Editing Battle of Waterloo (section)

==== Remains ====
[[File:'Oorlogsleed', woman and child at the Battle of Waterloo.jpg|thumb|A female [[sutler]] with her dead Dutch husband, by [[Jacobus Josephus Eeckhout]].]]
After the battle, the bodies of the tens of thousands who died were hastily buried in mass graves across the battlefield{{snd}}a process that took at least ten days, according to accounts by those who visited the battlefield just after the battle.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal |last=Pollard |first=Tony |date=2022-06-17 |title=These spots of excavation tell: using early visitor accounts to map the missing graves of waterloo |journal=Journal of Conflict Archaeology |volume=16 |issue=2 |pages=75–113 |doi=10.1080/15740773.2021.2051895 |s2cid=249833895 |issn=1574-0773 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Remarkably, there is no record of any such mass grave being discovered in the 20th and 21st centuries; only two complete human skeletons have been found.<ref name=Kuta1>{{cite web |last=Kuta |first=Sarah |date=2021-07-21 |title=Archaeologists Uncover Rare Human Skeleton at Waterloo |publisher=Smithsonian Magazine |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-uncover-rare-human-skeleton-waterloo-battlefield-180980439/ |accessdate=26 January 2023 |archive-date=26 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230126014401/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/archaeologists-uncover-rare-human-skeleton-waterloo-battlefield-180980439/ |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name=":0" />

The remains of a soldier thought to be 23-year-old Friederich Brandt were discovered in 2012.{{sfn|Dunn|2015}} He was a slightly hunchbacked infantryman, {{convert|1.60|m}} tall, and was hit in the chest by a French bullet. His coins, rifle and position on the battlefield identified him as an Hanoverian fighting in the King's German Legion.{{sfn|Peel|2012}} In 2022 a second skeleton was found in a ditch near a former field hospital by the Waterloo Uncovered charity.<ref name="Kuta1" /> In December 2022, the historians Dr. [[Bernard Wilkin]] (Belgium) and Robin Schäfer (Germany), assisted by Belgian archaeologist Dominique Bosquet, discovered and recovered the largest assembly of remains of Waterloo battlefield casualties found in recent times. In the aftermath of the historian's research into the fate of the fallen once buried on the Waterloo battlefield (see below), several local individuals had come forward who were in the possession of human remains recovered on it. Forensic examination has shown that these remains belonged to at least four soldiers, some of whom are likely to be Prussian. Another set of human remains, initially discovered on the central battlefield by illegal metal detecting and consisting of the remains of six British soldiers, was also recovered by the team. Objects found with the casualties on the central battlefield point to the fact that at least one of them served in the First Foot Guards.<ref name="Kolirin1">{{cite news |last=Hemicker |first=Lorenz |date=2023-01-24 |title=Tote Preußen auf dem Dachboden Seit Jahrzehnten suchen Forscher Überreste der Gefallenen von Waterloo. Nun ist ein deutsch-belgisches Team auf eine Sensation gestoßen. |url=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/geschichte/schlacht-von-waterloo-forscher-finden-ueberreste-von-preussischen-soldaten-18622829.html |accessdate=26 January 2023 |newspaper=Faz.net |publisher= |archive-date=26 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230126080403/https://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/geschichte/schlacht-von-waterloo-forscher-finden-ueberreste-von-preussischen-soldaten-18622829.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Blackburn |first=Jack |date=25 January 2023 |title=Battle of Waterloo Bones found in Attic |work=[[The Times]] |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/science/article/human-bones-remains-found-attic-battle-waterloo-9qgkcqzh7 |access-date=26 January 2023 |archive-date=26 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230126080403/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/human-bones-remains-found-attic-battle-waterloo-9qgkcqzh7 |url-status=live }}</ref>

A possible reason for the absence of human remains in any quantity is that European battlefields of the time were often scoured for bones to make [[bone meal]], which was much in demand as a [[fertilizer]] before the discovery of [[superphosphate]]s in the 1840s.<ref name=":0" /> [[Bernard Wilkin]] and Robin Schäfer, supported by the British archaeologist Tony Pollard, concluded that in the aftermath of the conflict, local farmers dug up the corpses of horses and men and sold them to the [[Waterloo sugar factory]]. There, the ground-down bones were fired in kilns to make bone-char, which was then used to filter sugar syrup as part of the production process.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Homann |first1=Arne |last2=Wilkin |first2=Bernard |last3=Schäfer |first3=Robin |title=Die Toten von Waterloo: Aus dem Massengrab in die Zuckerfabrik? |url=https://www.academia.edu/102550987 |journal=Archäologie in Deutschland |date=January 2023 |volume=2023 |issue=3 (Juni-Juli) |pages=44–45}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Schäfer |first1=Robin |last2=Wilkin |first2=Bernard |date=2023-01-01 |title=The real fate of the Waterloo fallen. The exploitation of bones in 19th century Belgium |url=https://www.academia.edu/111460708 |journal=Journal of Belgian History}}</ref>