The Challenges of Identifying Juvenile Soldiers in the Spanish Civil War

Every conflict referred to as a war results in the horror of loss and death. This is true of any war, and the Spanish Civil War is a good example. Many people disappeared and were never found again, mainly because nobody ever looked for them. There were several counteroffensives on the eastern war front in Spain's Levante region during 1938, which, although ending in Pyrrhic victories for the Republican Army, were forgotten for years, as were the bodies of the soldiers abandoned to the elements on the battlefields. In 2014, this research project was developed to locate, exhume, and identify four graves containing the bodies of Republican soldiers found at the site of Peña Salada, Spain. The graves were found to contain five individuals, including some considered to be juvenile soldiers, aged between 14 and 20. They displayed many signs of violence, and it was possible to infer differences in injuries from bladed weapons and firearms. There was also evidence of the pillaging and desecration of the burial site. The genetic profiles of the five individuals were obtained in order to create a DNA database, which would make it possible to compare their profiles with those of potential family members who still live with the uncertainty of not knowing the whereabouts of their loved ones. This study offers the first scientific evidence of the participation of juvenile soldiers on the Levante Front, within the context of the Spanish Civil War

Ancient history · Archaeology · Biology · Computer security · Context (archaeology · Criminology · Front (military · Geography · Juvenile · nobody · Political science · Spanish Civil War · Forensic and Genetic Research · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies · History · Law · Paleopathology and ancient diseases · Psychology · Ecology

• Examining the burial contexts and trauma patterns of fallen soldiers and civilian victims from the Spanish Civil War

  Eva Ronner, Nicholas Márquez‐grant et al.•Journal of Conflict Archaeology•2025

  Incluir item

• Skeletal Trauma

  Erin H Kimmerle, José Pablo Baraybar•Skeletal Trauma•2008

  Incluir item

• De fortificación Andalusí a campo de batalla en el frente extremeño durante la Guerra Civil. Exhumación de un soldado en el yacimiento arqueológico de “Castillo de Argallén” (Península Ibérica)

  Open Access•Antonio José Domínguez, María Fortuna et al.•Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia•2017

  Incluir item

• Working as a Forensic Archaeologist and/or Anthropologist in Post-conflict Contexts

  Open Access•Blau, Soren Blau•Ethics and the Archaeology of…•2015

  Incluir item

• Making things public

  Alfredo González Ruibal•Public Archaeology•2007

  Incluir item

• Cries and Whispers

  Francisco Ferrándiz•Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies•2008

  Incluir item

• Age estimation from stages of epiphyseal union in the presacral vertebrae

  Open Access•Horacio Cardoso, Hugo F V Cardoso et al.•American Journal of Physical…•2011

  Incluir item

• Age and sex bias in the reconstruction of past population structures

  Open Access•Silvia M Bello, Aminte Thomann et al.•American Journal of Physical…•2006

  Incluir item

• Age estimation of adolescent and young adult male and female skeletons II, epiphyseal union at the upper limb and scapular girdle in a modern Portuguese skeletal sample

  Open Access•Horacio Cardoso, Hugo F V Cardoso•American Journal of Physical…•2008

  Incluir item

• Placas de identificación de combatientes de la Guerra Civil española (1936-1937), recuperadas en exhumaciones de escenarios bélicos en el País Vasco

  Open Access•L Herrasti, Alberto J Sampedro et al.•Munibe Antropologia-Arkeologia•2014

  Incluir item

• Body Snatching & Grave Robbing

  Megan J Highet•History and Anthropology•2005

  Incluir item