Sehrawat J S, Agrawal Shailesh, Kenney Andrew P, Grimes Vaughan, Rai Niraj
Department of Anthropology, Panjab University, Chandigarh, India.
Birbal Sahni Institute of Paleosciences, Lucknow, India.
Int J Legal Med. 2024 Mar;138(2):615-626. doi: 10.1007/s00414-023-03109-8. Epub 2023 Oct 18.
Stable isotope methods for provenance of unidentified human remains are relatively a newer field of enquiry in forensic archeology. It is of great interest for forensic experts these days. The application of strontium isotope analyses for estimating geolocation of archeological remains is of great interest in bioarcheology and modern forensics. The strontium (Sr) isotope composition of human bones and teeth has been widely used to reconstruct an individual's geo-affiliation, residential mobility, and migration history. Thousands of unknown human remains, reportedly belonging to 282 Indian soldiers of 26th Native Bengal regiment and killed in 1857, were exhumed non-scientifically from an abandoned well situated underneath a religious structure at Ajnala (Amritsar, India). Whether these remains belonged to the individuals, local or non-local to the site, was the important forensic archeological question to be answered by doing their thorough forensic anthropological examinations. In the present study, 27 mandibular teeth (18 s molars, 6 first molars, and 3 premolars) collected from the Ajnala skeletal assemblage were processed for strontium isotope analysis, and the measured ratios were compared with published isotope baseline data to estimate the locality status of these remains. The Sr isotopic values were concentrated in the range of 0.7175 to 0.7270. The comparative analysis of isotopic ratios revealed that most individuals buried in the Ajnala well have Sr/Sr values close to the river as well as groundwater of the Gangetic plain (less radiogenic Sr/Sr ~ 0.716); most likely originated near Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh, India) region, whereas the individuals with higher Sr/Sr ratios (~ 0.7200) probably resided in the West Bengal and Bihar areas where the river as well as groundwater of the Gangetic plain is relatively more radiogenic. Thus, the strontium isotope results reveal that the Ajnala individuals did not grow up or live in the Amritsar region during their childhood, and this observation complemented the previous forensic anthropological and molecular findings. There is very little Indian data on the bioavailable strontium, so the inferences from the present study estimating Sr isotope abundances are expected to provide baseline data for future forensic provenance studies that will contribute to the global efforts of mapping Sr isotope variations by the isotope community.
用于鉴定不明人类遗骸来源的稳定同位素方法在法医考古学中相对来说是一个较新的研究领域。如今，它引起了法医专家的极大兴趣。锶同位素分析在估计考古遗骸地理位置方面的应用在生物考古学和现代法医学中备受关注。人类骨骼和牙齿的锶（Sr）同位素组成已被广泛用于重建个人的地理归属、居住流动性和迁徙历史。据报道，数千具身份不明的人类遗骸属于第26孟加拉本土步兵团的282名印度士兵，于1857年被杀，这些遗骸从位于印度阿姆利则阿贾纳拉一座宗教建筑下方的一口废弃井中被非科学地挖掘出来。这些遗骸是否属于该地点的本地人或非本地人，是通过对其进行全面的法医人类学检查来回答的重要法医考古学问题。在本研究中，从阿贾纳拉骨骼组合中收集的27颗下颌牙齿（18颗第二磨牙、6颗第一磨牙和3颗前磨牙）被用于锶同位素分析，测量的比率与已发表的同位素基线数据进行比较，以估计这些遗骸的所在地情况。锶同位素值集中在0.7175至0.7270的范围内。同位素比率的比较分析表明，埋葬在阿贾纳拉井中的大多数个体的锶/锶值接近恒河平原的河流和地下水（放射性较低的锶/锶约为0.716）；很可能起源于印度北方邦瓦拉纳西附近地区，而锶/锶比率较高（约0.7200）的个体可能居住在西孟加拉邦和比哈尔邦地区，那里恒河平原的河流和地下水放射性相对较高。因此，锶同位素结果表明，阿贾纳拉的个体在童年时期并非在阿姆利则地区长大或生活，这一观察结果补充了先前的法医人类学和分子研究结果。关于生物可利用锶的印度数据非常少，可以预期，本研究中估计锶同位素丰度的推论将为未来的法医来源研究提供基线数据，这将有助于同位素学界绘制锶同位素变化图的全球努力。
