Recovering identities, preserving memories

Their average age at death was 27. The youngest was only 15.

The jade rabbit was found between one martyr's ribs and pelvis. Researchers believe its position suggests that it may have been held in his hand and placed on his abdomen.

"The Mid-Autumn Festival had just passed when he died in October 1948. The jade rabbit symbolizes reunion in Chinese culture, so it may have carried his longing for home and family in the final weeks of his life," Wen said.

The laboratory is continuing to develop the technology used in the work. Its molecular archaeology techniques are being applied to increasingly difficult samples, including the burned remains of unidentified Red Army martyrs from the Long March.

The team has also introduced artificial intelligence into facial reconstruction, using it to simulate how martyrs might have looked from youth to old age and to generate scene videos incorporating historical materials. Some of the videos have been given to martyr cemeteries.

Yet the work's impact extends beyond what technology can recover about the dead. For the young researchers handling remains and personal belongings of people who died decades before they were born, the experience has also changed how they understand the past.

For Chang Xin, 28, a doctoral student in archaeology at Fudan and a member of the team, that change came down to something simple.

"Words like 'cherish life, cherish peace and cherish the present' can feel distant and abstract in everyday life," Chang said. "But excavating the remains of those who died in war made those words real to me. It left me with one very clear thought: I hope war never happens again."

zhouwenting@chinadaily.com.cn