What human bones from the past can tell us today
[Music]
i’m a forensic anthropologist
forensic anthropologists work worldwide
today
we help police forces in a number of
countries
we’re involved in much disaster
investigations such as earthquakes and
wildfires
and we also help teams to investigate
human rights such as genocide
forensic anthropologists really focus on
the body
mostly the skeleton and tragically an
orphan on the dead
but it’s amazing from one fragment of
bone after sifting tons of soil and tons
of debris
that fragment of bond can be sent to dna
analysis we might get a name
the bulk of our work is aimed to
identify the missing we need other
scientists of course i need people like
you that can help
it’s about giving the unknown a name
that is forensic anthropology
in this talk i will show some images of
skeletons
i don’t know if you ever wondered
when you go to a museum
is it right to see egyptian mummies
or skeletons
is it ethical to display human remains
in some conflicts
worldwide sometimes the skeletons are
the only teachers of that past
their voice
about what had happened the only
evidence
and it’s necessary to sometimes see
those remains
the next image will show a small grave
of six people
six men in this case that were shot in
1936 in spain to their political
ideologies
as archaeologists who are digging up
those graves
and anthropologists
analyzing those bones
we’re trying to create
a dignified burial
we’re trying to provide closure to
families if possible
and even justice if applicable
i’ve started working on these human
rights investigations for over 10 years
and only recently that i realized that
my great grandfather in spain was also
shot in the center of
spain he was taken from his house when
my grandmother was 12
and then taken for a walk as he called
it and shot and buried he’s still
missing
my grandmother in fact in her 90s has
never told me about this i only found
out through someone else
there’s silence
and these images really need to be seen
but let’s go back maybe over 20 years
ago
when my hair was different had more hair
i was slimmer and my bones were actually
different for sure
this in my hometown in ibiza in spain
i’m sure you’ve heard of this fantastic
island
but this island has also got a lot of
history
i started investigating graves that were
over 2000 years old
as a young student in archaeology and
anthropology
i realized that there’s so much
information we can obtain from our
skeletons
about lifestyle
about how many people are buried in a
grave about attitudes towards death and
dying that may also help us today
but certainly the information from the
skeletons can provide that insight into
the past as well as other types of
information such as objects
so let us go and think about our own
bodies now
think about your bones
your teeth
think about your lifestyle your living
conditions your activity
diet do you think that was going to
leave a trace on your bones
it will
if we had to x-ray all of you
we could probably age
more or less
sometimes the skeletons can be tricky
okay you could be a 60 year old with a
30 year old skeleton or vice versa
but
dentition can be used in children in
adolescence to estimate the age
fusion of bones one bone in an adult
can be between three to five segments in
a child
so we can examine aids through bone
fusion up to the age of 20 perhaps 25
then it’s a little bit of degeneration
after 30. but that’s okay
we can also look at biological sex not
gender
okay
hips are usually
wider due to pregnancy and childbirth in
women but not always
the skull can show different traits
so with the age of the person the
biological sex and if we measured upon
almost anyone in your body
we can tell how tall you are at least
within a range
these parameters are going to help
identify the dead we may be having 1 000
people missing in one location
but anthropology can help narrow down
that list of to say 30 people will of
course need dna analysis and other
techniques
we could sample your tooth
send it to a chemist we can tell where
you grew up potentially because where
you grow up has different signatures
chemical signatures in the soil in the
water in the air
the teeth are fascinating even by the
shape we can tell you perhaps what
continent you may likely come from
perhaps difficult today
but even how foods are prepared and
cooked
if you smoked a pipe if you played the
bagpipes for a long period of time of
course
we can also look at diet
dental decay
oral hygiene
and diet can also be told from your
bones
we can examine carbon nitrogen
we may know whether you’re a vegetarian
where you eat fish primarily
or certain amounts of meat
i can’t tell you if you play rugby
or horse ride
or play football or dance but what we
can do is we can look at the muscles
muscle activity they leave a trace in
your bones
bone is a living tissue
the bigger the muscle
the bigger the bone has to be muscle
needs to attach to something
okay so we can look at muscle activity
and look at patterns
okay so a professional tennis player for
example they’re playing arm
that bone would be 25 percent thicker
than their non-playing arm
but i can’t say that person is a tennis
player okay
think about disease
come up with an illness or disease in
your heads now
perhaps many of the ones you’re thinking
can also be
seen on the skeletons
infections
congenital disease
vitamin deficiency
joint disease of course
and fractures
this is a femur okay your thigh bone you
can see in the right hand right hand
side of the image that there’s
abnormality there okay and bones are
difficult to break
perhaps an engineer can look at bone
biomechanics and explain it through a
bit more what force is needed
but with this we can also look at care
and healing and medical access
but fractured patterns and trauma are
also important in human rights cases
relatives or society
doesn’t not necessarily just want to
know who that person is but they want to
know what has happened
whether it’s
death through a machete wound to the
skull or a gunshot
so wound
want to finish
with a case that we investigated this
may
in spain in the center of spain
not quite from the spanish civil war but
just after so that that is in the year
1939 and 1940 when these executions took
place
the historians
the families the community
and social anthropologists
gathered information about who is buried
in a particular location
now many times
these cases of spanish civil war people
are buried in fields
in forests
down in wales
or caves
so you’ve got that skill you can also
help
as archaeologists we were looking for 26
bodies
with their name their age and profession
archaeologists digging up
this cemetery civil cemetery with no
tombstones
we’re interpreting and reading the soil
is the soil compact
is it loose
has the color changed and then can
target certain areas
maybe they’re not the graves that you’ve
seen on the news it’s not a mass grave
of hundreds or thousands of people
their graves according to the number of
people that were shot one day
just out the cemetery wall
in fact you can still see the gunshots
or bullet holes in that wall and some of
the projectiles
okay
taken because of the political
ideologies
and
executed maybe one one group was
executed one day they were buried in the
same graves between one and seven people
will be found here
and as scientists we have to be
objective
about this
this is the image with all due respect
to the victim
of one of those deceased that we’re
looking for
you know what information we can obtain
from the bones and even as you brush and
remove the soil you see that gunshot
wound to the back of the head
but you’ll see there are objects these
are belt
perhaps you can see the white buttons
and there are other items such as
someone had pumpkin seeds seeds in their
pockets
or writing implements
or textiles clothing can tell you
whether they were shot in the summer or
the winter
and footwear
these objects actually provide a lot of
emotions for families but also for us as
professionals
the aim is really
to help
provide a name and a face to those
remains
so i want to say that forensic
anthropology
is a fascinating field we’re only part
of a team
that we’re there to provide a dignified
barrio
closure to families and justice
if possible
but there’s room for everybody
if you’re a linguist
if you’re an artist that wants through
art to make awareness of what’s happened
or pressure governments
room for those that work in construction
that can dig a trench with a mini digger
those that know about
underwater um diving because sometimes
there are cases where people bodies were
thrown in the water
there’s room for everybody
and
this work
shows us that with education that these
things should not happen again
it shows that people are always
remembered
and no matter what whether 100 years
later
someone will be there
to find someone’s body
and bring back their dignity
thank you
[Music]
[Applause]
you