual initiative of the families present. On the contrary, the acts of starting and reopening coffins are laborious, and forensic and anthropological investigations conducted on the spot take a long time. Because families have learned and shared with each other over the years, the process can take hours, depending on the number of other graves unearthed on the same day. It`s exhausting to wait and watch in a disturbing way.
Thus, in recent years, fewer relatives have chosen to be present and have instead chosen to leave the macabre task to forensic staff. The Vatican agreed last month to settle the problem once and for all by giving Italian police permission to proceed with the exhumation. Beyond reassociation, the rehumations also indicate one of the most problematic developments in Srebrenica`s identification efforts in recent years, as DNA testing has revealed past mistakes – rare but painful nonetheless. The partial corpses returned to the families and subsequently reburied contained skeletal elements that did not belong to the same individual. Incomplete or defective forensic work, including osteological examinations, may have falsely linked items to a number of remains identified primarily by DNA testing of samples cut from long bones.23 Subsequent exhumation (from another secondary mass grave) reveals the error when DNA testing provides evidence that the recovered remains are already buried skeletal material. seem to duplicate. The discovery requires forensic staff to re-exhume and re-examine the remains originally buried. The body – buried, dug up, torn apart, and then reburied by the perpetrators – undergoes a series of different but interconnected disorders that are again buried, excavated and reburied by forensic staff.
The former forces the latter, but the intention behind it is completely the opposite: while the VRS has attempted to destroy the identity, forensic staff are trying to restore it. However, the effects of indiscriminate violence are profound, so even the hardest work of identifying anonymous remains is affected by the extent of the mixing. The subduction of the oceanic crust and the subsequent continental (micro)continental collision lead to the formation and exhumation of UHP rocks (Fig. 8). Such rocks, although a minority among the metamorphic rocks of crystalline rocky areas, are common in the bare Phanerozoic orogens. UHP rocks derived from crustal protolite are difficult to detect, but it seems that they appeared on the Earth`s surface only about 600 Ma. Two reasons could be responsible: (1) The thickening of the crust during the collision between continent and continent over a wide lateral area, resulting in a crust 60 to 70 km thick, may have been unusual in the Proterozoic and Archaea, limiting lithospheric delamination with the continental crust. The extent of the thickening of the Earth`s crust may have been influenced by the thermal structure of the (lower) crust and lithospheric mantle, where geothermal gradients are now smaller than they were long ago. (2) The current thermal structure may also be responsible for smaller geothermal gradients in the subducted and metamorphosed oceanic crust compared to those of the Prephanerozoic. For example, immersion in the UHP field before melting would have been possible for the oceanic crust only since the beginning of the Phanerozoic.
This would also apply to continental crust adhering to subducted oceanic crust if the slab demolition process were to take place at depths so great that overprinting of continental material could take place under UHP conditions before buoyancy forces allow the continental crust to float. This type of damage often occurs when examining textile materials derived from exhumations. microorganisms can destroy fibres; Cellulose fibers are more often damaged by fungi than bacteria, but bacterial damage to animal fibers is more often observed than fungal damage. Both types of microorganisms can feed on natural fibres and many types of textile additives and fibres based on natural substances (e.g. dyes, spinning oils and plasticisers). Synthetic fibers are more resistant to microorganisms. Most bacteria and fungi, which play an important role in the biodegradation process of organic matter, grow at a temperature of about 86°F/30°C. Fungi grow best in acidic habitat (pH 5.6-6.0), while the best conditions for bacterial growth are in alkaline habitat (pH 7.0-8.0). In forensic practice, when moist conclusive textile materials are stored without air access, the influence of moisture on this type of damage can be observed.
What remained was exhumation as the last and only way to find out more. There are also many more candidates for exhumation, if you feel like it. During the summers of 2012 and 2013, Dr. Lori Baker (Baylor University) and Krista Latham (University of Indianapolis) and their students conducted voluntary grave exhumations in Brooks County for skeletal analysis and DNA collection, hoping to lead to positive identification. Of those exhumations and cases sent by a South Texas medical examiner, a total of 80 migrants were sent to Texas State University for treatment and analysis. The majority of these people had significant amounts of meat that required extensive processing prior to analysis. To date, 40 people have been treated and analyzed. The term exhumation comes from the Latin ex for “de” and humus for “earth”: the exhumation is literally “to take earth”. In a forensic context, exhumation usually refers to the removal of human remains. Excavation refers to the removal of other buried evidence such as drugs, weapons (Dionne et al., 2011) or material associated with human remains such as ballistics, ligatures, clothing and personal items.
For the purposes of this chapter, exhumation is defined as the authorized removal of a deceased person from his or her grave. Exhumation occurs when it is necessary to remove the remains for a second autopsy to verify the cause of death or identification of the deceased. Exhumations may also be necessary if no criminal act was suspected at the time of death, but new facts emerge later that require additional information from the body. Exhumations may also be necessary to rebury the remains elsewhere or, at the request of the family, to retrieve an object placed with the remains. But the job of later investigators was largely to exhume and translate documents rather than find methods. His remains were buried in a family grave in Bavaria until they were exhumed on Wednesday. That was before an exhumation team found his mother`s remains and was only able to identify them last summer. Although the rehumations were sanctioned and observed (both religious and scientific), they nevertheless highlight the impression of violence in the lives of the survivors of Srebrenica. In his essay on the collective representation of death, Robert Hertz concludes that “mourning in its origins is the necessary participation of survivors in the corpse state of their loved ones; it takes as long as the state itself” (Mauss 2009:145). For the families of the missing in Srebrenica, especially those dealing with torn and recovered corpses, the disjointed, often suspended state of the bodies of their deceased prolongs and intensifies their grief. Mourning is interrupted and rituals improvised. These improvisations help to overcome the impasses of the partial bodies and partial acquaintances of Srebrenica and offer families a source of comfort in the face of an indefinite absence.
At the same time, they bear witness to the unpredictable and uncertain work of seeking forensic truth in a society where illegal graves still abound and bones still escape. But there was also comedy and absurdity that could perhaps be unearthed now rather than these deeper moments.