BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Natl Museum of Natural History -- Exhibit: Written in Bone

DC -- Natl Museum of Natural History -- Exhibit: Written in Bone:

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.191.46.36 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] SINHWB_090207_0003.JPG	[2] SINHWB_090207_0007.JPG	[3] SINHWB_090207_0011.JPG
[4] SINHWB_090207_0018.JPG	[5] SINHWB_090207_0020.JPG	[6] SINHWB_090207_0028.JPG
[7] SINHWB_090207_0041.JPG	[8] SINHWB_090207_0051.JPG	[9] SINHWB_090207_0057.JPG
[10] SINHWB_090207_0068.JPG	[11] SINHWB_090207_0105.JPG	[12] SINHWB_090207_0107.JPG
[13] SINHWB_090207_0120.JPG	[14] SINHWB_090207_0130.JPG	[15] SINHWB_090207_0156.JPG
[16] SINHWB_090207_0160.JPG	[17] SINHWB_090207_0173.JPG	[18] SINHWB_090207_0177.JPG
[19] SINHWB_090207_0191.JPG	[20] SINHWB_090207_0200.JPG	[21] SINHWB_090207_0203.JPG
[22] SINHWB_090207_0208.JPG	[23] SINHWB_090207_0218.JPG	[24] SINHWB_090207_0221.JPG
[25] SINHWB_090207_0227.JPG	[26] SINHWB_090207_0233.JPG	[27] SINHWB_090207_0237.JPG
[28] SINHWB_090207_0243.JPG	[29] SINHWB_090207_0251.JPG	[30] SINHWB_090207_0257.JPG
[31] SINHWB_090207_0271.JPG	[32] SINHWB_090207_0278.JPG	[33] SINHWB_090207_0281.JPG
[34] SINHWB_090207_0290.JPG	[35] SINHWB_090207_0297.JPG	[36] SINHWB_090207_0302.JPG
[37] SINHWB_090207_0307.JPG	[38] SINHWB_090207_0321.JPG	[39] SINHWB_090207_0329.JPG
[40] SINHWB_090207_0342.JPG	[41] SINHWB_090207_0355.JPG	[42] SINHWB_090207_0387.JPG
[43] SINHWB_090207_0391.JPG	[44] SINHWB_090207_0422.JPG	[45] SINHWB_090207_0434.JPG
[46] SINHWB_090207_0456.JPG	[47] SINHWB_090207_0463.JPG	[48] SINHWB_090207_0469.JPG
[49] SINHWB_090207_0501.JPG	[50] SINHWB_090207_0506.JPG	[51] SINHWB_090207_0536.JPG
[52] SINHWB_090207_0543.JPG	[53] SINHWB_090207_0550.JPG	[54] SINHWB_090207_0554.JPG
[55] SINHWB_090207_0574.JPG	[56] SINHWB_090207_0587.JPG	[57] SINHWB_090207_0596.JPG
[58] SINHWB_090207_0605.JPG	[59] SINHWB_090207_0623.JPG	[60] SINHWB_090207_0649.JPG
[61] SINHWB_090207_0666.JPG	[62] SINHWB_090207_0702.JPG	[63] SINHWB_090207_0707.JPG
[64] SINHWB_090207_0717.JPG	[65] SINHWB_090207_0731.JPG	[66] SINHWB_090207_0734.JPG
[67] SINHWB_090207_0740.JPG	[68] SINHWB_090207_0754.JPG	[69] SINHWB_090207_0759.JPG
[70] SINHWB_090207_0773.JPG	[71] SINHWB_090207_0796.JPG	[72] SINHWB_090207_0830.JPG
[73] SINHWB_090207_0834.JPG	[74] SINHWB_090207_0848.JPG	[75] SINHWB_090207_0884.JPG
[76] SINHWB_090207_0892.JPG	[77] SINHWB_090207_0897.JPG	[78] SINHWB_090207_0907.JPG
[79] SINHWB_090207_0916.JPG	[80] SINHWB_090207_0920.JPG	[81] SINHWB_090207_0936.JPG
[82] SINHWB_090207_0990.JPG	[83] SINHWB_090207_1000.JPG	[84] SINHWB_090207_1010.JPG
[85] SINHWB_090207_1019.JPG	[86] SINHWB_090207_1033.JPG	[87] SINHWB_090207_1073.JPG
[88] SINHWB_090207_1080.JPG	[89] SINHWB_090207_1089.JPG	[90] SINHWB_090207_1098.JPG
[91] SINHWB_090207_1105.JPG	[92] SINHWB_090207_1111.JPG	[93] SINHWB_090207_1127.JPG
[94] SINHWB_090207_1132.JPG	[95] SINHWB_090207_1139.JPG	[96] SINHWB_090207_1145.JPG
[97] SINHWB_090207_1153.JPG	[98] SINHWB_090207_1159.JPG	[99] SINHWB_090207_1164.JPG
[100] SINHWB_090207_1188.JPG	[101] SINHWB_090207_1193.JPG	[102] SINHWB_090207_1217.JPG
[103] SINHWB_090207_1226.JPG	[104] SINHWB_090207_1238.JPG	[105] SINHWB_090207_1250.JPG
[106] SINHWB_090207_1256.JPG	[107] SINHWB_090209_018.JPG	[108] SINHWB_090209_026.JPG
[109] SINHWB_090209_037.JPG	[110] SINHWB_090209_042.JPG	[111] SINHWB_090209_052.JPG
[112] SINHWB_090209_057.JPG	[113] SINHWB_090209_091.JPG	[114] SINHWB_090209_104.JPG
[115] SINHWB_090209_109.JPG	[116] SINHWB_090209_114.JPG	[117] SINHWB_090209_118.JPG
[118] SINHWB_090209_125.JPG	[119] SINHWB_090209_129.JPG	[120] SINHWB_090209_138.JPG
[121] SINHWB_090209_142.JPG	[122] SINHWB_090209_150.JPG	[123] SINHWB_090209_154.JPG
[124] SINHWB_090209_158.JPG	[125] SINHWB_090209_163.JPG	[126] SINHWB_090209_169.JPG
[127] SINHWB_090209_187.JPG	[128] SINHWB_090209_190.JPG	[129] SINHWB_090209_195.JPG
[130] SINHWB_090209_199.JPG	[131] SINHWB_090209_207.JPG	[132] SINHWB_090209_211.JPG
[133] SINHWB_090209_220.JPG	[134] SINHWB_090209_228.JPG	[135] SINHWB_090209_237.JPG
[136] SINHWB_090221_26.JPG

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. SINHWB_090207_0007.JPG: They have a couple of pictures that change as you walk past them
2. SINHWB_090207_0020.JPG: Lots of skeletons in this exhibit! Skeletons Speak: Ask them who? When? What? Where? Why? Look carefully at the bones and teeth. One skeleton can help tell the life story of a person -- many skeletons can help tell the story of a group or a people. These tales may be recent or hundreds of years old. Bones can't express the thoughts, feelings, hopes, or heartaches of the person they represent. Yet no other inanimate objects make us feel the same passionate curiosity as the remains of once-living, breathing individuals like us. And nothing else can answer our questions in quite the same ways. Clues in the Pelvis: Some of the best indicators of adult age are in the pelvis. Throughout a person's lifetime, the pelvic bones change in appearance. Scientists have developed standards based on these changes, matched to age. By comparing areas of a pelvis to the standards, an investigator can estimate a person's age to within 5 to 10 years, up to about age 55. Clues in the Cranium: The bones that enclose the brain grow together during childhood along lines called cranial sutures. During adulthood, bone "remodeling" may gradually erase these lines, at variable rates. Closure of cranial sutures gives general information about a person's age. It is best used with additional indicators to estimate age, or when other age indicators are unavailable. Young Or Old? Skeletons record an adult's age in several ways. The surfaces of the cranium, public bones, and rib ends hold clues. At the microscopic level, investigators can see the bone "remodeling" that takes place throughout life, as well as age-related bone breakdown. Examining the Evidence: What do your bones reveal? Skeletons physically establish aspects of our identity. All of us have the same basic skeletal structures that identify us as human. But, between the young and old, male and female, and among ancestral groups, there are recognizable skeletal variations. Human remains record sex, age, height, and clues to ancestry. To see this evidence, we need to look through the experienced eyes of forensic anthropologists. This means knowing what to check for, where to look (which bones provide the best evidence), and how to use various tools. Baby, Child, Teen: Skeletons are good age markers because teeth and bones mature at fairly predictable rates. A baby's bones begin to grow in the womb. At birth, the skeleton is partially formed. Many bones are still in "parts". Between 17 and 25 years, normal growth stops. The development and union of separate bone parts is complete. At this point, you and your skeleton are as tall as you are going to get -- with many fewer bone parts that you started with! Our Bodies of Evidence: Forensic anthropologists know every bone in your body. There are 28 different bones in your skull. An adult human has 206 bones -- but a child has more, about 300 bone "parts". More than half of your bones are in your hands and feet. The smallest bones in your body are inside your ear: - the malleolus (the hammer) - the stapes (the stirrup) - the incus (the anvil) Why do we examine skeletons? In law enforcement, it might be to determine a person's identity or the cause of death. In archaeological investigations, the clues in human remains let us see history through the lives or real people. Reading their remains can give us insights that no other source of information can provide. The first step is to identify the evidence at hand. Which bones are present? Where did they fit in the body? Specialists in reading human remains -- forensic anthropologists -- must know and understand the skeleton inside out, from the living tissue of bone itself, to how bones work in the body. Examining the Evidence: Long, short, flat, or irregular -- a bone's external shape and internal structure suit its job in the body. Bones provide attachment sites for muscles and let us move by means of joints. Bones protect our internal organs -- especially the brain, spinal cord, heart, and lungs. Bone supports us in life, and it may last long after death. Can You Make the ID? Shape and surface can tell you what a bone did and where it belonged in the body. Forensic anthropologists look at a bone's shape to identify and "side" it -- to determine if it is from the left or right half of the body. What about bone fragments? The small clues in bone allow for even fragments to be identified as human and located in the skeleton. This is especially important when bone is badly damaged or deteriorated -- as it often is in both archaeological and forensic cases.
3. SINHWB_090207_0120.JPG: Examining the Evidence: Is it human or non-human? Investigators must distinguish human from non-human bones and teeth. Identifying the remains requires a good knowledge of skeletal anatomy. The bones in the human skeleton have distinctive forms. Even small fragments of bone can sometimes be identified by shape and internal structure. Can you make the ID? Are these bones human? In 2007, these bones were discovered in rural West Virginia. Law enforcement agents contacted Smithsonian scientists for help in identifying them. Vertebrates (animals with bones) share common origins. But we have all evolved in response to particular ways of life and environments, so human and non-human bones differ in internal structure, density, and shape. For most animals, the differences are pronounced. A trained scientist can easily identify them. Sometimes, the distinctive adaptations in bone are tricky to spot. This clawless hind paw of a black bear looks somewhat like a human foot. How do cases like this come to the attention of the police? When hunters skin bears, they remove the claws with the pelt and leave the feet in the woods, to be found later by hikers or family pets.
4. SINHWB_090207_0130.JPG: Very Personal Profiling: Bones contain a lifetime of personal information. Some of the evidence in bone -- sex, ancestry, and genetic makeup -- is fixed. Some of it -- height, age, diet, illness, injury -- varies over the course of a life. The biological profile of every skeleton is unique. In a forensic or anthropological investigation, a bone biography along with evidence at the scene can answer many questions about an unidentified person. Even after fingerprints and facial features are gone or unrecognizable, skeletal evidence can tell us: Who was this? What did she look like? What did he do? and maybe How did she die? Three skulls (left to right): - Individuals with Native American ancestry have proportionately wider faces and shorter, broader cranial vaults. - Individuals with European ancestry tend to have straight facial profiles and narrower faces with projecting, sharply angled nasal bones. - Individuals with sub-Saharan African ancestry generally show greater facial projection in the area of the mouth, wider distance between the eyes, and a wider nasal cavity. Ancestry: In living and past peoples, there is a wide range of variability. Despite this variability, our bones have features that can be clues to ancestry. Many of these features reflect evolutionary processes, including adaptation to the environment. Bone bells retain "biogeographical" information that is found in our DNA. These inherited markers are due to mutational changes that gradually acculate and differentiate populations over time. DNA can help associate an individual with a region of the world. We can also assess ancestral origins by looking at the skeleton itself. The bones of the skull express inherited features from one generation to the next. Measuring the cranium gives us information that is similar to that from DNA. We can see ancestry in traits of the skull and teeth. Forensic anthropologists physically assess ancestry in two ways. They first measure the cranial vault and face. By comparing a skull's results with data from populations worldwide, scientists can statistically evaluate that individual's relationship to a world group. Teeth also show inherited features more common in some populations than others. Scientists visually assess these traits. The color of a bone does not reveal ancestry. Bone color has more to do with what happens to a body after death than in life.
5. SINHWB_090207_0156.JPG: Male head. Aging It's in your head (and skeleton)! Clues in the Pelvis: Some of the best indicators of adult age are in the pelvis. Throughout a person's lifetime, the pelvic bones change in appearance. Scientists have developed standards based on these changes, matched to age. By comparing areas of a pelvis to the standards, an investigator can estimate a person's age to within 5 to 10 years, up to about age 55. Clues in the Cranium: The bones that enclose the brain grow together during childhood along lines called cranial sutures. During adulthood, bone "remodeling" may gradually erase these lines, at variable rates. Closure of cranial sutures gives general information about a person's age. It is best used with additional indicators to estimate age, or when other age indicators are unavailable. Other Age-related Changes: Wear and tear on a body throughout a lifetime affects the skeleton. Arthritis of the spine and other joints can reflect increasing age. Scientists also recognize many other clues to aging, such as the appearance of the rib ends and the cartilage that joins them to the sternum. In a young adult, the rib end walls are thick and smooth, with a scalloped or rounded edge. In an older adult, the walls are thin, with sharp edges, and the rim often has bony, irregular projections. Male or female? The pelvis tells the story, because of distinct features adapted for childbearing. Other postcranial bones and the skull also have features that can indicate sex, though slightly less reliably. A skeleton's overall size and sturdiness give clues. Within the same population, males tend to have larger, more robust bones and joint surfaces, and more bone development at muscle attachment sites. Sex-related skeletal features are not obvious in children's bones. Subtle differences are detectable, but they become more defined following puberty and sexual maturation. Male: - Generally larger than female Skull: - Larger brow ridges, with sloping, less rounded forehead - Greater definition of muscle attachment areas on the back of the head - Larger mastoid processes (projections behind the ears) - Square chin with an acute, more vertical angle of the jaw - The back of the cranium has a ridge with bony projection (the external occipital protuberance), where the neck muscles attach Pelvis: - Narrower, heart-shaped, pelvic inlet - Narrower sciatic notch - Narrower angle where the two pubic bones meet in front Female: - Smoother bone surfaces where muscles attach Skull: - Less pronounced brow ridges, with more vertical forehead - Sharp upper margins of the eye orbits - Smaller mastoid processes (projections behind the ears) - Chin more pointed, with a larger, obtuse angle of the jaw - The back of the cranium is smoother Pelvis: - Open, circular pelvic inlet, more outwardly flared hip bones - Broader sciatic notch - Wider angle where the two pubic bones meet in front
6. SINHWB_090207_0160.JPG: Male pelvis
7. SINHWB_090207_0173.JPG: Female head
8. SINHWB_090207_0177.JPG: Female pelvis
9. SINHWB_090207_0191.JPG: In the Lab: To collect the data in bones, investigators start by visually inspecting the remains (gross examination), often using a magnifying lens. Scientific technologies -- x-rays, CT scans, microscopic exams. and chemical analyses -- add information and provide an even closer look at the bones. ID's by X-Ray: Like a fingerprint, a bone is unique. Its distinctive features show up under close examination. Radiographs or CT scans of bone and teeth give the best views of skeletal details. For positive bone-based IDs, before and after views are needed. Any part of the skeleton, from head to feet, can confirm an ID -- or rule it out. In modern cases, when investigators tentatively identify skeletal remains, they try to obtain x-rays of that person taken in life, usually after an injury or during dental care. Then, they compare an antemortem view (taken before death) with a postmortem view, looking for matches feature by feature. ID'd by Medical Conditions: Skeletal injuries in life can sometimes identify human remains. Antemortem fractures may cause unique shape changes to bone, which can be seen in x-ray records made during a person's life. Surgeries may also leave physical evidence in the skeleton. Orthopedic implants such as artificial joints, plates, nails, screws, and wires are especially good markers for identification. They not only confirm a surgical procedure during life but may also provide model or serial numbers. Numbers on a surgical appliance can be used to trace distribution to a specific hospital and patient. ID'd by DNA: We all inherit genes from a mother and father, in a one-of-a-kind combination. Our individual set of genes guides the production of enzymes, which in turn control cells, which form tissues, which make every one of us a unique living organism. Almost all cells, including bone cells, contain DNA -- the chemical codes of our genes. Biomedical technology makes it possible to use DNA in forensic and archeological investigations. When there is little other physical evidence, we can sometimes determine a person's sex from DNA in bone fragments. Using DNA to prove the identify of a specific person is also possible -- but only if a DNA example from a relative, or from the person in question, is available for comparison.
10. SINHWB_090207_0221.JPG: From Bone to Flesh: The skull provides clues to personal appearance. The brow ridge, the distance between the eye orbits, the shape of the nasal chamber, the shape and projection of the nasal bones, the chin's form, and the overall profiler of the facial bones all determine facial features in life. Facial reconstruction of one of Jamestown's first settlers. Who was he? Watch for the finished reconstruction (and his name) later in the exhibition. In facial reconstruction, a sculptor familiar with facial anatomy works with a forensic anthropologist, who interprets skeletal features that reveal the subject's age, sex, and ancestry, and anatomical features like facial asymmetry, evidence of injuries (like a broken nose), or loss of teeth before death. The finished product approximates actual appearance, because the cranium does not reflect soft-tissue details (eye, hair, and skin color; facial hair; the shape of the lips; or how much fat tissue covers the bone). Yet a facial reconstruction can put a name on an unidentified body in a modern forensic case -- or, in an archeological investigation, a face on history. (1) Markers indicate the depths of tissue to be added to the skull (a cast in this case). Measures of these depths are based on studies of males and females of different ancestral groups spanning a century. (2) Applying strips of clay, the artist begins to rebuild the face, filling in around the markers. (3) The artist begins to refine features around the artificial eyes. (4) The lips take shape. (5) Facial contours have been smoothed and subtle details added to accurately personalize the reconstruction.
11. SINHWB_090207_0233.JPG: Skeletal Evidence: In addition to numerous healed bones injuries, at least seven unhealed cuts can be identified on this individual. It would have taken a large, sharp knife to completely slice through the bone. Postmortem changes in the bones indicate that the body was burned and buried without embalming. The cranium was sectioned by a medical examiner, who worked with a forensic anthropologist after the remains were exhumed. The light color of the sawed edge of the cranial vault indicates that this cut occurred during the recent autopsy. Antemortem Clues: Headed fractures on the right tibia and fibula, nasal bones and maxillae, and pelvis (with two fused bones) are consistently with injuries form a car accident. Several teeth were also knocked out. Perimortem Clues: Charring is evident on the top of the cranium and portions of the ankle and elbow bones -- body parts least protected by soft tissues. How much and where the skeleton is burned gives information about the circumstances of death and the body's position. Postmortem Clues: Erosion of bone can occur even in a coffin. The innominates and sacrum show erosion on the surface in contact with the bottom of the coffin. The pattern of the erosion indicates the body's position in the grave. Case Closed: As a result of the autopsy's findings and related criminal investigations in this case, a suspect was brought to trial and found guilty of murder and arson.
12. SINHWB_090207_0257.JPG: Gunshot Wounds: Bullets (projectiles) fracture "fresh" bone in characteristic ways, so that the direction of the projectile and its size can often be determined. Entrance wounds are characterized by a circular hole with fractures extending from the hole in a "sunburst" pattern. The outer edge of the entrance wound will be sharp and the inner margin beveled due to the direction of the force. Exit wounds are typically larger than the entrance, with fractures extending from the exit area. For exit wounds, the inner edge is sharply defined and the outer margin is beveled.
13. SINHWB_090207_0290.JPG: Late-stage syphilitic destruction of a cranial vault
14. SINHWB_090207_0307.JPG: Skull extensively fractured by the explosion of a pipe bomb
15. SINHWB_090207_0321.JPG: This was the top of a casket. The design was tacked into the surface. Note the shape of the heart on the bottom. The shape above is a skull and crossbones.
16. SINHWB_090207_0329.JPG: Touching The Past: We discover bones every day. Sometimes they emerge as archaeologists locate and excavate gravesites -- but many finds of human remains are unexpected. Unmarked burials, and even trash dumps or old wells, may hold skeletal evidence. As the Chesapeake builds for its future, it turns up clues to its past. Earthmoving for urban construction and road building leads to many discoveries of old human skeletal remains. Erosion, an environmental concern in the Chesapeake region, also exposes burials. Unearthing the Evidence: What can 400-year-old graves tell us? To scientists, bones and teeth hold answers about people and events. The evidence preserved in bone, together with written and cultural records, unlocks a new, more intimate way to look at the past. The skeletal evidence introduces us to actual people who made history. Anthropologists have already opened forensic files on more than 300 of the Chesapeake's earliest European and African residents. Their bones and burials are often the only surviving records of real lives and deaths. These are the stories of the people who -- by choice or by force -- came to the Chesapeake three to four centuries ago and stayed. Their files are opening new chapters to early American history. Digging for Clues: To recover either artifacts or fragile bones, scientists use the same methods. Yet bones once belonged to living, feeling beings, and burials retain a deeply affecting meaning for us, the living. Excavators need legal permits to remove human remains. Investigators take care to treat skeletal remains respectfully. Context is Crucial: Excavators have only one change to collect the evidence. No matter where it is found, every bone preserves evidence. How did it get there? Whose body did it once support? In what kind of society did that person live? Excavation destroys evidence. It moves bones and artifacts from their original, buried positions. Once the remains are rearranged or removed, their context is lost if it is not painstakingly recorded. Like detectives, forensic anthropologists and archeologists gather as much evidence as possible. For each set of remains, they assemble a case file. Documenting a skeleton's discovery and recovery requires careful observation, patience, and hard work. Establishing Time Since Death: The interval between a person's time of death and the present can be tricky to determine when decades or centuries have passed. To ascertain the age of "old bone" requires consideration of things both natural and man-made. A comprehensive approach is critical in the Chesapeake. Here, most 17th-century graves lie under a layer of plowed ground that has blurred indications of the passage of time that natural processes of soil formation would have recorded. How long can bone last? Hundreds of years, and even thousands of years under special circumstances. The chemical composition of bone -- a combination of collagen and minerals -- makes it strong and durable long after death. How well a bone is preserved depends on environmental influences and burial practices. How do we known how old bone is? We have to combine the evidence to decide. Were items deliberately placed with the bones, and can they be dated? Were objects unintentionally mixed in with the soil surrounding the skeleton? Does a later burial cut into an earlier burial? Was the burial oriented to buildings, fences, or paths that were nearby? Can any of these structures or features be dated?
17. SINHWB_090207_0342.JPG: Purposeful Burials: A burial marks an exact point in time. It preserves information not only about the deceased but also about those who buried the body -- about their beliefs, customs, and daily lives. Formal burials reflect culturally prescribed ways to show respect for the deceased, as well as a means to dispose of the dead. Chesapeake colonists placed almost all human remains in graves. More than 99 percent of the 17th-century remains recovered so far reveal ritual burial. Questions investigators ask... Where is the grave located? Is it next to a former church, in an isolated cemetery, or by itself? How was the grave dug? A rectangular, uniform shape indicates a formal burial. How was the body placed in the grave? Careful positioning of the body indicates ritual burial. Is there evidence of a shroud? If the body was wrapped in a sheet or length of cloth for burial (a shroud), the knees and ankles lie close together in their grave. Pins, or green stains left by pins in burial clothes or wrappings, also reveal preparation of the body. Is there evidence of a coffin? Wood is sometimes but rarely preserved. As a wooden coffin deteriorates, the wood and nails with which it was built may leave remnants or stains in the soil. Were other objects found with the bones? Were they already in the soil when the grave was dug, like pieces of pottery, pipes, or bricks? Or, were they put there intentionally, like a favorite tobacco pipe or a rosary? Colonial burials typically did not include personal objects. Happenstance Burials: Bones found in even the most unlikely places hold clues. Chesapeake burials sometimes reveal corpses hurriedly placed in shallow pits, with little attention paid to positioning the body. On rare occasions, archaeologists find bones in trash pits, old wells, or cellars.
18. SINHWB_090207_0355.JPG: Toeprints of a child, left in an unfired brick. 1670s, St. Mary's City, Maryland.
19. SINHWB_090207_0387.JPG: The skull in the cellar: Working ahead of planned construction in 2004, archaeologists turned up a human cranium in a 17th-century cellar. The trash above it held 62 pounds of butchered, burned animal bone. Was this foul play? A historical clue came from a treaty with the local Indians signed on October 5, 1646. The colonists agreed to slaughter their pigs and cattle and leave Gloucester, Virginia, before March 1, 1647. The skull had been placed in the cellar before they butchered their livestock and moved away. But why? One explanation may lie in 17th-century art. Skulls often appear as shorthand for humanity's brief time on earth. The bony tumor might have made this cranium interesting to a collector, scholar, or doctor. Perhaps someone had kept the skull as a memento mori, a reminder of death's certainty.
20. SINHWB_090207_0422.JPG: Partial skull of a teenaged English boy: When oxygen is scarce, there is little bacterial activity and decay occurs slowly. These cranial bones survived deep in the James Fort well. The bone is so well preserved that it looks recent.
21. SINHWB_090207_0434.JPG: Frontal bone of an infant about 9 months old, with copper oxide stains probably from brass coffin tacks: Copper and iron objects preserve bone by inhibiting bacteria, but they can leave dark green or rust-colored stains where they touch bone. This kind of staining can indicate a historic burial context.
22. SINHWB_090207_0456.JPG: Evidence at the Scene: A gabled coffin and captain's staff placed next to it indicate that the colonists who buried this man held him in high regard. Archaeological analysis of artifacts found in a later pit that cut into the upper half of the grave shaft revealed that this burial took place before 1630 and was forgotten by that time. Skeletal Evidence: Skeletal examination identified the remains as those of a European male, about 5 feet 3 inches tall, and 30 to 36 years old. Though his remains were well preserved, the cause of death was not apparent in the skeleton. The bones show some staining after death, from contact with copper shroud pins and iron coffin nails. A Highly Unusual Case: In 2002, archaeologists uncovered an isolated grave just outside the log wall of a fort built on an island in the James River almost four centuries earlier. Who was buried there? The discovery mystified investigators. Unlike nearly all the other early fort burials they had found, this one once held a coffin. The grave shaft was carefully dug. It lay outside of an parallel to the west palisade, near a gate that opened to what was probably the parade ground. This was not a typical church cemetery burial! Smithsonian forensic anthropologists joined archaeologists from APVA Preservation Virginia who were excavating the site where the fort once stood -- the first permanent English settlement in North America. They recorded data on the skeleton in the field and then removed the bones to the archaeological lab at Jamestown.
23. SINHWB_090207_0469.JPG: "The two and twentieth day of August, there died Captaine Bartholomew Gosnold... He was honorably buried, having all the Ordnance in the Fort shot off with many vollies of small shot." -- George Percy's Diary, 1607 A Probable ID: The weight of all the evidence pointed to one man -- Captain Bartholomew Gosnold! Investigators compiled the clues from the bones and burial and then looked at supporting evidence. Historical sources note that four prominent men died during the first years of the Jamestown colony. All were in their early thirties. Each might have been the man in this grave. But firsthand accounts of a captain's death in 1607 seemed to best fit the grave's location immediately outside the fort in the "parade ground," the gabled coffin, and the captain's staff buried with the coffin. Captain Bartholomew Gosnold died after a three-week illness, only three months after the colonists landed. Such a quick illness would not have shown up in the skeleton. If it is Gosnold's body in the grave, that would explain why no cause of death was apparent in the well-preserved remains. Four centuries ago, a band of English adventurers built a fort on the James River near the Chesapeake Bay. In the decades after 1607, shipload after shipload of colonists sought new lives in North America. They began moving inland, settling along the coastal rivers of Virginia and Maryland. These early immigrants to the Chesapeake region left us dramatic evidence of their lives. It waits for us in the traces of the structures they built, the foods they ate, and the objects they used. Most vividly, it waits for us in their unmarked graves and skeletons. Their lives filled the "forensic files" of the 1600s and early 1700s. Today, scientists are recovering these buried clues, investigating these most personal physical records. We are meeting the Chesapeake's earliest European and African settlers in entirely new and intimate ways. Their stories are written in their bones. Another Line of Inquiry: DNA can confirm identity in modern investigations. But could it solve a 400-year-old-mystery? DNA testing has become an option in historical cases only recently. It works only if bones are preserved well enough to still contain DNA -- and only if there is a known relative to provide DNA for matching. Investigators hoped to make a positive ID of the skeleton in the James Fort "captain's" burial by comparing its DNA to DNA of Captain Bartholomew Gosnold's sister. In 2005, scientists sampled bones in an unmarked grave thought to be that of Elizabeth Gosnold. The DNA results did not match, but further analysis revealed the bones were not his sister's remains. Even without a DNA match, investigators believe that the bone and burial data, supported by the colonists' writings, identify the man buried outside James Fort. All the evidence -- archaeological, forensic, and historical -- points to Captain Bartholomew Gosnold. A Captain, No Longer Nameless: This modern life-size figure of Bartholomew Gosnold is based on the skeletal and forensic evidence. There are no known portraits of Bartholomew Gosnold in life. Bartholomew Gosnold (1572-1607) was an enthusiastic promoter of colonization. An English lawyer and explorer, his first led an expedition to New England in 1602. He named Cape Cod for the teeming fish he encountered there, and Martha's Vineyard for his daughter. Gosnold captained the Godspeed, one of three ships that sailed for Virginia in 1606. He was vice admiral of the expedition and helped design the fort at Jamestown.
24. SINHWB_090207_0501.JPG: Fighting for Footholds: For centuries, we knew the first colonists only on paper. Barely more than 100 men and boys had set out from England. In their ranks were laborers, soldiers, craftsmen, officers, and gentlemen. Three of their journals have survived, telling of ordeals they endured at Jamestown. But did their words describe actual events in 1607? Until very recently, no one knew where they were buried. The archaeologists began to find their graves. So far, investigators have studied several burials that date to 1607, and they have located others. In each case, stories long buried are coming to light. In these skeletons, and in the bones of the animals the settlers ate, we now grasp more fully what happened to them. Most of the colonists who fought for footholds in Jamestown during its first three years lost their lives. The Unvanished: No traces of the original James Fort were visible four centuries later. Little was known about the men and eventually the women who came to Jamestown, or about actual events in the earliest years between 1607 and 1609. Nearly all investigators assumed that James Fort had long ago washed into the James River. No one knew where the fort had been, much less where the men who arrived in 1607 were buried. Until 1994, that is, when a team of APVA Preservation Virginia archaeologists headed by William Kelso discovered a trash put brimming with early 17th-century artifacts. the same year, they uncovered evidence of the palisade. James Fort had been found! Despite the Chesapeake's bounty, the colonists ran short of food. In 1609, seven ships arrived with new colonists but without enough supplies. By the winter, the colony's resources were stretched to the breaking point. Amid Plenty, Warnings of Want: Did starvation play a role in killing the early colonists? Human remains can't answer the question, but bone evidence of another kind might. Broken and butchered animal bones found in trash puts show that at first the colonists ate well. They had provisions and livestock brought from England. They also began to hunt and fish near the fort and trade with Indians for corn and venison. But there were some signs of trouble to come. The early settlers arrived during one of the worst regional droughts in centuries. The Indians were short of corn to trade. Growing hostility made it dangerous to hunt far beyond the safety of the fort. Chesapeake Wildlife: The river, marsh, and woodlands teemed with wildlife -- sturgeon and bottle-nosed dolphin (considered delicacies in England), catfish, gar, white sucker, white perch, box fish, snapping turtles, slider turtles, box turtles, gray and fox squirrels, raccoons, opossums, beaver, muskrats, cottontails, and deer. In England, wild fowl were staples of elite households. Here the colonists found ring-billed gulls, double-crested cormorants, dish crows, Canada geese, turkeys, and ducks. Thousands upon thousands of animal bones, or faunal remains, have been recovered at Jamestown. While only a small portion have been analyzed, they show that the settlers welcomes the region's many resources before harder times overtook the fort. The First Fatality? In August 2005, excavators discovered a skeleton inside the fort, along the western palisade wall. Clues indicated the burial took place during the first weeks or months of settlement at Jamestown. Was this the colony's first fatality? Two colonists wrote that a young Englishman died during an Indian attack in 1607, only two weeks after they landed on the island. Though they did not name him, this skeleton found in James Fort may tell his story. His bones -- and a stone arrowpoint -- survived to reveal details of his short life and violent death. Case of Death -- Arrowpoint or Chipped Tooth? "[The Indians] had ent'red the fort with our own men, which were then busied in setting corn... in which conflict most of the council was hurt, a boy slain..." -- John Smith, 1608, "A True Relation of such occurrences and accidents of note as hath happ'ned in Virginia..." A quick death might have been a blessing. Piecing his bones together, scientists saw that the boy had an infection that had spread from a broken, abscessed tooth into his lower jaw bone. His weakness made him especially vulnerable.
25. SINHWB_090207_0536.JPG: Reconstruction of the first fatality at Jamestown
26. SINHWB_090207_0543.JPG: Arrowhead located in the boy's leg
27. SINHWB_090207_0554.JPG: The head of the boy with the abscessed tooth
28. SINHWB_090207_0574.JPG: Teeth found in a double burial that provided clues as to who the occupants were. -- The Unvanished: No traces of the original James Fort were visible four centuries later. Little was known about the men and eventually the women who came to Jamestown, or about actual events in the earliest years between 1607 and 1609. Nearly all investigators assumed the James Fort had long ago washed into the James River. No one knew where the fort had been, much less where the men who arrived in 1607 were buried. Until 1994, that is, when a team of APVA Preservation Virginia archaeologists headed by William Kelso discovered a trash pit brimming with early 17th-century artifacts. The same year, they uncovered evidence of the palisade. James Fort had been found! Archaeologists are excavating, cleaning, cataloging, and analyzing thousands of James Fort artifacts. More than 80 percent of the fort's archeological features survived underground, along with artifacts and the skeletal remains of some of the first men and boys at Jamestown. Today, more than half of the fort has been explored. As the excavations continue, the list of remarkable discoveries grows. James Fort: So far, archeologists have identified the location of 33 burials within the fort, in addition to the captain's burial just outside the wall. These graves date to the first two years of the settlement. Only four have been excavated, and two of them contain the remains of two men each. Another unusually wide grave has been located. Investigators think it also dates to 1607, but it has yet to be excavated. Harsh Realities, Hard Proof: Many early graves have been found inside the fort's walls. The English were reluctant to leave the protection of their palisade, even to bury the death. They were also trying to hide their dwindling numbers from the Powhatan. The colonists' bones record trauma, while their burials point to rapid loss of life. Of the original 104 colonists, only 38 were alive nine months after landing. Diseases proved as deadly as arrows or lead shot. For the English to hold the settlement, ships had to bring in supplies and more immigrants. Graves reveal that many of the next newcomers also did not survive. Double Burial: So many men were dying that at least three times the living buried them two to a grave. Archeologists have already excavated two of these wider double burials, and they have located a third one, all inside the fort. The men buried side by side in one of these graves probably fell ill and died quickly. There is no direct evidence of the cause of their deaths. Rapid-onset infections or starvation would not have left markers in their bones. Their skeletons reflect active lives but not strenuous labor. They were probably gentlemen. The clues in their bones and their unusual burial, paired with historical descriptions, let us name them. "Our men were destroyed with cruel diseases as Swellings, Fluxes, Burning Fevers, and by warres, and some departed suddenly, but for the most part they died of mere famine." -- George Percy, "Observations Gathered out of a Discourse of the Plantation of the Southerne Colonie in Virginia by the English, 1607" Evidence at the Scene: Both excavated double burials lay under a new house known to have been built by 1611. No European objects and only a few Indian pottery fragments and stone tool flakes were recovered from the burials or grave fill. These men died in the early days of the fort, before settlement significantly affected the area. Skeletal Evidence: Even though the island's clay soil had trapped groundwater, causing poor preservation of the bones, skeletal data could be gathered. Both bodies were male, of European ancestry. Differing degrees of wear on their teeth held clues to their age -- which in turn held clues to their identify. Probably IDs: " The four and twentieth day [of August], died Edward Harington and George Walker, and were buried the same day." -- George Percy, 1607 The month of August 1607 claimed the lives of 21 men, according to the colonist George Percy. In his journal, he listed their names and dates of death. He mentions three days on which two deaths occurred. The biological profiles from this grave match the known facts about two men whom Percy lists as both buried on August 24, the day they died. Historical records reveal that Edward Harington and George Walker were 25 and 41 respectively. Based on all the evidence, it's quite likely that the men in this double burial were Harington and Walker.
29. SINHWB_090207_0623.JPG: Projections on the floor showing locations of graves in Jamestown. When I came back the next day, one of the lamps had burned out and the sound system for the videos had died. It was a new exhibit so bugs were still being worked out. -- Struggling to Survive: A long-forgotten cemetery reveals a colony in crisis. Young adults -- normally a society's healthiest members -- were dying. The few women and infants at Jamestown were dying. Gravediggers were hurrying, digging graves in all directions. The living were abandoning their burial customs. These graves mark the Starving Time, the desperate winter of 1609-1610. When a load of new colonists landed in mid-August 1609, the situation was dire. They brought a few provisions; their supply ships had run aground in Bermuda. Indians were besieging Jamestown. The colony's leader, Captain John Smith, left for England in October for treatment of a gunpowder burn. Food supplies were exhausted. The settlers feared to leave the fort to fish or hunt. By the spring, more than half the colony had perished from disease and famine. A Cemetery's Tale: In the 1950s, archaeologists located an early unmarked cemetery. It lay under the ruins of a statehouse that was built at Jamestown in the 1660s. Now called the Statehouse Complex Burial Ground, it holds victims of the Starving Time, as well as later graves up to the 1630s. Patterns and trends emerge in looking at an entire cemetery. One burial informs us about an individual; many burials at a single site can cast light on social conditions and customs. The Statehouse Complex Burial Ground exposes the desperate times and social disruption in the settlement's early years. The Starving Time: The sights and sounds in this room link us to the colonists. Their written accounts, and the archeological field notes on their burials, re-create the bleak Starving Time. Graves: Skeletal images from 2000 and 2001 field drawings of burial excavations in the Statehouse Complex Burial Ground, Jamestown, Virginia. Diaries: George Percy: True Relation of the Proceedings and Occurrences of Moment Which Have Happened in Virginia from the Time Sir Thomas Gates Was Shipwrecked upon The Bermudas in the Year 1609 until My Departure out of the Country Which Was in AD 1612 John Smith: The General History of Virginia, New England & the Summer Isles: Together with the True Travels, Adventures and Observations, and a Sea Grammar. William Strachey: A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight, upon and from the Islands of the Bermudas, His Coming to Virginia, and the Estate of That Colony Then, and After under the Government of the Lord La Warre, July 15, 1610. Written by William Strachey, Esquire. A Breakdown in Burial Customs: The standard English practice in the early 1600s was to bury the dead without clothing, wrapped in a winding-sheet or shroud. Most were placed without a coffin in a carefully dug shaft large enough to fit a body extended on its back. The Statehouse cemetery holds a mix of traditional and haphazard burials. In some graves, the bodies were face down, on their sides, or bent to fit too small a grave shaft. At least three people were buried still clothed, as shown by buttons and personal items that might have been in a pocket. Foods of Desperation: Bones of another sort -- the remains of meals the colonists once ate -- are vital clues. The colonists were frantic for food. After they ran out of provisions, they consumed meats they would never have willingly swallowed otherwise. First they slaughtered their horses. Faced with starvation, they ate dogs, cats, and rats -- animals that had come to Jamestown as passengers on English ships -- and even snakes. In the fort's trash pits, many bones of once taboo foods show butchering marks. One colonists wrote that some of the starving resorted to digging up corpses for food. Evidence of this has yet to be found. Social Unrest? Lead shot was found in three of the burials, suggesting that these deaths were due to gunshot wounds. Were these men shot by Indians who had obtained firearms? Or, were they killed by other colonists accidentally or intentionally as the colony's situation worsened? Extraordinary, early deaths: A cemetery reflects a community. Normally, the dead are infants or small children, or middle-ages to older adults, with roughly equal numbers of males and females. The unusually high death rate of young adults in the Statehouse cemetery reflects both the crisis in the community and the makeup of the population of early Jamestown. The remains are mostly male -- teenagers and young men. The few females were girls and young women who had come to the colony as servants or brides. Deliverance: Bones can sometimes pinpoint and prove an event in history. Archeologists also recovered remains of a particular bird species from the early trash pits at Jamestown. These birds could have come only from one place. The island of Bermuda is the only native habitat of the Bermuda petret, or cahow. These small petrel bones mark a crucial turning point. In May 1610, more colonists and supply ships from Bermuda landed in Jamestown. In journals written 400 years ago, the surviving colonists credited their coming with saving the settlement from starvation and breakdown.
30. SINHWB_090207_0649.JPG: Skull fragments of a decapitated dog, 1607-1610, James Fort site, Jamestown, Virginia
31. SINHWB_090207_0666.JPG: Skull of a male, 35-39 years old, one of only four persons over 35 found in this cemetery.
32. SINHWB_090207_0702.JPG: Scissors: Late 17th or early 18th century, Swan Cove site, Anne Arundel County, Maryland Mapping the Evidence: Skeletal remains let us "map" European settlement in the Chesapeake. During the 17th century, tobacco plantations spread along natural waterways -- which were the only practical way to move huge, heavy barrels of dried tobacco, calls hogsheads, to port. Until the 1690s, Jamestown and St. Mary's City were the only towns. Burials and cemeteries can also "chart" social change. Immigrants found upward mobility here, despite the dangers of disease, hunger, and hostilities. Many who arrived as indentured servants, bound by a contract to work a number of years, then moved to working as tenant farmers who paid rent or a share of the crop. Most who survived eventually owned small or "middling" plantations. Later, as fewer whites were willing to sign indentures, race-based slavery grew. Bones (and the evidence that surrounds them) can often reveal who was a landowner, an indentured servant, or a slave. More than 300 skeletons from the 17th century have been studied. Many came from Jamestown and St. Mary's City, but others have been found at unmarked cemeteries and sites throughout the Chesapeake. In 1613, John Rolfe discovered "gold" in the money to be made from shipping dried tobacco leaves to England. Settlement began to spread beyond the James River to outposts in Tidewater Virginia. Virginia's colonial population had grown to about 4,000 by 1634, when the colony of Maryland was established. Ten years alter, there were 600 colonists in Maryland. By 1670, there were 41,000 Europeans and Africans in the Chesapeake. About 30,000 to 40,000 Native Americans lived along the Chesapeake Bay when English settlers arrived. The largest group, about 14,000 were the Powhatan of Virginia. Indian populations declined rapidly. By 1669, only about 1,800 Powhatan were still living in Virginia. Shouldering the Load: Spurred by tobacco profits, Chesapeake settlement grew rapidly. Most immigrants were Europeans. But by the late 1660s, more and more Africans were brought to the region. As a cash crop, tobacco brought prosperity, at the cost of human suffering. Lifelong, backbreaking labor marked the bones of the men, women, and children who tended fields. Most are nameless now; their stories lost -- until we find their remains. These burials link us directly to the lives of the people who shouldered loads to turn the Virginia and Maryland frontiers into stable colonies. Hard Evidence of Heavy Toil: The colonists were under daily physical stress. Except for the wealthy, the lives of settlers - men, women, and children - consisted of continual hard work. And, they did almost all of it - from clearing land for fields and gardens, to building houses and barns, to growing tobacco and corn - by hand, with very little labor-saving equipment and few draft horses or oxen. A lifetime of lifting and bending leaves skeletal markers. Bones grow denser and change at the muscle and tendon attachment sites. Generally, it is not possibly to pinpoint exactly which task caused a particular bone marker. The basic movement and degree of labor is evident, however. For example, bone development in the shoulders and arms shows repeated, rigorous use - but it cannot tell us whether the person was hoeing tobacco, chopping wood, or grinding corn.
33. SINHWB_090207_0707.JPG: Tailor's Notches: Holding pins and needles between the teeth while sewing can cause tiny chips, and wear distinctive grooves in the enamel of biting (incisive) surfaces and between the teeth.
34. SINHWB_090207_0734.JPG: The Pleasure of a Pipe? Many activities can affect the skeleton, if repeated again and again. The wear and tear of growing tobacco bent the backs of colonists, while the habit of smoking tobacco in clay pipes damaged and stained their teeth. As they clenched the pipe between their teeth, the abrasive clay of the pipe stem wore facets in the enamel of the teeth around the pipe. Eventually, these facets left holes in the bite. Nearly everyone in the colonial Chesapeake, young and old, men and women, was smoking -- a fact that only skeletal evidence could reveal. All these skulls from the Patuxent Point site show well-defined pipe facets, some so deep they caused abscessed teeth.
35. SINHWB_090207_0773.JPG: Why Was a Dead Boy Stashed in the Cellar? Archaeologists from Anne Arundel County's Lost Towns Project discovered the site of Leavy Neck, a small 17th-century farm, in 1991. A decade later, they uncovered a surprising find in the cellar of a house -- a human skeleton. The Body in the Basement: How a body is treated after death can be a clue to its identity. This skeleton was found in the northeast corner of a large storage cellar. Whoever buried the body dug a shallow hole, packed a thick layer of clay soil on the corpse and then filled the cellar with household trash. The artifacts found in the trash layer just over the body date from about 1663 to 1680. Historical records show that a family settled on Leavy Neck in 1662. A husband, wife, a son and two daughters, and two unnamed indentured servants were starting a small plantation. Archaeological evidence indicates that the house was abandoned by the 1680s, so this burial had to take place while the family lived there. Was this boy one of their servants?
36. SINHWB_090207_0796.JPG: The Boy from Leavy Neck: Was he English- or American-Born? In life, the boy buried in the cellar, was almost certainly an indentured servant -- young, from a poorer background, hoping to better himself, but overworked to the point of injury and in bad health. The hidden circumstances of his burial and evidence in his bones suggest abuse and wrongful death. His case makes us reassess the past. He represents thousands of forgotten, anonymous teenagers and young adults who were so important in founding the country. Undoubtedly many indentured servants were less than well treated, but many did survive to fulfill their contracts and find opportunity. They became the tenant farmers and small landowners who made the colonies succeed. The Bondservants' Bargain: The profitable market for Chesapeake-grown tobacco lured settlers for over half a century. Many with limited prospects in England hoped to build better lives in America, where the grinding work of transplanting tobacco seedlings, weeding and tending the plants, and harvesting the leaves, all by hand, created a huge demand for laborers. During the 1600s, from 70 to 85 percent of the colonists came as bondservants. They signed an indenture, or contract, to work for a fixed number of years for masters who paid their passage to America. Most were young men between the ages of 15 and 24, though there were some women and even orphaned or vagrant children. More than a quarter of indentured servants did not survive. Many died of malaria, typhoid fever, and other illnesses soon after arriving. If they made it through this "seasoning time" and completed their contract, they received "freedom dues." Four to seven years of grueling labor earned a new set of clothes and tools, three barrels of corn - and the right to acquire fifty acres of land. Circumstantial Evidence: A 1661 Virginia law forbade private burial of servants. It ordered public burials, so that any foul play or mistreatment would be noticed. Maryland considered a similar law in 1663 but did not pass it. Clearly the colonists recognized that while the lives of indentured servants were always difficult, for some their situation was dangerous. This burial, with its nontraditional placement of the body, contrasts markedly with other 17th-century burials. It was not in a cemetery but in the cellar of an occupied house. The unevenly dug pit was too short and narrow for the body, which was bent at the hips and knees. A large piece of a milk pan left on the chest clearly did not belong to the deceased but was used to dig the shallow grave and force the corpse into the pit. Such lack of concern for the deceased implies his lack of connection to the household. But, did the skeletal evidence also support the hunch that this was an unnamed servant? Skeletal Evidence: The initial assessment of the skeleton while still in the ground identified it as a European teenaged male. At first, no signs of trauma explained his ill treatment at burial. In the lab, his bones revealed more. Back trauma, poor nutrition, and infection are all present -- evidence of a brief, physically demanding existence. Perimortem fractures in the right wrist indicate a defensive injury. Though not in itself fatal, it might have been sustained in a struggle ending in death. Did someone use this pan to dig the grave and then push the body into it? Some pieces of the pan were found scattered in the cellar, but the largest piece lay directly on the boy's chest. The broken edge was rounded, showing that it had been used as a tool for digging. A piece of lead that once held a diamond-shaped window pane in place helped date the construction of the house. It bore a maker's mark and was stamped 1663 -- therefore the earliest year the boy could have been buried in the cellar. The English coin, ca. 1664, with an image of a ship and the inscription "New Port in the Isle of Wight," was also important in dating the burial and items in the trash fill. The owners of the house came from the Isle of Wight. Evidence at the Scene: Archaeologists excavated a thick layer of household trash over a burial in a storage cellar under the main house site. Investigators believed the house was built soon after purchase of the land in 1662, and that the site was abandoned by 1680. The amount of trash suggests that the body was buried during the first decade the family lived in the home. Isotope Testing: English- or American-Born? Can a skeleton reveal a colonist's place of birth? Yes, because the chemical composition of bone reflects diet during life. Collagen, the protein component of bone, is made up of amino acids whose large molecules contain mainly carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms. The carbon atoms in amino acids derive from the foods we eat. Corn, a plant native to the Americas and warmer climates, has a different chemical signature (carbon isotope ratio) than wheat or barley -- dietary staples in the colder climates of Europe. By testing the ratio of stable carbon isotopes in bone, scientists can tell a lot about personal origins. An English immigrant who died shortly after arriving here would have eaten mainly a European wheat-based diet. A settler born here would have grown up eating an American corn-based diet. An English-born colonist who lived in America for years would have eaten a mix of the two. The Leavy Neck boy's isotope values indicate he was a recent immigrant.
37. SINHWB_090207_0834.JPG: Mapping the Evidence: Skeletal remains let us "map" European settlement in the Chesapeake. During the 17th century, tobacco plantations spread along natural waterways -- which were the only practical way to move huge, heavy barrels of dried tobacco, calls hogsheads, to port. Until the 1690s, Jamestown and St. Mary's City were the only towns. Burials and cemeteries can also "chart" social change. Immigrants found upward mobility here, despite the dangers of disease, hunger, and hostilities. Many who arrived as indentured servants, bound by a contract to work a number of years, then moved to working as tenant farmers who paid rent or a share of the crop. Most who survived eventually owned small or "middling" plantations. Later, as fewer whites were willing to sign indentures, race-based slavery grew. Bones (and the evidence that surrounds them) can often reveal who was a landowner, an indentured servant, or a slave. More than 300 skeletons from the 17th century have been studied. Many came from Jamestown and St. Mary's City, but others have been found at unmarked cemeteries and sites throughout the Chesapeake. In 1613, John Rolfe discovered "gold" in the money to be made from shipping dried tobacco leaves to England. Settlement began to spread beyond the James River to outposts in Tidewater Virginia. Virginia's colonial population had grown to about 4,000 by 1634, when the colony of Maryland was established. Ten years alter, there were 600 colonists in Maryland. By 1670, there were 41,000 Europeans and Africans in the Chesapeake. About 30,000 to 40,000 Native Americans lived along the Chesapeake Bay when English settlers arrived. The largest group, about 14,000 were the Powhatan of Virginia. Indian populations declined rapidly. By 1669, only about 1,800 Powhatan were still living in Virginia. Shouldering the Load: Spurred by tobacco profits, Chesapeake settlement grew rapidly. Most immigrants were Europeans. But by the late 1660s, more and more Africans were brought to the region. As a cash crop, tobacco brought prosperity, at the cost of human suffering. Lifelong, backbreaking labor marked the bones of the men, women, and children who tended fields. Most are nameless now; their stories lost -- until we find their remains. These burials link us directly to the lives of the people who shouldered loads to turn the Virginia and Maryland frontiers into stable colonies. Hard Evidence of Heavy Toil: The colonists were under daily physical stress. Except for the wealthy, the lives of settlers - men, women, and children - consisted of continual hard work. And, they did almost all of it - from clearing land for fields and gardens, to building houses and barns, to growing tobacco and corn - by hand, with very little labor-saving equipment and few draft horses or oxen. A lifetime of lifting and bending leaves skeletal markers. Bones grow denser and change at the muscle and tendon attachment sites. Generally, it is not possibly to pinpoint exactly which task caused a particular bone marker. The basic movement and degree of labor is evident, however. For example, bone development in the shoulders and arms shows repeated, rigorous use - but it cannot tell us whether the person was hoeing tobacco, chopping wood, or grinding corn. Word Records: A few colonists practiced trades and crafts, though almost all manufactured goods were imported from England or the Netherlands. They were barrel makers, carpenters, tailors and seamstresses, and a few potters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, and gunsmiths. Did any of these trades leave skeletal markers? Close inspection of human remains indicates that some did. Even though tools and other artifacts used in certain trades and jobs had been recovered at Chesapeake archaeological sites, until now the actual workers remained unknown.
38. SINHWB_090207_0848.JPG: Africans in the Chesapeake: Little is known and even less was written about Africans in the Chesapeake during the 1600s. The few surviving records mention "Negroes" in passing and usually just by first names -- if by any name. The first known Africans in the Chesapeake arrived in 1619. Taken from a Portuguese slave ship by English privateers, some 20 to 30 men and women from Angola were brought to Virginia as servants or slaves. At first, some Africans gained freedom after a period of servitude, like white indentured servants. But by the 1660s, England's economy had improved, and fewer Europeans were willing to sign contracts (indentures) to work in the colonies. In the Chesapeake, plantation owners began turning to race-based slavery for inexpensive labor and increased profits. Unnamed But Not Unknown: Skeletons give equal voice to people of the past. Human remains offer compelling proof that men and women of African ancestry lived and died alongside English colonists during the earliest years of colonial settlement in the Chesapeake. Though few in number, African skeletons are being identified at 17th-century sites in the Chesapeake. In Virginia, four burials on Jamestown Island and one in Gloucester County that held the remains of persons of African origin have been dated to the 1600s. At St. Mary's City, another recently identified African burial is probably also from the 1600s. Identifiable Differences: On Jamestown Island after the 1630s, the settlement's cemetery was associated with the church -- but these three burials lay in drainage ditches. Though the graves were clearly unlike those of English colonists, they were not at first positively identified as African. The bones have confirmed that two African men and one African woman were buried here. (1) The transatlantic slave trade started in the 1500s, as Portugal and Spain took Africans to South American colonies. European ships loaded with goods, guns, and trinkets headed to West and Central Africa to acquire slaves. (2) By the late 1600s, English and Dutch ships carrying human cargo were crossing the West Indies, and later the Chesapeake. (3) The traders reloaded with rum and sugar in the Caribbean, and tobacco and hemp in Virginia and Maryland, to sail back to Europe.
39. SINHWB_090207_0892.JPG: One of the First: "Angelo, a Negro Woman": According to a census taken in January 1624, "Muster Rolls of Settlers in Virginia," an African woman named Angelo had come to Virginia aboard the Treasurer. This was one of the ships that carried the first Africans to the Chesapeake in 1619. African Origins, African Lives: The skeletal record traces the Chesapeake African story as no other evidence can. Bones let us evaluate an individual. We see a man or woman, a child or an adult, a person with particular experiences in life and death, whose own story is as relevant to history as any other. Bones reveal identify, both individually and within a group. A skeleton's African origin can be identified and sometimes linked to a specific region. For people whose cultural and personal identity was stripped away in life, the skeletal record can be vital in discovering personal history and ancestral ties. What Artifacts Can't Tell Us: Items identified as African are rare in early Chesapeake sites. Africans who arrived as slaves brought few if any belongings with them. Many enslaved Africans could not openly practice their beliefs without fear of punishment. Consequently, Africans limited themselves to subtle cultural expressions that are difficult to detect in the archaeological record. There were relatively few Africans in Virginia or Maryland in the 1600s. Many slaveholders owned only one to two slaves. Blacks and whites lived and worked together, also making it difficult to separate items used, made, or owned by blacks from those of whites. The Young Woman from Harleigh Knoll: With skeletal remains, the story of Africans in the Chesapeake is slowly unfolding, person by person. Remote-sensing technologies are helping scientists locate forgotten men and women. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) can detect underground anomalies. Along with larger human bones such as skulls, femurs, and tibiae, other grave features become visible -- metallic coffin hardware, the disturbed soil of grave shafts,and rocks or metal objects in grave fill. GPR contributed to finding one young African woman, 17 to 19 years old, whose story might have remained untold. She lived at a time when the population of slaves in the Chesapeake was rising. At the tobacco plantation on Maryland's Eastern Shore where she was found, the remains of whites and blacks are buried side by side. Her skeleton tells of a hard life of physical labor. Back trauma is evident in her vertebrae, along with heavy use of muscles that deeply pitted the bones of her upper body. Her cause of death remains a mystery, but -- through facial reconstruction -- she will soon return our gaze.
40. SINHWB_090207_0916.JPG: Tooth Notching: Cultural practices that affect appearance can offer clues to identity. Tooth notching, because it modifies the skeleton, persists after death. The front teeth may be filed or chipped along the biting edge, or even extracted. Ethnographic and travel literature from the 1800s reported that peoples in some regions of Africa modified their teeth in particular patterns. No reports of tooth notching done in North America have been found. Advertisements for runaway slaves referred to persons with filed teeth as African-born. These documents have supported claims that remains with tooth notching represent first-generation Africans in America.
41. SINHWB_090207_0990.JPG: Living and Dying in America: Life in the 1600s was hard in England but even harder in the Chesapeake. Colonists faced brutal summer heat and humidity, spells of hunger, heavy labor, outbreaks of conflict, and illness. Along with the usual maladies, diseases for which they had no immunity ravaged newcomers. Limited medical knowledge and lack of larger family support made their lives even more precarious. Bone and burial data reveal the rigors of life in the Chesapeake. A high death rate of young people and the chronic shortage of women forced the settlers to rely on recent immigrants to renew their population. Not until the 1700s could American-born colonists increase their numbers. Was This Baby Swaddled to Death? In 1992, archaeologists recovered the remains of an infant buried beneath the floor of the 17th-century Brick Chapel at St. Mary's City, Maryland. A small lead-sheathed coffin indicated that the baby belonged to a prominent family, but investigators had only the bones and burial clues to tell the child's story. The practice of swaddling infants lasted well into the 18th century. Without exposure to sunlight, the skin does not make Vitamin D, a condition that can lead to rickets. A Victim of the Times: A good colonial mother wrapped her baby in linen swaddling clothes or quilted, embroidered bands, which held the child's hands and feet in place. Then she placed the bundled baby in a pocket with a board back, and covered its head and ears with a cap. Swaddled babies stayed warm but received very little sunlight. Neither wealth nor careful childcare could save this very sickly baby. The infant was suffering from serious conditions that the doctors of the time did not understand nor know how to treat. This case points to the plight of many children in the colonial Chesapeake. Skeletal Evidence: Vitamin and mineral deficiencies leave clear markers in bone. This infant was suffering from rickets, a vitamin D deficiency. The skull (shown at left), ribs, and long bones show changes due to rickets. Chronic diarrhea probably aggravated the baby's malnutrition. Some features of the pelvis and skull - small teeth, pointed chin, and jaw line - led some investigators to think this infant was female, but the identification of sex remains tentative, and DNA tests were inconclusive. Evidence at the Scene: Analysis of pollen in the grave reveals that the death took place in spring - supporting evidence that the baby had been swaddled during the winter. The burial was elaborate. Pins and traces of linen indicated that the body was placed in a shroud and then in a costly lead coffin buried in a place of honor beneath the chapel floor. Most intriguing, the infant's coffin lay beside two larger lead coffins. The names of the adult male and female they held were unknown at discovery. Circumstantial Evidence: Forensic investigation later identified the adults as the colony's chancellor and governor, Philiip Calvert, and his first wife, Anne Wolseley Calvert. Births, deaths, and marriages were rarely recorded in the colonial Chesapeake. Historical records on infants or children are virtually nonexistent, even for those born to families of high social status. Because Anne Wolsey Calvert was at least 60 at her death, and this baby was buried after her, the infant could not have been hers. It was most likely a child born to Philip Calvert and his second wife, Jane Sewell. Lives Cut Short:: In December 1606, the first vessels left England bound for Virginia. Of the more than 7,000 immigrants who came to Virginia over the next nineteen years, more than 6,000 died. Most adults did not survive past the fourth decade of life. As many as a third of Chesapeake newcomers died within one year. If they lasted through the first "seasoning" fevers, they faced uncertain futures, even though the colonists were learning how to survive here. They were adopting Indian-style farming, eating the local fish and game, and raising livestock. But they were still dying in high numbers, often at young ages. Trauma and disease left direct clues in skeletal remains. Chronic illnesses, acute infections, accidental injuries, wounds, childbirth, and the medical "care" of the day cut short many lives.
42. SINHWB_090207_1000.JPG: Difficult Births: Colonial Chesapeake survival rested in large part on the health of women. Throughout the 17th century, colonists could not increase their numbers through the birth rate. Not only was infant mortality high, but there was also a chronic shortage of women, who faced the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth, not to mention the risks of settling in a new land. A married woman in the colonies could expect to be pregnant every two years until her death or menopause. Women died so often during childbirth during the 17th century that the cause of death was listed in English broadsheets simply as "childbirth." Some women prolonged breast-feeding in hopes of postponing ovulation and another pregnancy, Buried with her unborn child: Bone does not usually show conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth -- but the skeleton of this young immigrant held the remains of a late-term fetus. The mother's pelvic bones show no abnormalities that would have prevented a normal birth. Nevertheless, it is quite likely her death was related to pregnancy or complications during childbirth. Bone Markers of Childbirth: Pregnancy does not modify a woman's bones, with one exception. During childbirth, the pubic bones separate to allow an infant to pass through the birth canal. The ligaments connecting the pubic bones must stretch; they can tear and cause bleeding where they attach to bone. Later, bone remodeling at these sites can leave small circular or linear grooves on the inside surface of the pubic bones. These parturition pits show that a female has given birth vaginally.
43. SINHWB_090207_1010.JPG: Two Firsts for the Colonies: A skull fragment found in a James Fort trash pit preserved remarkable medical evidence. Circular cut marks into the bone are the earliest known case in the English colonies of attempted trephination -- drilling into the cranium to relieve pressure caused by brain swelling. The patient had suffered mortal blows to the head. One impact caused radiating fractures low on his head, behind the left ear. Another injury caused a radiating fracture on the right side of the skull. These blows would have caused severe intercranial swelling. Cuts from two unfinished trephinations with a circular saw are evident in the occipital bone. Straight cuts also provide evidence of the earliest known autopsy in the Chesapeake. The patient died, and the top of the cranium was removed for a postmortem examination. The patient had suffered mortal blows to the head. One impact caused radiating fractures low on his head, behind the left ear. Another injury caused a radiating fracture on the right side of the skull. These blows would have caused severe intercranial swelling. During the autopsy, the deceased patient was placed face down, and the surgeon sawed through the posterior vault. The cranial fragment found in the trash pit broke away from the rest of the skull along perimortem fracture lines. Medicine in the Chesapeake: A colonial "doctor" was often physician/apothecary/surgeon -- three professions in England. Housewives and clergymen doubled as doctors. Treatment was expensive. For illnesses, bloodletting or purges and herbal remedies might be prescribed. The cure could be worse than the disease.
44. SINHWB_090207_1019.JPG: Drill used for trephination
45. SINHWB_090207_1033.JPG: Skull of a Revolutionary War casualty with a completed trephination. More than a century later, this trephination was properly done, in the correct location. The lack of healing indicates that the patient did not live long after the procedure.
46. SINHWB_090207_1073.JPG: Skull of a male with extensive destruction from late-stage syphilis: Deadly Infections: Infectious disease was rampant. The illnesses that struck newcomers -- dysentery (severe diarrhea), typhoid fever, and malaria -- killed too quickly to affect the skeleton. Only malaria might have left clues in the bones of some colonists, if they survived for several months or years. But other highly communicable chronic diseases that were common in the close quarters of ships or plantations can be seen in the bones of Chesapeake settlers. Tuberculosis: Tuberculosis, a bacterial infection, generally begins in the lungs but can affect other organs, including bone. It can be passed from one person to another through coughs, on contracted from drinking raw milk. TB is identifiable in the skeleton in only 5 to 10 percent of untreated cases. Syphilis: Syphilis, a sexually transmitted infection, has three stages. The last stage can damage many internal organs. Bones take on a swollen, "moth-eaten" appearance. In the skeleton, syphilis is most often seen in the cranium and tibia, with deep erosions and thickened formation of new bone. The Servant with the Pox: Wilkes v Owen, a Maryland Court Case: In 1659, the unhappy owner of an indentured servant later found to have syphilis sued the man who had sold her to him. The servant was said to lie about all day consumed with "the Pox, commonly called the French pox." At first, her sores were identified as some "cold she had taken in," but now she was "very ill and soar." To treat her syphilis, the doctor "let her blood and [gave] her physick."
47. SINHWB_090207_1080.JPG: Syringe used in the urethra to inject liquid mercury as a treatment for syphilis.
48. SINHWB_090207_1089.JPG: Syphilic spinal column
49. SINHWB_090207_1098.JPG: Gunshot Wounds: Evidence of gunshot wounds was apparent in four skeletons from the early Jamestown cemeteries. In three, lead shot was found in and among the bone layers of the burials. The fourth burial, shown here, preserved the fracturing of the bone caused by the projectiles. An Indian Uprising: In 1622, an Indian uprising led to the deaths of nearly 350 settlers living on plantations spreading along the James River. At the settlement of Martin's Hundred, more than half the population was killed or taken hostage. Breaks, Blows, and Wounds: Accidental and intentional injuries were common. Broken bones were hazards of everyday life. The tasks of hanging green tobacco in barns to dry, handling livestock, felling trees, or putting up the high brick walls of the chapel at St. Mary's City were all dangerous. In Virginia, outbreaks of hostility with Native Americans continued until the late 1600s. Conflicts also flared up among the colonists.
50. SINHWB_090207_1127.JPG: Incisor of the St. Mary's City woman who overcleaned her teeth: Obsessive cleaning exposed the pulp chambers of some front teeth, which led to abscessing. It also destroyed the gums and bony sockets of the lower front teeth. A Man of Means -- And Colic: Colonel Joseph Bridger was one of the ten wealthiest Virginians of his time. Between 1657 and his death in 1686, he held many prominent public offices and military commissioners. He also probably suffered the effects of lead poisoning, especially the "dry gripes" and abdominal pain often mentioned in historic writings. When his remains were tested in 2007,. his bone lead levels were 149 ppm -- more than seven times the average level today. More Harm Than Good: To clean their teeth, some colonists used abrasives or metal tooth picks to remove bits of food or tartar from between the teeth. Neglect was the norm, but in at least one case, repetitive tooth cleaning caused serious damage. Recipes of the time for tooth whitening and cleaning were acidic and abrasive. They included the use of salt and vinegar, as well as ingredients such as tobacco ashes, rubbed onto teeth with a cloth. Tibia shattered by lead shot, including a 70-caliber round ball, and at least 17 pieces of buckshot, of a male, 17 to 20 years old, buried at James Fort. An x-ray, taken of the skeleton in situ, helped with interpreting the injury and recovering the shot and lead slivers among the knee's bone fragments. Trauma to the leg would have severed a major artery, resulting in a quick death.
51. SINHWB_090207_1139.JPG: Tooth Troubles: Dental disease could be deadly if oral infection spread to other parts of the body. The colonists commonly suffered from cavities, abscesses, and loss of teeth. In the Chesapeake diet, corn -- which is high in carbohydrates and sticks to the teeth -- contributed to high rates of tooth decay. Colonists who tried to clean their teeth were often ineffective at removing plaque, a cause of gum disease, or preventing decay (caries). Extraction was the only available treatment.
52. SINHWB_090207_1153.JPG: Lead baby bottle. Lead: Skeletal lead content reflects lifetime exposure. Lead levels in bone are expressed as parts per million (ppm) - micrograms of lead per gram of bone ash. Modern Americans usually have less than 20 ppm of lead in bone. Levels below 50 ppm do not cause symptoms of lead poisoning. Lead intake increased with wealth. A very high lead content in 17th-century bone indicates a person of means. Servants and slaves who used wooden utensils and plates were less exposed to lead. Pottery, Pewter, and Poison: Lead is a poison with widespread, lasting toxic effects. It enters the body dissolved in water, milk, wine, vinegar, or acidic foods stored in leaden vessels. It can be breathed in as dust, or absorbed through the skin. The circulatory system deposits it in internal organs, where it remains for weeks. It damages the brain and nerves, the kidneys, and the intestines. In bone, lead accumulates and lasts for decades. Exposure to lead was a fact of life in the 1600s. All but the very poorest colonists ate and drank from lead-glazed earthen ware (coarseware, slipware, and tin-glazed earthenware), and used objects made of pewter, an alloy of tin and lead. The wealthy not only dined on pewter but also displayed it lavishly in their homes. Anyone who shouldered a musket touched lead while loading or casting muskets balls and shot. Skeletal lead content reflects lifetime exposure. Lead levels in bone are expressed as parts per million (ppm) - micrograms of lead per gram of bone ash. Modern Americans usually have less than 20 ppm of lead in bone. Levels below 50 ppm do not cause symptoms of lead poisoning. For colonists, lead intake increased with wealth. A very high lead content in 17th-century bone indicates a person of means. (Servants and slaves who used wooden utensils and plates were less exposed to lead.) Colonel Joseph Bridger, for example, was one of the ten wealthiest Virginians of his time. Between 1657 and his death in 1686, he held many prominent public offices and military commissions. He also probably suffered the effects of lead poisoning, especially the "dry gripes" of abdominal pain often mentioned in historic writings. When his remains were tested in 2007, his bone lead levels were 149 ppm - more than seven times the average level today.
53. SINHWB_090207_1159.JPG: Lead spoon
54. SINHWB_090207_1164.JPG: Lead shot with tooth marks. Marksmen would chew on the lead bullets while they waited.
55. SINHWB_090207_1188.JPG: Settling In: As threats of starvation and conflict receded, colonial society stabilized. In 1634, a new English colony was founded in the northern Chesapeake, at a place the settlers named St. Mary's City. Like Virginia, Maryland's first years were fragile. But, at St. Mary's City, the colonists planted crops immediately and established peaceful relations with the local Indians. Maryland also prospered from the tobacco trade, but it differed from Virginia in another respect. The English crown granted the land to a Roman Catholic -- Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltimore. Maryland had no established state religion. But in 1688, a revolution in England overthrew James II. The Calverts' charter ended: Maryland became a royal colony. Its capital moved to Annapolis in 1695. Religious tolerance ended. St. Mary's City was abandoned and turned into farmland. Its rural setting helped to preserve the fragile ruins of the early settlement under a thin layer of plowed soil. A Buried History: How and where a person was buried tells us not only about the deceased but also about the society that conducted the burial ritual. At some Chesapeake sites, archaeologists have seen "unusual" burial contexts. Parts of skeletons have been recovered from wells or trash pits, bodies from cellars. During times of distress, the dead were buried two or more to a grave. At St. Mary's City, the chapel cemetery shows more typical burial practices and changes in burial ritual as English settlement in the Chesapeake matured. Differences between burials at Jamestown, Virginia and St. Mary's City, Maryland are striking. Jamestown: * The early burials at Jamestown took place between 1607 and 1630. Most of the remains were young adult males. * Burial rituals and orientation of the graves were inconsistent. * Fewer than 10 percent of the bodies buried before 1630 were placed in coffins. * Some bodies were buried quickly, still clothed. * Some bones were found outside of graves. St. Mary's City * The burials in the chapel and churchyard span a century, from 1635 to about 1740. The cemetery contains more women, children, and older adults than Jamestown. * Nearly all of the graves faced east, with the bodies extended on the back with face up, head at the west end, hands placed on the pelvis or along the sides of the body. * During the first thirty years, almost half the bodies were buried in coffins. By the middle of the17th century, all adults were. * No one was buried in regular clothing. * No skeletal remains other than teeth have been found in non-purposeful burials. Proper Burials: Standard English burial practices soon appeared in the Chesapeake as immigrants brought these customs with them. Preparations for burial included removing the clothing, washing the body, and wrapping it in a shroud or winding-sheet, which was sewn, pinned, or tied in place. As coffins became more popular, specific clothing came into use for burial -- usually a cap (sometimes with a chin strap to hold the jaw closed) and a gown or shirt. In the chapel cemetery, there are both shroud and coffin burials. The graves can be sorted into three time periods. In the early graves, fewer than half were coffin burials. By mid-century, every body was placed in a coffin. These changing burial patterns paralleled mortuary ritual in England. Sweet Suffering: A life of luxury carried health risks. The diets of wealthier colonists were tied to dental decay because of the larger amounts of sugar that they could afford. Ironically, the servants of Anne Wolseley Calvery probably had less dental disease that she. The crowns of her front, lower teeth had been destroyed by decay. They were held in place by the tips of the roots. She had periodontal (gum) disease and was chewing on her root stubs. Her remaining front teeth show wear patterns from cleaning. Evidence at the Scene: Whoever buried her took great care. Silk ribbon was wrapped around her wrist bones, tying her hands together over the pelvis and securing her feet. There was evidence of linen shroud fibers and copper staining. The rosemary sprigs, symbols of remembrance, were probably intended to mask odors. The lead-sheathed wooden coffin weighed 500 pounds.
56. SINHWB_090207_1238.JPG: Beneath the Brick Chapel: The preferred burial site of the English of high social standing was under the floor of a church, rather than outside in the churchyard. The higher the person's status, the closer to the altar the grave. At the Brick Chapel. no one was buried within twelve feet of the door, which was farthest from the altar. Who lay in three lead coffins beneath what was once a floor of imported stone? Why were they buried in such a prominent location? Only the careful planning and contributions of many scientists, engineers, and other specialists answered these questions. Examining the Lead Coffins: Skeletal Evidence: The largest of the three lead coffins contained the poorly preserved, possibly embalmed remains of a male in his mid-50s, about 5 feet 6 inches tall, right-handed, with no evidence of heavy physical labor. Carbon-isotope testing indicated that he was English but had lived in Maryland several years. Pollen evidence in the coffin indicated a winter death. Historic Evidence: Only one man matched the male's forensic profile -- his age, season of death, religion, and extended stay in the Chesapeake. He was Philip Calvert, son of the first Lord Baltimore. He had come to America in 1657, and served as Maryland's governor, chancellor, and chief judge. He died in the winter of 1682-1683. The woman's coffin was placed close to his, in an arrangement typical of husband and wife. His first wife, Anne Wolseley Calvert, matched the forensic profile of the female buried there. Unanswered Questions: The smallest coffin contained the remains of an infant buried later than the other two. Given Anne's age, the child could not have been hers, but might have been the child of Philip's second wife, a young woman named Jane Sewell, who survived her husband and moved to England in 1684. Perhaps DNA testing will one day solve this mystery. Telltale Pollen: Seasonal clues remained sealed in all three lead coffins, even though the weight of the soil and the weakened wood had distorted them. Pollen analyses revealed: - The woman's coffin had very high levels of ragweed pollen, which is produced in the fall. - The infant's coffin had oak and pine pollen, which are produced in the spring. - The man's coffin contained no elevated levels of seasonal pollen. There was a mixture of pollen from all seasons; some of it was old and damaged, indicating a time when plants were not producing pollen -- winter. - The soil directly under the two larger coffins had no pollen concentrations at all, indicating that the graves were dug and filled quickly, at the same time. It is clear that the woman had died earlier, Her coffin had been stored until the man died and was buried.
57. SINHWB_090209_018.JPG: Individuals with European ancestry tend to have straight facial profiles and narrower faces with projecting, sharply angled nasal bones.
58. SINHWB_090209_026.JPG: Individuals with sub-Saharan African ancestry generally show greater facial projection in the area of the mouth, wider distance between the eyes, and a wider nasal cavity.
59. SINHWB_090209_037.JPG: Individuals with Native American ancestry have proportionately wider faces and shorter, broader cranial vaults.
60. SINHWB_090209_057.JPG: Skeletal Evidence: In addition to numerous healed bones injuries, at least seven unhealed cuts can be identified on this individual. It would have taken a large, sharp knife to completely slice through the bone. Postmortem changes in the bones indicate that the body was burned and buried without embalming. The cranium was sectioned by a medical examiner, who worked with a forensic anthropologist after the remains were exhumed. The light color of the sawed edge of the cranial vault indicates that this cut occurred during the recent autopsy.
61. SINHWB_090209_091.JPG: Cranium found in a cellar. The deceased was a European male, 30 to 36 years old. He had a bony, benign tumor on his forehead, but the cause of death was not apparent. The cranium shows no evidence of foul play, but why was the rest of the skeleton missing?
62. SINHWB_090209_129.JPG: Pipe stems, which were shown to have eroded teeth
63. SINHWB_090209_138.JPG: Early doctor's kit
64. SINHWB_090209_150.JPG: Woman's leg, broken and grown back without proper setting. The piece that's missing just to the right of it was taken for DNA testing. They used to require large chunks of bone to make the tests.
65. SINHWB_090209_169.JPG: Writing the Next Chapters: Today, our bones are writing the next chapters of the American story. Like the earliest Chesapeake colonists, we reflect our contemporary environment and ways of life. Now, comparisons of 17th-century human remains to modern skeletal study collections are telling us just how, and how much, we have changed. Who will read the next chapters? The analytic techniques of the sciences of bone studies are advancing rapidly. The skeletal researchers of the future will ask questions that we haven't thought of yet -- but the answers will be written in our bones. Better Diet Bigger Bones: American-born children began growing taller in colonial times. The rich Chesapeake ecosystem offered a high standard of living, including a diet with protein. Studies show that even the colonists' cattle grew bigger over the course of the 17th century. Americans today are taller than we have ever been. Despite a dip in the growth curve during the last half of the 19th century (during the Civil War and post-war urbanization), the trend toward increased average height has continued to the present. Living Longer: As Americans, we are living longer because our diet and health care have improved. In the 17th century, most people died before their mid-40s. In the 21st century, the average American life expectancy is 78 years. More and more Americans are living to be 100 years old! We die of diseases that most colonists did not live long enough to experience. Heart disease, cancer, and stroke are the main threats to our health today. We still suffer from some of the illnesses that afflicted the colonists -- dental disease, vitamin difficiencies such as rickets, and infections such as tuberculosis and syphilis -- but advances in medical knowledge have led to more effective treatments. Heftier Bodies Heavier Bodies: Our lives are less strenuous than those of the colonists. We no longer depend on physical labor to survive. Reductions in activity, unbalanced diets, and over-nutrition have produced a trend toward obesity in America. Bone grows denser and heavier to support body weight. Up to a point, increases in bone density can indicate healthy bones and better nutrition. Over a lifetime, excessive body weight may make bones stronger, but it also weakens the heart, leads to diabetes, and wears out joints faster.
66. SINHWB_090209_187.JPG: Explorer's lab
67. SINHWB_090209_190.JPG: Bear leg
68. SINHWB_090209_211.JPG: Leg piece shows signs of post-death chewing
69. SINHWB_090209_237.JPG: Pelvis demonstrating childbirth
70. SINHWB_090221_26.JPG: Skull with shotgun pellets embedded in bone (healed antemortem trauma)
AAA "Gem": AAA considers this location to be a "must see" point of interest. To see pictures of other areas that AAA considers to be Gems, click here.
Description of Subject Matter: Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century Chesapeake
February 7, 2009 – January 5, 2014

This exhibition features archaeological discoveries that reveal the historic importance of Jamestown and its contribution to the American way of life. The exhibition addresses such subjects as life and death in the colonies, activity and physical labor, health and disease, dietary resources, internal strife, and inter-population relationships and includes the stories of all peoples affected by the colonization of North America—Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans—and their role in the formation and function of the first permanent settlements and capitals of Maryland and Virginia.
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].