160-Year-Old Human Skeletons Found In Punjab

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Latest DNA-based evidence confirm the human remains found dumped in an abandoned well in the Ajnala town of Punjab’s Amritsar belonged to 282 young Indian soldiers who were brutally killed after they revolted against the British during the 1857 Indian uprising and belonged to the Gangetic plains, researchers said.

The study, published in the journal Frontiers in Genetics, identified the individual remains as belonging to that of soldiers of the 26^th Native Bengal Infantry regiment of the British Indian Army. The new evidence has put a lid on all hypotheses and folklore swirling around the Sepoy Mutiny in this Punjab district.

Archaeologists have called the site the largest possessing skeletal remains linked to any single event during the 1857 Indian rebellion.
Underneath the present-day religious structure in this Punjab town, the abandoned well-turned-dumping site in Ajnala had found a detailed mention in a textbook authored by a British official.

What is written in the book?

The book, written by the then serving deputy commissioner of Amritsar in 1857, narrated how British officers forcing the use of beef and pork-greased cartridges met with strong opposition from the Indian soldiers stationed at Mian Mir cantonment (in present-day Lahore in Pakistan).
After killing some British officers, a few hundred Indian soldiers fled toward Punjab (present day India) but were eventually captured, imprisoned, and later killed near Ajnala. As many as 282 Indian soldiers were killed, the book stated.
With the mass killing being a highly sensitive issue with the potential to trigger socio-political tensions in 1857, the concerned British officers decided to immediately dispose of their bodies by dumping them in the well at Ajnala.

This was a revenge for the anger against the British in Uttar Pradesh’s Banaras and Kanpur.
According to the book ‘The Crisis of Punjab’, if these incidents had not happened, then the Kaliyanwala massacre would not have happened.
According to the book, in August 1857, the then Governor General Warren Hastings, along with Commander James George Smith, raided the Chet Singh Fort Ghat in Varanasi.
In which about 107 people died and 72 were injured. However, Warren Hastings was so scared of this war that he had to flee and take shelter in the fort of Chunar.
Here, the news of this massacre spread across the country. Nana Saheb was leading the revolt of 1857 in Kanpur. There were also many English women and children in their captivity, who decided to be released.
When Indian soldiers were escorting them safely through the Ganges, then the news of the massacre in Banaras came.
It was said that even Indian women and children were not spared there in Banaras.
Hearing this, the Indian people became enraged and after killing the hostage British women and children, the bodies were thrown into a well located near the Sati Chaura Ghat in Kanpur.

A few days after this incident, the British took their revenge by killing 282 soldiers in Ajnala.
A researcher from Punjab had read this book for the first time in England, after which a team of scientists conducted a survey in a well under a gurudwara in Ajnala village.
For several years following this 1857 mass killing, the incident never attracted much attention though it preceded events like the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre involving General Reginald Dyer.
Later, some historians hypothesised that these skeletal remains at Ajnala well belonged to individuals killed during the violence after the India-Pakistan Partition in 1947.
The interest in tracing the origins of the dead stemmed in 2014 after an amateur group of local archaeologists unscientifically exhumed some skeletal remains from this well.
The same year, the government tasked a group led by anthropologist J S Sehrawat from Panjab University to scientifically investigate the matter.

Teeth, jaw fragments, vertebrae, skulls, phalanges (bone of the finger or toe), femur (thigh bone), clavicles (collar bone), bones of arms along with some coins, jewellery, and medals were unearthed from the well site.
As many as 9,646 teeth samples—the world’s largest teeth remain from a single archaeological site—were recovered. Of these, over 4,000 have been analysed so far.

Apart from the fact that bone remains were available in abundance, the researchers performed a thorough study of the teeth samples also because the 165-year-old bone remains were not well preserved, and had severe damage making them unfit for the scope of a proper scientific study.

Along with skeletal remains, archaeologists also recovered some jewellery, medals, and coins —some bearing emblems of Queen Victoria dating to 1799, 1806, 1841 and 1853.
These non-biological remains further authenticated that the remains were that of soldiers.

DNA was extracted from 50 good quality teeth samples and subjected to mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis to determine the genetic origins from biological samples.
In addition, 85 teeth samples were subjected to oxygen isotope analysis.
Researchers said that the composition of tooth enamel with respect to elements like lead, zinc, and carbon increases with the person’s age whereas there are certain other elements whose composition decreases with growing age.
“Food we eat regularly leaves some deposits on the tooth enamel. Upon analysis of such recovered teeth samples, it is possible to trace the plant or animal foods that were consumed. In the present study, the foods like legumes and lentil traces were found in the enamel. Thus origins of these killed soldiers were straight traced to the Gangetic plains,” said co-researcher Gyaneshwar Chaubey from the Department of Zoology at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU).

The numerous research methods supported that the human skeletons found in the well were not of people living in Punjab or Pakistan, as commonly believed.
Also the DNA sequences matched with the people from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and West Bengal.
On the basis of trace elements and ancient DNA analysis, the average age of the soldiers was calculated to be between 21 to 49 years, with an average of 33 years.
The bone analysis also revealed the extent of atrocities committed against the Indian soldiers. Each of the 86 unbroken recovered skulls carried injury marks between their eyebrows.
“Each skull had signs of trauma, an indication of bullets that were shot from a point-blank range.”
In addition, the excavators recovered stone bullets, too, which were commonly used in the 19th century to kill captive people.
Fractured pelvic bones were another common feature observed among the bone samples, suggesting physical assault and cruelties that the Indians were subjected to, before being shot dead.
The truth of this incident came to light, there is a demand from the British Government to provide the names of the martyrs, so that they can be cremated according to Hindu customs.
Along with this, the British government should also apologize to India for this heinous crime.