By Megan Lickliter-Mundon, ACUA Board Member
Casualty Resolution Archaeology is a subpractice of archaeology where the purpose is to account for the loss of an individual or small group of individuals, usually related to wartime losses but not exclusive to military. This practice often crosses into conflict, forensic, and aviation archaeology and sites are located in terrestrial, near shore, or underwater environments.
In the United States, the development and practice of casualty resolution archaeology as a field is influenced primarily by the projects of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA). The DPAA is tasked by Congress to ‘provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel to their families and the nation’ (https://www.dpaa.mil/About/Vision-Mission-Values/).
The US government’s efforts to repatriate American service members spans around 50 years. During the 1970s the US government set up two identification laboratories to account for MIA or POW American service members from past conflicts from WWII to present day. In 2003 those laboratories and other DOD accounting departments combined to create the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command (JPAC), and in 2015 JPAC restructured to form DPAA. JPAC had contracted with non-government organizations to locate and recover mission service members, but in 2015 DPAA began working with external entities as partners in the methodology and execution of projects. DPAA partners completed 200 projects in 2024.
Casualty resolution archaeology’s backbone is forensic archaeology and maintaining the exhaustive documentation of archaeological methodology and analysis that leads to an identification of an individual. Like conflict archaeology, many projects begin with historical documentation and in-field canvassing and investigation, but casualty resolution projects then go a step further by attempting to locate evidence of an individual aircraft, ship, or vehicle loss, and attempting to locate evidence of the whereabouts of any missing crew. DPAA projects that recover human remains or personal effects send those items to a DPAA lab for processing and DNA collection. DPAA then works with the Service Casualty Office of the military branch to locate and inform the family of the service member.
DPAA projects, especially the partner-led projects that have been common since 2015, have influenced the field of archaeology by providing the opportunity and partial funding for hundreds of aircraft documentation projects. Casualty resolution archaeology tends to support extensive documentation of the circumstances of loss, site formation, and preservation of materials on aircraft sites, but excavations do not usually involve the entire airframe or site. Casualty resolution archaeology’s focus is limited to crew spaces and site formation that informs where crew members’ remains are expected to be located, and excavation aims at recovering evidence of the crew members only. The aircraft, ship, or vehicle is not usually fully excavated or conserved. As such, reporting traces the integrity of the evidence instead of the archaeological value of the vessel.
Casualty resolution archaeology reports can be a valuable source of material for site formation, statistical analysis, and/or historical research. DPAA partners have increased publication of sites and many papers contain site documentation and interpretation that can build our understanding of these historical sites as a section, whole, or in the greater landscape.
The subpractice in general also is a unique contribution to archaeological knowledge where the information uncovered has the potential to directly affect a living person.
This blog is focused on DPAA and the US government’s role in US-focused accounting, but studies on global losses exist as well. A well-known example is the forensic investigation and recovery of the ‘Catalina Affair’ DC-3 in Sweden, which resulted in the identification of partial crew but recovery of the entire airframe and its installation into a museum exhibit. Casualty resolution archaeology projects have been undertaken by other governments in North America, Europe, and Australia.
Some Links of Interest:
Project Recover
History Flight
ALTA
The UW MIA Recovery and Identification Project
American Veterans Archaeological Recovery
University of Malta
Categorised in: Deep Thoughts