Figure 1: Map of Brooks County depicting locations of discovered remains.

Residents of Mexico and South America painstakingly traverse the Rio Grande Valley to cross into the United States, only to be left behind or buried without identifying markers after they fall ill from dehydration and overexertion. Nearly 650 deceased immigrants were found in Brooks County, Texas, located 70 miles north of the border within the last ten years (Burnett 2019).

As the number of migrants increases, so does the number of burials. Counties in the region once had the resources to bury and account for these individuals, but the overwhelming numbers left them at a disadvantage. Recently deceased undocumented migrants have been buried without a proper analysis completed, which includes extracting DNA for identification.

These graves are sometimes left unmarked, leaving it nearly impossible to find the remains should the ones who have undergone analysis be positively matched (Texas State University 2019).

Some of the aforementioned graves were exhumed by Dr. Lori Baker and Dr. Krista Latham, of Baylor University and the University of Indianapolis, respectively, in an effort to complete DNA sampling and hopefully bring families closure. Upon exhumation, they found most remains were in stages of decomposition, and therefore required proper storage until analyses could be performed. Texas State had the means to do so.

In 2013, Operation Identification, founded by the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State University, began its work to identify remains found along and near the southern Texas border. Dr. Kate Spradley, a biological anthropologist with an interest in forensic anthropology, leads the organization. The college currently holds 200 identified remains that Dr. Spradley and her team are working to identify (San Marcos Daily Record 2019).

Texas State graduate students supervised by Dr. Kate Spradley as they work in the lab.

As the deceased are brought to the lab, their belongs are bagged and frozen for later cleaning while the remains are sanitized. Dr. Spradley and her graduate students then use the remains to attempt to identify gender, height, age, and any physical abnormalities that may still be visible (Burnett 2019). The information is then processed through the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs), where it will be cross-referenced with DNA from families to find a potential match. Many families are not listed in this system, but thankfully two groups, South Texan Human Rights Center and the Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense, have been collecting missing persons reports and DNA samples in South America, allowing a much higher chance for the remains to be matched to relatives (Garrison 2019).

As of May this year, 287 individuals have been put into the system, 31 of which have been positively identified (Burnett 2019).

References Cited

Burnett, John

2019   After Grim Deaths in the Borderlands, An Effort To Find Out Who Migrants Were. Electronic document, https://www.keranews.org/post/after-grim-deaths-borderlands-effort-find-out-who-migrants-were, accessed 5 December, 2019.

Garrison, Dale

2019   Operation Identification: Life, Death, and Lessons on the South Texas Border. http://www.evidencemagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2570&Itemid=49, accessed 5 December, 2019.

Leutert, Stephanie

2019   In the Brush in Brooks County: Who’s Dying in South Texas? Electronic document, https://www.lawfareblog.com/brush-brooks-county-whos-dying-south-texas, accessed 8 December, 2019.

San Marcos Daily Record

2019   Texas State’s Operation ID Aims To Restore Migrants’ Identities. Electronic document, https://www.sanmarcosrecord.com/news/texas-states-operation-id-aims-restore-migrants-identities, accessed December 7, 2019.

Texas State University

2019   Identifying Migrant Deaths in South Texas. Electronic document, https://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/people/faculty/spradley/Identifying-Migrant-Deaths-in-South-Texas.html, accessed 7 December 2019.

Images

Figure 1:

Leutert, Stephanie

2019   In the Brush in Brooks County: Who’s Dying in South Texas? Electronic document, https://www.lawfareblog.com/brush-brooks-county-whos-dying-south-texas, accessed 8 December, 2019.

Figure 2:

Burnett, John

2019   After Grim Deaths in the Borderlands, An Effort To Find Out Who Migrants Were. Electronic document, https://www.keranews.org/post/after-grim-deaths-borderlands-effort-find-out-who-migrants-were, accessed 5 December, 2019.

Further Readings

Lee, Jenni

2019   Texas State gets funding to help identify South Texas remains. Electronic document, https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/texas-state-gets-funding-to-help-identify-south-texas-remains/269-15951a8f-06fb-473e-be49-ed025c6f47ca.

Regan, Mark and Lorenzo Zazueta-Castro

2019   Operation Identification Involves Immigrant Remains in Texas. Electronic document, https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Operation-Identification-Involves-Immigrant-Remains-in-Texas-528669701.html.

Visit their Facebook page here.

Listen to NPR’s podcast about Operation Identification here.

Human remains have the ability to provide information even when all that is present is bones. After the start of the use of radiography, researchers were able to determine a line on the bone, invisible to the naked eye, that correlates with malnutrition or severe illness.

Figure 1: Harris Lines unable to be visualized by naked eye. Indicated with arrows.

Figure 2:Radiographic Image of male tibia. Harris Lines indicated by arrows.

The Harris Line is a transverse layer on a long bone that shows a period of arrested development (right). Studies have shown this line appears on a bone not when physiological stress is present, but the time after when the individual is on their way towards better health, either by meeting their nutritional needs or recovering from an illness. The process of mineralization would have ceased during illness, and its resumption is when the line occurs.

Archeologists are able to use this information to determine if an illness or famine was present in an area. Should the majority of the remains show Harris Lines, it can be deduced that famine was present throughout a large area, and not necessarily a problem of one individual’s social status, or lack of means to acquire food. If the age of the remains can be deduced, researchers may be able to determine a more precise date of its occurrence. Furthermore, it is noted that childbirth can also be determined by the presence of Harris Lines, likely due to the fetus taking much of the mother’s vitamins and nutrients.

One study was done that focused on the differences between medieval Joseon and modern-day Korean samples. Researchers found that modern-day Koreans had a smaller percentage of adults with Harris Lines, and the instances where they did occur were nearly equal in both males and females. Joseon-age Koreans, however, showed Harris Lines at more than double the amount of modern-day. It was also noted that women were more likely to have a sign of malnutrition. While it was not explicitly stated, this could be due to pregnancy and breastfeeding after childbirth, both of which take vitamins and nutrients from the mother and pass them to the child.

In addition to having the ability to discover malnutrition in an area, archeologists can also use Harris Lines to unearth a rough estimate of population. According to a 2007 article by Neil H Metcalfe, Harris Lines may also appear on women’s pubic bones. These lines can help deduce the birth rate in the area and, when combined with annual death rates, may give a rough estimation of the population.

References

Beom, Jaewon, et al.

2014   “Harris Lines Observed in Human Skeletons of Joseon Dynasty, Korea.” Anatomy & Cell Biology, Korean Association of Anatomists, March 2014. Electronic document, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3968268/, accessed 4 October 2019.

Metcalfe, Neil H.

2007   “In What Ways Can Human Skeletal Remains Be Used to Understand Health and Disease from the Past?” Postgraduate Medical Journal, BMJ Group. Electronic document, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2600025/, accessed 3 October 2019.

Morgan, Matt A., and Daniel J Bell.

“Growth Arrest Lines: Radiology Reference Article.” Radiopaedia Blog RSS, Electronic document, https://radiopaedia.org/articles/growth-arrest-lines?lang=us, accessed 5 October 2019.

Piontek, Janusz & Jerszyńska, Blandyna & Nowak, Oskar.

2001  Harris lines in subadult and adult skeletons from the medieval cemetery at Cedynia, Poland. Variability and Evolution. 9. 33-43.

Images:

Figure 1: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0196342.g003

Figure 2: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Harris-lines-of-the-tibia-across-centuries%3A-a-of-in-Ameen-Staub/f8d3f81a57aecaa2e68f3725676f7a86bc9e782e/figure/3

Further Readings:

How to calculate the age of Harris Lines:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12520-018-00773-5

Harris Lines as Stress Indicators

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/7cda/3af60037df6748cf6d7a49f1bf2ed7cbbc50.pdf