Anthropological analysis of the Second World War skeletal remains from three karst sinkholes located in southern Croatia

Abstract Although in the cases of war crimes the main effort goes to the identification of victims, it is crucial to consider the execution event as a whole. Thus, the goal of the research was to determine the trauma type and probable cause of death on skeletal remains of civilians executed by partisans from WWS found in the three karst sinkholes and to explain the context in which the injuries occurred. We determined biological profiles, pathological conditions, traumas, and assessed their lethality. Nineteen skeletons were found, 68.4% had, at least, one perimortem trauma, classified as lethal/lethal if untreated in 69.2% cases. The type of execution and administered violence showed to be age and health dependent: elderly and diseased were executed with the intention to kill, by the gunshot facing victims, whilst the more violent behavior expressed towards younger and healthy individuals was indicated by the higher frequency of blunt force trauma.