Written In Bone: Buried Lives Of Jamestown And Colonial Maryland

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Written in Bone Essay - Griffin Sawyer The Book “Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland” by Sally M. Walker should be associated with science. The book focuses on archaeological digs in Jamestown and Colonial Maryland that helped us learn more about what life was like back in the Colonial Era. Although the book has aspects of history and literature, the main focus of the book is science. First of all, throughout the book, scientists would find carbon values of the skeletons to determine where the person lived throughout their lives. On page 41 of “Written in Bone,” the author writes, “A person born and raised in England, for example, typically has a carbon-13 with a value between -21 and -18. The carbon 13 value for a person born and raised in North America on a diet that included corn would be in the range of -15 to -9.” Since most graves were not marked with names or any type of identification, finding the carbon values of the skeleton would allow the scientists to learn more about the person. …show more content…

This is important because the grave had no other markings to show that the bones they were discovering belonged to a

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