International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Application

Isotopic Analysis of Mass Graves for Humanitarian Identification

Author(s):Helena Vasquez-Moreau

Affiliation: Department of Forensic Geochemistry and International Justice, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Page No: 95-101

Volume issue & Publishing Year: Volume 3, Issue 7, July 2026

published on: 2026/07/09

Journal: International Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Application.(IJAMA)

ISSN NO: 3048-9350

DOI:

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Abstract:
The identification of victims in mass graves — a humanitarian imperative at the intersection of forensic science, human rights law, and the psychological needs of bereaved families — has advanced considerably through DNA kinship matching, yet significant proportions of remains recovered from conflict and atrocity sites resist DNA-based identification due to sample degradation, absence of reference family samples, or the deliberate commingling of victims from geographically dispersed source communities. Stable isotope ratio analysis of skeletal hard tissues offers a complementary and often decisive tool for narrowing the geographic provenance of unidentified individuals: because the isotopic composition of strontium (⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr), oxygen (δ¹⁸O), sulphur (δ³⁴S), carbon (δ¹³C), and nitrogen (δ¹⁵N) in bone and dental enamel reflects the biogeochemical signature of food and water consumed during tissue formation, systematic multi-isotope profiling of skeletal remains against regional baseline datasets can constrain an individual's likely geographic origin to sub-national resolution — in favourable geological contexts, to the level of river basin or ecological zone. This study presents results from isotopic analysis of 312 skeletal individuals recovered from eleven mass grave sites in the Western Balkans (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and North Macedonia), cross-referenced against a newly compiled multi-isotope baseline atlas comprising 847 geo-referenced soil, water, and faunal reference samples collected across the region's principal geological and hydrological zones. Multi-isotope Bayesian provenance modelling, integrating ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, δ¹⁸O, and δ³⁴S simultaneously, assigned 74.7% of individuals to geographic provenance regions concordant with antemortem information and family testimony at ≥70% posterior probability. A further 18.3% of individuals received partial regional assignment (one or two isotope systems concordant), providing investigative leads for targeted family reference DNA collection. The resulting forensic evidence portfolios — structured to satisfy the evidentiary standards of the International Criminal Court and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals — have been transmitted to prosecutorial teams in four active international accountability proceedings. These findings demonstrate the operational maturity of multi-isotope provenance analysis as a humanitarian identification tool and establish a reproducible methodological framework and regional baseline infrastructure for deployment in future mass grave investigations across the broader southeastern European theatre.

Keywords: stable isotope analysis, mass graves, forensic identification, strontium isotopes, oxygen isotopes, geographic provenance, Western Balkans, humanitarian forensics, International Criminal Court, missing persons

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