Written In Bone: Buried Lives Of Jamestown And Colonial Maryland

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.

The book also states on page 46 “The X-ray revealed an object that the archaeologists has seen in drawings from the seventeenth century: the iron pike, or point, of a captain’s leading staff, a lance like weapon used by persons of high rank in the military.” The use of X-ray allowed the archaeologists to discover that the skeleton they were excavating belonged to a high ranking person in the military.

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

captain.

Finally, science helped the archaeologists excavate the three lead coffins. On page 77 of the book, the text states “ The lead coffins at St.Mary’s were scanned with special waves of colored light (above). The colored lights have different wavelengths. They can be used to bring out details or stains that are otherwise invisible. The team was looking for special markings, surface treatments on the coffins, and cracks in the lead. None were found.” Without the use of gamma rays, the archaeologists would not know if they could lift the coffins of of the hole without them collapsing. The fact that the book explains the whole process of using the gamma rays and that they were so important to the excavation shows that science is the main focus of the book.

Science is the main focus of “Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland” by Sally M. Walker. Although there are history and literature aspects to the story, science is the main focus of the book.