ND鈥檚 collection of skeletal remains holds clues to past
Make no bones about it: The people of the early Bronze Age had it pretty hard.
The evidence lies in the hands of Ohio State University doctoral candidate Jaime Ullinger.
鈥淪ome of it is burned so much that it鈥檚 gone beyond a brown color to a white color,鈥� Ullinger, a 1999 University of 91吃瓜 graduate, says as she holds up a charred vertebra, arm bone and skulls from the crypts of Jordan.
In a lab tucked away in the basement of 91吃瓜鈥檚 Reyniers Building lies a collection of countless bones from the early Bronze Age (3500 to 2000 B.C.) 鈥� several of them burned in a burial structure thousands of years ago for a reason still unknown. Here, researchers scrutinize the bones dug up from around the world, hoping to glean more clues about the mysteries of past civilizations than textbooks can provide.
For the past decade, the university also has been studying about 15,000 bones of the Byzantine St. Stephen鈥檚 Monastery collection, bones that are about 1,500 years old. Susan Sheridan says they belonged to some of the most robust men she has ever studied.
鈥淲hat we found was they were exceptionally healthy,鈥� said Sheridan, a Nancy O鈥橬eill Associate Professor of Anthropology. 鈥淩eally oddly so. There is no cancer, not many broken bones, but they have very arthritic knees.鈥�
A bookshelf in the skeletal biology lab makes it clear how much history and science join at the hip socket of anthropology. Among the books are the 鈥淓ncyclopedia of Early Christianity,鈥� 鈥淭he History of Rain鈥� and 鈥淎ncient Iraq.鈥�
Who knew moldy grains in a bone could confirm accounts of beer鈥檚 significance in the diet and commerce of monks? And the history books can tell you the religious men, some as tall as 6 feet 6 inches, bent at least 300 times a day in prayers and genuflection, hence the worn-out knees.
A skull bearing a gash, most likely caused by an axlike object, hints at a larger problem among the once-nomadic people of Bab edh-Dhra鈥檚 walled city. Bab edh-Dhra was a settlement on the southeastern shore of the Dead Sea that established a way of life featured in the Bible.
鈥淚t looks like there鈥檚 more interpersonal conflicts going on with these things, so they may have been building a wall for a reason,鈥� Sheridan said.
For the researchers, the bones, which also reveal infectious diseases and nutritional problems, are providing a different picture of what life was like thousands of years ago.
鈥淭he bones help us to make questions of the text, and the text helps us to make questions of the bones,鈥� Sheridan said.
Universities take turns at the interrogating, too. The skeletons of the more than 300 Bronze Age individuals came to the anthropology department about a year and a half ago from Kansas State University, which housed them for the past 20 years.
The department also has two mummies dating back about 1,500 years from Kulubnarti in Sudan 鈥� one about 9 years old and the other a newborn infant. The mummies were preserved in the country鈥檚 dry heat and hot sands and came from a collection at the University of Colorado.
Eight undergraduate students from across the nation spent six weeks at 91吃瓜 this summer in the National Science Foundation鈥檚 Research Experience for Undergraduates, where they studied the migration and pilgrimage of the monks during the Byzantine period.
91吃瓜 junior Alicia Cooper, part of the 鈥渓ifeblood of the project鈥� as Sheridan calls the students, has been looking at the bones鈥� chemistry to examine migration and diet patterns.
鈥淲e don鈥檛 have any data yet, so it鈥檚 a matter of figuring out a way of getting it and what instruments are required,鈥� Cooper said.
The biology major will travel to Jerusalem in early August to study animal bones buried in the crypts. Joining her will be Ullinger and Lesley Gregoricka, who graduated from 91吃瓜 this year.
鈥淵ou really need to see it and be there to understand why they may have had bad knees and what they had to choose,鈥� Sheridan said of the Byzantine monks. 鈥淎 lot of it you can get from books, but a lot of it is time in the trenches.鈥�
Gregoricka is glad to help uncover some of the mysteries. She is studying the ancient people鈥檚 diets by examining the ratio of carbon and nitrogen in their bones, and will begin her master鈥檚 thesis at Ohio State in the fall.
Ullinger, a Distinguished University Fellow at Ohio State, is completing her dissertation on the Bab edh-Dhra inhabitants.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot more here to be done than will be done in my dissertation,鈥� Ullinger said.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot more here to be done than will be done in my career,鈥� Sheridan followed with a laugh.
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