Mystery of Waterloo’s dead soldiers to be re-examined by academics

207 years after the battle at Waterloo, there is still a gruesome question about what happened to the dead.

While tens of thousands of men and horses died at the site in modern-day Belgium, few remains have been found, with amputations and a skeleton unearthed beneath a car park south of the capital city.

According to reports after the conflict, the bones were collected, pulverised and turned into fertiliser.

The London Observer reported in 1822 that Great Britain should have sent many soldiers to fight the battles of Europe and then imported the bones as an article of commerce.

Fresh fieldwork is needed to investigate claims that the theory is credible.

Prof Tony Pollard, director of the centre for battlefield archaeology at the University of Glasgow, has compiled vivid descriptions and images from those who visited Waterloo after the Battle of Waterloo.

According to the reports, there is a morbid encounter with a human hand, almost reduced to a skeleton, outstretched out above the ground.

The research yielded a number of surprises, including the discovery of the bodies of women, one of whom was dressed in French cavalry uniform.

The accounts include testimony of bodies being burned, but they also refer to burials.

TheBodies were buried in some places in their hundreds in big pits but in other places they were buried singly or in small groups.

Pollard and his team are going to go back to the battlefield next month to continue their archaeological survey, aided by the testimony of witnesses.

Pollard said that even if the stories of bone removal are true, he doesn't expect every grave to have been emptied. It would be fascinating to find evidence of pits from which bones have been removed.

The team will begin a battlefield-wide survey using a number of different techniques.

According to Dr Kevin Linch, an expert in the Napoleonic wars who is not involved in the work, the bones of the dead could be used as fertiliser.

Linch said that Waterloo Uncovered is important because it involves modern veterans who have been injured or traumatised.

It is important to find and recognize war graves from this era just as much as any other, and archaeological investigations have the potential to tell us a lot about the lives and deaths of soldiers.