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© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

The identification of human remains is challenging mostly due to the bad condition of the remains and the available background information that is sometimes limited. The current case report is related to the identification of an unknown soldier from the Estonian War of Independence (1918–1920). The case includes an anthropological study of the remains, examinations of documents found with the exhumed remains, and kinship estimations based on archival documents, and DNA analyses. As the preliminary data pointed to remains of male origin, Y-chromosomal STR (short tandem repeat) analyses of 22 Y-STR loci were used to analyze the exhumed teeth. Reference samples from individuals from two paternal lineages were collected based on archival documents. Y-chromosomal STR results for the tooth samples were consistent with a patrilineal relationship to only one reference sample out of two proposed paternal lineages. Based on the provided pedigrees in the consistent case, the Y-STR results are approximately four million times more likely if the tooth sample originated from an individual related along the paternal line to the matching reference sample, than if the tooth sample originated from another person in the general population. Special considerations have to be met when limited evidence is available.

Details

Title
The Unique Identification of an Unknown Soldier from the Estonian War of Independence
Author
Aaspõllu, Anu 1 ; Allmäe, Raili 2 ; Puss, Fred 3 ; Parson, Walther 4   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Pihkva, Küllike 5 ; Kairi Kriiska-Maiväli 6 ; Arnold Unt 7 

 Department of Nutrition Research, National Institute for Health Development, 11619 Tallinn, Estonia 
 Archaeological Research Collection, Tallinn University, 10130 Tallinn, Estonia; [email protected] 
 Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Tartu, 50090 Tartu, Estonia; [email protected]; Department on Language History, Dialects, and Finno-Ugric Languages, Institute of the Estonian Language, 10119 Tallinn, Estonia 
 Institute of Legal Medicine, Medical University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria; [email protected]; Forensic Science Program, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA 
 Preservation Department in Tartu, National Archives of Estonia, 50411 Tartu, Estonia; [email protected] 
 Document Department, Estonian Forensic Science Institute, 13419 Tallinn, Estonia; [email protected] 
 Estonian War Museum-General Laidoner Museum, 74001 Tallinn, Estonia; [email protected] 
First page
1722
Publication year
2021
Publication date
2021
Publisher
MDPI AG
e-ISSN
20734425
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2602048270
Copyright
© 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.