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Date: 7 August 2010
Emma Bonthorne has become the second BU student to win the SPMA undergraduate dissertation prize
Emma Bonthorne has become the second BSc Archaeology and Forensic Sciences student to win the Society for Post-medieval Archaeology undergraduate dissertation prize.
The aim of the prize is to encourage new research into this period of history and Emma, now studying for a Masters at Bournemouth University, has won £250, free membership to the Society for one year and a conference bursary.
Emma’s winning dissertation is entitled, ‘An assessment of methodologies and standards followed in the location, recovery and analysis of Spanish Civil War remains in the Basque Country’.
Emma was interested in differences in method between the Basque Country exhumations, which were originally implemented by families hoping to recover the bodies for a proper burial, and other legally motivated exhumations that usually result in prosecution of those responsible.
Emma found that the Basque Country exhumations were both socially and academically successful. However, for further forensic study the reporting methods would need to be more detailed and the chosen techniques justified.
Emma says: “I feel very honoured to have been awarded this prize. This is a topic that has been kept quiet for so long and I hope that, in some way, by writing about the exhumations more people become aware of the kinds of violent and repressive acts that took place during the conflict and continued under Franco until the 1970s.”
Emma is now studying for an MSc in Recovery and Identification of Human Remains. She continues her research into the Spanish Civil War, this time examining peri-mortem skeletal injuries caused by specific firearms used for performing executions.
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