Geoarchaeology, Forensics, and the Prosecution of Saddam Hussein: A Case Study from the Iraq War (2003-2011)
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- 作者：Joseph Schuldenrein ; Michael K. Trimble ; Susan Malin-Boyce and Mark Smith
- 刊名：Geoarchaeology
- 出版年：2017
- 出版时间：January/February 2017
- 年：2017
- 卷：32
- 期：1
- 页码：130-156
- 全文大小：3526K
- ISSN：1520-6548
文摘
During the Iraq War (2003–2011), the U.S. government dispatched teams of forensic archaeologists and anthropologists to examine a series of mass graves, a site of genocide allegedly perpetrated by Saddam Hussein in the late 20th century. Remote sensing and limited field-testing disclosed a crime scene featuring extensive landscape disturbances from haphazard placements of shallow, presumed grave trenches and associated spoil heaps. Geoarchaeological expertise was used to explain the terrain irregularities at the crime scene and to reconstruct the processes and sequence chronology of grave site selection, interments, and site abandonment. Geomorphic investigations included observations of field relations and follow-up sedimentological and geochemical analyses. The precrime scene landforms were demonstrably Upper Pleistocene in age and were underlain by calcretes of variable morphogenetic origins; they produced an impenetrable crust of variable depths. Misreading of these elements underpinned the flawed planning and inefficient excavation and disposal strategies by the perpetrators. Geochemical analysis of the grave fills isolated elements (chiefly K) that could be diagnostic of otherwise homogeneous sediment units. Taken together, these data provided key evidence for conviction of the Hussein regime. A “geotaphonomic model” for mass graves analysis is proposed as a blueprint for practical and critical future applications of geoarchaeology.