ABSTRACT
The mopping-up operations practiced by the Black Squads have an evocative name: el paseo [“the stroll”]. They are carried out to such a characteristic pattern that one can talk of a method. —Couffon, in Gibson (1973:73)
Scavenging behavior of human remains by wild and domestic animals has been widely researched (see Chapter 9, this volume). Likewise, the natural decomposition processes of human remains have received much scientific attention in the form of forensic case reports (e.g., Bucheli et al. 2009; Prieto et al. 2004; Ross and Cunningham 2011) and through such research institutions as the University of Tennessee’s Anthropology Research Facility (e.g., Mann et al. 1990; Vass 2011; see also Chapter 3, this volume). Despite these advances, the variable that arguably accounts for the most destructive effects upon human remains and that which most frustrates human remains recovery and identification is that of deliberate
Introduction 249 Study of H. sapiens sapiens as a Taphonomic Agent 250 Patterns of Body Disposal during Armed Conflict 251
WWII Mass Grave Investigations 251 Site Selection Decision Factors 253 Body Disposal Methods 254 Postburial Treatment of Victim Remains 262 Killings and Body Disposal during the Spanish Civil War 264
Criminological Study of Peace-Time Serial and Individual Murder 269 Serial Murder 270 Individual Murder 274 Forensic Anthropological Study of the Taphonomic Signature of H. sapiens sapiens 277
Discussion 278 References 279
dispersal and disposal behavior by Homo sapiens sapiens. Considering this, there is remarkably little forensic anthropological study of H. sapiens sapiens as a taphonomic agent. This situation is surprising, given early definitions of anthropology as a scientific study of “man as an animal” (Oxford English Dictionary 2011).
