Real-Life Communication
You are a forensic anthropologist who has recently returned from
Guatemala, where you helped exhume and identify the victims of warfare massacres.
It was not a pleasant job, but with your expertise, families are now able
to know what happened to their loved ones.
Once back at your office,
you wrote a report and are now presenting it as a speech to a group of colleagues.
"A
forensic anthropologist should be an academic. That is a scientist who strives
to add knowledge to her discipline through research and the discussion of
the results in the academic community," says Stefan Schmitt, a forensic anthropologist
from Florida.
This is an excerpt from your speech:
Tunaja
is a small village in the highlands of Guatemala with a population of not
more than 200. It suffered under the campaign the military instated during
the latter part of the '70s and the beginning of the 1980s.
In
November 1992, the Guatemalan forensic anthropology team was asked by one
of the indigenous human rights groups of Guatemala to exhume the remains of
several people, who had been assassinated by the military and its civil patrol
unit.
A total of eight human skeletons were exhumed, four of which
were located in a mass grave. While we were digging this site, one of the
perpetrators would come down to the grave and watch us work. He still lives
amongst the villagers of Tunaja.
The case I present here is interesting,
since we were able to piece together the last moments of this man's life.
Although we couldn't identify him positively, witnesses say his name
was Rosal'o Chingo.
His skeletal remains were found partially buried
in the bed of a creek at the bottom of a deep ravine.
From the tool
marks in the wall beside where we found him, it was evident that it had been
caved in to cover up his body. Some of this material had been washed away,
which is why it wasn't possible to recuperate all of the remains.
Some
bones, such as the ulna (underarm bone) were located approximately 50 yards
downstream.
(Excerpted with permission from: Massacre at Tunaja)
Audience
questions
- Why were some of these remains exhumed?
- How many people were found in the mass grave?
- How did they know that the wall had been caved in around Rosalio Chingo?
Answer the audience's questions.