Citation

Binder M, Quade L. Int. J. Paleopathol. 2018; 22: 66-77.

Affiliation

Department of Archaeology, Durham University, South Road, DH13LE, Durham, UK.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.ijpp.2018.05.007

PMID

29886352

Abstract

On the 21^st-22^nd of May1809 Napoleon Bonaparte saw his first major defeat on land at the Battle of Aspern, just north-east of Vienna. Of the 167,000 soldiers who fought for the French and Austrian armies, a total of 55,000 died on the battlefield. Salvage excavations prior to the construction of large urban development project (2008-2016) have revealed several burial sites related to the Battle of Aspern. The skeletal remains of 30 soldiers were excavated and underwent a detailed bioarchaeological study to elucidate both the impact of 19th-century military conditions on soldiers in life, as well as how they died on the battlefield. This paper presents the analysis of peri-mortem trauma observed in 21 of the 30 skeletons (70.0%) excavated from the battlefield of Aspern. Following standard criteria in forensic and palaeopathological trauma studies, this study revealed a predominance of ballistic trauma (20 cases in 17 individuals), while only nine individuals (eleven cases) displayed evidence of blunt force trauma. By contrast, no evidence of sharp force trauma was identified in the skeletal remains. These results are discussed within the historic context of the Napoleonic Wars to reconstruct causes of injury and circumstances of death.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Blunt force trauma; Gunshot wounds; Mass graves; Napoleonic wars; Trauma