Descrizione del progetto
Riposare in pace: la selezione dei resti umani
In seguito a eventi quali un disastro naturale o una guerra, è una prassi diffusa deporre i resti umani nelle fosse comuni. Al fine di ottenere i migliori esiti di selezione dei resti delle singole persone è necessario impiegare tecniche idonee. Tuttavia, uno dei limiti principali dei metodi attuali è quello di non tenere conto della morfologia tridimensionale delle superfici contigue. Per ovviare a questa carenza, il progetto Human Jigsaw, finanziato dall’UE, abbinerà tecniche all’avanguardia di morfometria geometrica tridimensionale e apprendimento automatico nella selezione dei resti umani.
Obiettivo
The “Human Jigsaw” will address the key issue of sorting commingled human remains, by amalgamating state-of-the-art techniques in three dimensional geometric morphometrics and machine learning. The deposition of multiple bodies in mass graves has been common practice worldwide after warfare, natural disasters or as part of the funerary treatment of the deceased. In Cyprus, where this project is to be materialized, the events that took place in 1963-64 and 1974 have resulted in an unspecified number of individuals having been buried in mass graves, of which over 2000 Greek and Turkish Cypriots are still missing. Commingling, the mixing of the skeletal elements of different individuals, is a grave issue in such contexts. A major limitation of current methods for sorting the remains of different individuals is that they do not effectively take into account the three-dimensional morphology of adjoining surfaces. The “Human Jigsaw” will focus on matching the main elements of the lower skeleton (os coxae, femora, tibiae), which are the elements that provide basic biological profile information (age, sex and stature). The produced methods will be subsequently applied in Minoan and pre-Mycenaean assemblages, addressing issues of the post-mortem treatment of the dead. The “Human Jigsaw” will have major implications in forensic anthropology as it will facilitate the identification of unknown subjects. In bioarchaeological contexts, the results of this project will have implications in archaeothanatology and funerary taphonomy by allowing a more accurate assessment of the palaeodemographic profile of the deceased who were deposited in mass burials.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EFCoordinatore
2121 Nicosia
Cipro