If you watch the tv show Bones, you know that every once in a while Brennan will determine some activity that the deceased did based purely on their skeletal remains. For example, in the Pilot episode she determines that the deceased is a young woman who played tennis. The determination of the activity was based on … Continue reading »
The Day of DH is a national celebration of the range and variety of people, projects, and groups involved in digital humanities (DH). This year the event is hosted by MSU’s own DH center: MATRIX: The Center for the Digital Humanities & Social Sciences. It is a community sourced online publication and project to bring together scholars … Continue reading »
Last week I discussed a way of preserving bodies almost indefinitely in some cases: embalming. On the other side of this is decay, the process of bodily decline and biological breakdown of the flesh. If you’ve ever watched any of the forensics crime shows, you know that understanding decay and changes in the body can … Continue reading »
In modern societies, perfect health and being in-shape are often associated with wealth. Those who have more money have better access to healthier food, ability to hire nutritionists, access to the best gyms and health related centers, and overall tend to be in better health than their poorer counterparts. In the past few years, studies have … Continue reading »
Preservation of a body is an interesting phenomenon, whether it be the evanescent embalming at a funeral home to prevent the body from decaying at the wake, or preservation for hundreds of years as is the case with Rosalia Lombardo in the Palermo catacombs. Embalming is a three-fold process of sanitation, preservation and presentation. While the process has ancient … Continue reading »
Sacrifice is a delicate subject. It can be voluntary or forced, but interpreting who these people were without text can be extremely difficult. When any hint of sacrifice is found at an archaeological site, it is often sensationalized. Sacrifice is actually defined as the making of a sacred act, coming from the latin sacer for … Continue reading »
Over the past few weeks I have been working on mapping a cemetery in a Geographic Information System (GIS) as both part of a class and part of my own research. I received a number of question and comments on Twitter from readers asking how this was done and what exactly I was doing. What … Continue reading »
claimtoken-5149b056b7c8b The Crossrail project is aimed at creating a 73 mile railway in southeast London. Concerns raised about the new fast and efficient railway was that it could destroy archaeological resources but also that the dig may reveal some ancient diseases. During the debate over passing the bill to begin construction, it was raised that … Continue reading »
St. Patrick was born in 387 CE in Great Britain, not Ireland, and he was considered a pagan for the early years of his life. When he was 16, he was captured by Irish marauders and taken back to Ireland as a slave. Over the next 6 years, he worked for his Irish masters as … Continue reading »
Sometimes, when we discover burials through archaeological excavation we don’t find markers or above ground indicators that the burial was located there. The cemetery is found because of construction, agriculture, aerial survey, surveying or other methods. For example, a historic cemetery in the US may have been marked with wooden grave markers or crosses but … Continue reading »
