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Written by DeadGirl
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Sunday, 19 September 2004 |
SEATTLE — Fredy A. Peccerelli spends his days exhuming mass graves and examining the bones of murder victims, hoping that the dead will speak to him.
A forensic anthropologist, Mr. Peccerelli, 33, combines elements of pathology, archaeology and anthropology to solve crimes.
Human rights organizations employ forensic anthropologists to document war crimes and human rights abuses. Mr. Peccerelli, director of the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, has investigated the deaths of thousands of civilians killed in the civil war in Guatemala from 1960 to 1996.
"What we do is all about life," he said here last month on a break at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. "It's about people. This is about applying scientific knowledge for everyday human issues."
The association awarded its science and human rights prize for 2004 to Mr. Peccerelli and his colleagues at the foundation for promoting "human rights at great personal risk."
Q. What is the job definition of forensic anthropologist?
A. We use the tools of science to answer important historical questions. For instance, what was the fate of thousands of people who disappeared in the 1970's "dirty war" in Argentina? Or what happened to approximately 7,000 or 8,000 Muslim men in Srebrenica in 1995, after United Nations troops left that Bosnian village? Or who were some of the estimated 200,000 Guatemalans killed during 36 years of internal armed conflict?
To answer these sorts of questions, forensic anthropologists locate graves and exhume remains. We then apply the techniques of physical anthropology, archaeology and osteology, a branch of anatomy that deals with bones, to identify the missing and establish how they died. A forensic anthropologist tries to identify an individual victim by establishing a profile from the skeleton. It has clues to age, ancestry, sex, stature, how this person lived and how that lifestyle is reflected on the skeleton. We always say, "The bones tell the story."
Q. How do you get the bones to speak, to tell the story of a victim?
A. We learn all we can about the victims and the incident where they died. From the reports of eyewitnesses and family members, we get information that helps us locate the graves. We then take everything out of the ground and document what we've found. We next send the bones to an anthropologist in Guatemala City, who analyzes the remains.
You look for obvious things in the bones, bullet holes, crushed skulls, breaks, gashes. We are looking for evidence of trauma that will lead us to make an interpretation on whether or not this was a wrongful death. After we've identified the person and determined the cause of death, our findings are handed over to the authorities, because we want to create the possibility of justice.
With Guatemala, I say "possibility," because the organization has conducted over 400 investigations, found the remains of about 3,000 people. We've seen three cases go to trial.
Q. You grew up in Brooklyn, though you are Guatemalan. Why did your family immigrate?
A. We moved in 1980, one of the heaviest years in the civil war in Guatemala, at a time when the death squads were most active. My father was a lawyer who headed the Guatemalan weight-lifting team at the Moscow Olympics. When he returned home from it, someone denounced my father, "He's a Red!"
They wanted my father's job. In those days, just pointing the finger was enough to get a person killed. Then, my father started getting letters from the death squads. He went into hiding in Guatemala City and then later he fled to New York City. Soon, my mother got a letter saying they knew my father was gone, but if he ever set foot in Guatemala again they would kill him that day. With that, my grandparents took us all to New York. I was 9.
Q. Was Brooklyn a different world for you?
A. Oh, yes. As a kid, my worries were are the Yankees going to make the playoffs, and not how many people are dying in Guatemala. I spent my teen years wanting to be normal and to fit in. Some of that changed when I got to Brooklyn College in 1991 and began feeling the need to reconnect to my heritage. I studied anthropology and archaeology, because these were disciplines that I hoped might take me back to Guatemala.
http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/30/science/30CONV.html |
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Taphophilia?
taphophilia (taf′ō-fil′ē-ă)
ORIGIN:
From the Greek words taphos, meaning "tomb" or "sepulcher" and philia, meaning "attraction or affinity to something, in particular the love or obsession with something"
DEFINITION: 1. An excessive interest in graves and cemeteries. 2. A love or fondness for funerals, graves, and cemeteries. 3. In psychiatry, a morbid attraction to graves and cemeteries
Quote Repository
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest, was not spoken of the soul.” Longfellow
Shirtless and Sculpted
The Men of Mortuaries 2008 Calendar is now available! All sale proceeds benefit KAMMCARES, a breast cancer foundation.
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