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Posted: Tue Jul 28, 2009 12:31 pm

I can now confirm that DNA tests are currently being professionally undertaken.

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 7:37 pm

For information:

DNA tests have started on the remains of hundreds of WWI soldiers whose remains were found in a mass grave in northern France last year.

Genetic samples from living relatives have been taken to identify British and Australian remains taken from the site of the Battle of Fromelles.

Soldiers from Bristol, Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, Worcestershire were heavily involved in the fighting.

The exhumed bodies will later be buried with full military honours.

The grave was found after detective work by an Australian historian.

Fromelles on 19 July 1916, a frontal assault on German positions, cost the lives of more than 1,500 Australians and 500 British troops.

The 11-hour battle was the worst single loss of Australian life in the nation's entire military history.

Military honours

The British 61st Division, featuring the 4th (City of Bristol), 5th and 6th battalions of the Gloucestershire Regiment alongside men from the Royal Warwickshire Regiment and the Worcestershire Regiment, were heavily engaged in the attack.

Other British units, including the Oxford and Buckinghamshire Regiment, also sustained heavy losses as they attempted to support what was intended to be a diversionary attack to take pressure of Allied forces on the Somme.

List of British casualties who may be buried at Fromelles

German forces, who suffered only moderate casualties, are believed to have featured the then 27-year-old Adolf Hitler.

Australian amateur historian Lambis Englezos was honoured by the Australian government after his research led to the grave's discovery.

Although the battle is largely forgotten in the UK, in Australia it is remembered as a national tragedy of the same note as Gallipoli.

Richard Hope-Hawkins, of Bristol, is waiting to hear if the grave, which was hastily dug after the conflict by the Germans, contains the remains of his late uncle 2nd Lt George James Mitchell.

"I feel very emotional about it. My late grandmother, great-grandmother and mother all talked about George James Mitchell and I think it's wonderful that they are now hopefully retrieving his body."

Richard Hope-Hawkins
Richard Hope-Hawkins has researched his family's history

As well as using DNA analysis, archaeologists will try to match up artefacts found with some of the bodies.

Train tickets, a heart-shaped pouch and even a stamped toothbrush have been discovered so far.

Once everything has been done to identify the remains, each one will be buried with full military honours at a new military cemetery.

The work on the grave is being supervised by the Berkshire-based Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Anyone who believes they may be related to a British soldier killed at Fromelles should contact the Joint Casualty and Compassionate Centre by calling 01452 712612 extension 6303 or emailing [email protected]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/England/8194187.stm

Peter

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 7:51 am

True indeed. But this is a highly organised professional effort with (almost) limitless resources favouring the achievement of its own perception of a successful outcome. Huge amounts of effort will go into maintaining forensic context and carefully examining all collateral information.

Far removed, I believe, from some exposed bones fairly quickly dug up and removed from context, a button, and a strong measure of wishful thinking.

G

Posted: Wed Aug 19, 2009 4:19 pm

Re: DNA...

I read an interesting article yesterday about DNA and how it could be fabricated under certain circumstances. The article clarified for me my thinking that DNA evidence was the be-all in identification. Not to cast any nefarious activity here but the researchers' work did show that DNA study isn't completely foolproof. For sure, DNA is probably the best identification technique but it can be finagled by the unscrupulous.

Posted: Mon Nov 23, 2009 6:03 am

I have received the following from Amafa in response to a request for an update.

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No re-internment yet. More investigations are still being done, hopefully sometime next year the investigations will have taken a different shape
Thanks
Sello

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Posted: Thu Feb 18, 2010 8:27 pm

Robin,

Do we have an update on this?

AMB

Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 7:07 am

AMB wrote:

Robin,
Do we have an update on this?
AMB

Sorry Robin -- No update here.

I have however been reading this thread with some interest.

Here to give you an idea of how the Americans go about things.

( Click on the link )

Little Big Horn Archeology

Posted: Thu Mar 11, 2010 7:29 pm

Chris

I'm sure you're right about the feelings and thoughts of many soldiers in the hours before their deaths, at least before the danger was recognised.

However, no investigation is going to help them, or would let them know who was responsible, would it? And we know that already, without digging everyone up. Or, at least, we can argue about the blame without adding to our knowledge by digging them up. As the battlefield is - to all intents and purposes - a cemetery, it seems a bit drastic to plough up the whole enormous site, especially as it would do precisely nothing to add to our understanding of "which idiot was responsible."

In the past I've often been amazed to read of instances in which well known peope have been disinterred in the US just because someone thought some historical (or trivial) knowledge might be improved by investigating the remains. That well known refrain (accompanied by a sigh) rears its head again - "only in America ..." Wink

Peter

Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 1:40 pm

Peter:

Just an fyi, the other day I did read about a fellow on the Continent who's causing a stir by going into crypts and disinterring the bones of famous people to solve "mysteries" about them. He's pretty convincing in his argument so he gets support. So, he found Petrarch's tomb, opened it up and found out that his head was missing and a little girl's head was apparently substituted! You heard it here!... Wink

Right now, he's after Caravaggio the famous Italian artist who supposedly has overtaken Michaelangelo in popularity today among the art cognoscenti. He's got bones now he dug up from a crypt. Just wants to check out if that's the fellow!
Apparently, there must be a different attitude going around regarding corpses, bones and burial places today. It appears if you're popular dead man or woman, you apparently can be "visited" centuries later.

Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 5:58 pm

At what stage do people cease to be the honoured dead deserving of eternal rest then instead become artefacts that somebody with a big enough check book gets allowed to dig up by the so called heritage or concevation body that is supposedly responsible for safeguarding the burial sites

Not only in America......Also in KZN it appears......

G

Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2010 9:00 pm

Peter,
That was rather a "blanket" condemnation, don't you think? We Yanks actually have rather draconian laws mandating the respect shown to human remains and I'll hazard that they're fairly universally followed. Yes, we have been known to take a few scalps in the past, but I seem to recall that that habit was introduced before our little independence hissy-fit in the late 18th Century and although I realize that it was in "your" past, we never collected skulls for our curio cabinets.

Every nation and nationality can look back and around and see such examples of aberrant lapses in "Civilization", but is it proper to point up such examples as somehow representative of a nation and its citizens as a whole?

Posted: Fri Mar 26, 2010 11:10 am

Saw

Yes, it's certainly a very all-embracing, "blanket" term, although it's not mine of course. It's a very old one and tends to surface every time another bizarre story comes out of the States. I'm in entire agreement with you that not only the US produces these bizarre stories - but over the years a few mind-boggling ones have emerged!

I'm re-assured, too, by your mention of the laws protecting human remains (do these apply across all states?) which suggests that some of the more surprising plans may not get very far. I'm thinking of well known people being dug up for fairly trivial reasons (or what many might call trivial) in the name of "history."

Over here, the Victorians have a fair bit to answer for. They may not have been planning to dig up remains, but almost every medieval church in the country (that's quite a few thousand) was heavily restored in the 19th century, and many of these renovations involved the discovery of previously unknown remains - often of revered figures such as saints, archbishops, kings of counties or of England, etc. Some were re-interred in the same spot, some not, as not all were expected discoveries - and not a lot got in the way of the Victorians' architectural plans! During alterations to the Cathedral here, the Victorians dug up the Archbishop of Canterbury from Richard I's time and made notes of his appearance before reinterring him. However, he (Hubert Walter, who died in 1205) was certainly not replaced with his full complement of vestments, as much of these were removed. I know, because for six or seven years his clothes, including shoes & socks, were tucked (very neatly, of course!) into a desk drawer adjacent to my left knee! No bones, as far as I recall, though ...

As has been suggested, there seems to come a time when sacred remains seem to be looked upon as archaeological artefacts. But when should this occur? I think a few hundred years is too short a time, but others may think not.

Peter

Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2010 11:51 am

Part of the problem at least as far as the Isandhlwana site is concerned is the continued separation of its conservation, operation and management from those systems now increasingly applied at other burial sites by various recent reforms. The combined effect is for the Isandhlwana site to be enduringly excluded from receiving proper consideration as what it really is, a large multiracial war grave. So the remains on site are given neither the consideration nor protection that they might otherwise receive within either Western European-orientated traditional military practices or modern Zulu civilian burial practices.
There have also been unfortunate examples of this site being exploited for revenue earning purposes after judicious check book waving or intended promotional ones. Our 'button' friend still lies in a cardboard box on a shelf somewhere due to the effect last mentioned.
So at least as far as Amafa appears to be concerned the boundary has already been crossed and these are no longer remains that should be protected by them but the artefacts that they appear ro consider that they own. The remains that fall outside the wire and are not actually within the boundaries of the heritage site appear to be at least theoretically slightly better off in that broader legal considerations would appear to apply to their guardianship. Except that is wheneber somebody wants to dig then up for some quasi scientific promotional purpose. No need to turn in your grave chaps! Amafa would appear ever ready to do that for you.

G

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2010 12:11 pm

I requested an update from Amafa and received the following in reply

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There has been some developments todate, a family of Sgt Keane has been contacted and they are working on their family database to verify that indeed those were the remains of Sgt Keane. I don't remember quite well where last we stopped talking about this issue though
Sello

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