title: Digging up the recent Spanish memory: genetic identification of human remains from mass graves of the Spanish Civil War and posterior dictatorship.
abstract: The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and posterior dictatorship (until 1970s) stands as one of the major conflicts in the recent history of Spain. It led to nearly two hundred thousand men and women executed or murdered extra-judicially or after dubious legal procedures. Nowadays, most of them remain unidentified or even buried in irretraceable mass graves across Spain. Here, we present the genetic identification of human remains found in 26 mass graves located in Northern Spain. A total of 252 post-mortem remains were analyzed and compared to 186 relatives, allowing the identification of 87 victims. Overall, a significant success of DNA profiling was reached, since informative profiles (≥ 12 STRs and/or mitochondrial DNA profile) were obtained in 85.71% of the remains. This high performance in DNA profiling from challenging samples demonstrated the efficacy of DNA extraction and amplification methods used herein, given that only around 14.29% of the samples did not provide an informative genetic profile for the analysis performed, probably due to the presence of degraded and/or limited DNA in these remains. However, this study shows a partial identification success rate, which is clearly a consequence of the lack of both appropriate family members for genetic comparisons and accurate information about the victims' location. Hence, further perseverance in the exhumation of other intact graves as well as in the search of more alleged relatives is crucial in order to facilitate and increase the number of genetic identifications.
authors.affiliation: BIOMICs Research Group, Centro de Investigación "Lascaray" Ikergunea, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz 01006, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Miriam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Baeta
authors.affiliation: BIOMICs Research Group, Centro de Investigación "Lascaray" Ikergunea, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz 01006, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Carolina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Núñez
authors.affiliation: BIOMICs Research Group, Centro de Investigación "Lascaray" Ikergunea, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz 01006, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cardoso
authors.affiliation: BIOMICs Research Group, Centro de Investigación "Lascaray" Ikergunea, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz 01006, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Leire
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Palencia-Madrid
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Anthropology, Society of Sciences Aranzadi, Donostia 20014, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Lourdes
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Herrasti
authors.affiliation: Department of Physical Anthropology, Society of Sciences Aranzadi, Donostia 20014, Basque Country, Spain; Department of Legal and Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Donostia 20014, Basque Country, Spain.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Etxeberria
authors.affiliation: BIOMICs Research Group, Centro de Investigación "Lascaray" Ikergunea, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU, Vitoria-Gasteiz 01006, Basque Country, Spain. Electronic address: marian.mdepancorbo@ehu.es.
authors.forename: Marian M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: de Pancorbo
mesh_terms: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods*; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D018895:Microsatellite Repeats / Q000235:genetics; D013030:Spain; D014857:Warfare
chemical_list: D004272:DNA, Mitochondrial
keywords: Genetic identification; Mass graves; Spanish Civil War