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Fallen comrades? Anthropological analysis of human remains from the siege of Turin, 1706.

Mercinelli, M. and Smith, M. J., 2019. Fallen comrades? Anthropological analysis of human remains from the siege of Turin, 1706. Human Remains and Violence, 5 (2), 34 - 55.

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DOI: 10.7227/HRV.5.2.4

Abstract

The construction of an underground car park beneath the main square of Turin, Italy in 2004 led to the unearthing of the skeletonised remains of twenty-two individuals attributable to the early eighteenth century. At this time the city was besieged during the War of the Spanish Succession in a hard-fought battle that resulted in unexpected triumph for the Piedmontese, a victory that marked a fundamental turning point in Italian history. The current study assesses the strength of evidence linking the excavated individuals to the siege and assesses their possible role in the battle through consideration of their biological pro les, patterns of pathology and the presence of traumatic injuries. This article presents the first analysis of evidence for the siege of Turin from an anthropological point of view, providing new and unbiased information from the most direct source of evidence available: the remains of those who actually took part.

Item Type:Article
ISSN:2054-2240
Uncontrolled Keywords:siege of Turin; physical anthropology; paleopathology; osteoarchaeology; conflict archaeology; Spanish succession
Group:Faculty of Science & Technology
ID Code:33191
Deposited By: Symplectic RT2
Deposited On:06 Jan 2020 16:26
Last Modified:14 Mar 2022 14:19

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