THE remains of nearly half the 250 Commonwealth soldiers recovered from recently discovered mass graves in northern France have been reburied at a new military cemetery near the site of the World War I battle of Fromelles.

Soldiers from the Australian and British armies laid the first soldier to rest last month, in an individual grave, with full military honours, thanks to the work of 30 British and Australian specialists who recovered all 250 sets of remains from burial pits in nearby Pheasant Wood. "We're doing final reports now," says forensic archeologist and anthropologist Caroline Barker, who led the team that analysed and catalogued the remains of each solder in preparation for evidentiary and DNA-based identification.

They worked in a mortuary and laboratory facility erected adjacent to the excavation site.