Ghoulish question about the archeology of War

[SlimJim]

I'm not sure where this question goes because it's alittle bit geology, a little bit biology, alittle bit archeology and probably chemistry and other sciences so I'll put it here. It's also dealing with mass murder and genocide so it is necessary not a happy upbeat subject. The basic question is can you hide mass murder? This is why I ask: a friend was in Bosnia during the war back in the 1990s. He says there were tens of thousands of men women and children who murdered and buried in mass graves that the authorities still don't know about. He says some of these graves are huge but the killers have been able to hide them. I don't know if what he says is true but I think that hiding mass graves that big isn't difficult. Another friend of ours says that a mass grave with ten thousand bodies would be impossible to hide. He says even after twenty years, there would be clues on the surface that a trained specialist could identify. If you knew generally where to look, he says, it would a piece of pie to find ten thousand people buried somewhere. I disagree. I think if the killers had enough time and weren't worried about getting caught while burying the bodies, they could hide it by burning the bodies in the hole before covering it up or burying them deep enough or something. So who's right? Is it possible to burying ten thousand people in a grave that would be easy to hide? Not that I dug a big hole in my backyard and I have a list of ten thousand people who have been mean to me or anything like that....

[StringJunky]

Some things that come to mind that I remember from a programme about this sort of thing:

 

1. Assuming burial in previously undisturbed ground: the strata components of the ground will be mixed up compared to the surrounding area...evidence of lower strata components will be on the surface.

 

2. If overgrown: the vegetation will be more vigorous in the grave zone compared to that in the surrounding area due to the excavated material being used to refill it being looser ie more aerated and better drained.

 

3. The average level of the grave surface area will be lower than the surrounding area, if left long enough, due to dehydration and decomposition of the bodies.

 

i'm sure there's more.

Edited July 6, 2012 by StringJunky