Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010 - (Page 18)

science Whether they’re excavating tombs in Ancient Egypt or cataloguing artifacts at a museum, archaeologists study past cultures through the artifacts and remains that humans have left behind. In some specializations, archaeologists combine their knowledge of human history and culture with science. As these three young archaeologists show, chemistry, geography, and botany are powerful tools for unlocking the past. the RCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY BY CAROLYN FREIWALD Archaeologists study artifacts—stone tools, broken pottery, ruins of buildings—to understand how people lived in the past. Each small artifact might tell us something about war, trade, or even what people ate for dinner or which animals they kept as pets. But there is a limit to what artifacts alone can tell us, especially about complex human behaviors like migration or management of the environment. Luckily for archaeologists, our bones and teeth contain a record of what we eat and drink, our general health, and even where we live. I specialize in osteology, or the study of bones, in the Laboratory for Archaeological Chemistry at the UW-Madison Department of Anthropology. We can reconstruct a person’s life history by using chemistry to answer archaeological questions: Did men and women have different diets? Did farmers eat like kings? Unlike Indiana Jones, archaeologists don’t usually run through dark tunnels, jumping over snakes and breaking things with whips (though I do own two machetes). Most discoveries are made by groups of people working together and occur as frequently in the laboratory as in the field, often after years of detailed analysis. For my PhD research, I wanted to use chemistry to determine whether migration was common 1,300 years In the lab, Carolyn uses a drill to remove a sample from a tooth for isotopic analysis. ago among the Maya in what is now the country of Belize. I focused on strontium, one of Earth’s most abundant elements. The proportion of strontium’s four naturally occurring isotopes changes over time, which means that old rock formations have different strontium values than younger ones. I studied geologic maps of Belize, and surmised that people living and eating food grown in the geologically ancient Maya Mountains would have different strontium isotope ratios in their tissues than people in the tropical jungle. In the field, I sampled dozens of local animals—collecting samples from snail shells and the like so that no animals were harmed—to determine the range of strontium values in living creatures. Next, I sampled tooth enamel from skeletons excavated from 18 archaeological sites in Belize. I collected the samples from museums and universities in the US, but also made multiple trips to Belize for excavation and research. I carefully studied the history of each site, selecting skeletons of men, women, and children excavated from both rich houses and poor ones. I planned other isotopic analyses to compare the diet and health of the individuals in the study. Did migrants in the past continue to eat “foreign” foods from their homelands, like many immigrants do today? Migrants’ bones 18 imagine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010
Contents
Big Questions
In My Own Words
Inside the Ropes
Get Your Hands Dirty!
The Bone Reader
The Science of Archaeology
A Window to the Past
History and Archaeology in the News
National History Day
Dig This!
Selected Opportunities & Resources
Taking the Leap
Off the Shelf
Word Wise
Exploring Career Options
One Step Ahead
Planning Ahead for College
Students Review
Mark Your Calendar
Knossos Games

Imagine Magazine - Johns Hopkins - November/December 2010

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