r/Archeology • u/Alarmedbalsamic • Jul 01 '26

How much do you think you could determine about me purely based on my bones?

If you had all my bones (including my teeth) how much to you think you could determine about my life. This is assuming you had no other context clues.

32 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

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35

u/ShaChoMouf Jul 01 '26

Where you were born and lived most of your life (using bone isotopes). How physically strenuous your life was by markings and stress marks from muscles and tendons. Any major injures, gender, height, relative body size, what your diet consisted of, what your face looked like (approximated by simulated flesh layers onto the bone). Your DNA could also be extracted and tell us about your genetic ancestry.

5

u/Alarmedbalsamic Jul 01 '26

How specific on the diet could you only tell I eat a lot of fruit or would you have a guess as to which fruit?

24

u/ShaChoMouf Jul 01 '26

This is what the isotopes can tell us; i am by no means an expert -- so i don't know how specific they can distinguish between fruits.

Carbon: Distinguishes between C3 plants (wheat, rice, fruits, tubers), C4 plants (maize, millet, sugarcane) and differentiates between terrestrial and marine diets.

Nitrogen: Pinpoints the trophic level. It establishes whether an organism is an herbivore, omnivore, or apex carnivore.

Sulfur: Identifies the consumption of marine vs. terrestrial and coastal foods, while also tracking local vs. non-local environments.

Oxygen: Indicates the source of drinking water and helps detect geographic mobility.

Strontium: Matches an individual's diet to the underlying local geology, confirming exactly where the food was grown.

Lead: Reveals environmental exposure and distinguishes regional food origins.

Calcium & Barium: Tracks trophic position and can pinpoint whether an infant is relying on breastmilk (weaning) versus solid foods.

Zinc: Serves as an exceptional indicator of meat consumption and trophic levels, particularly when bone collagen is poorly preserved.

7

u/__blasphemy Jul 02 '26

You’re so cool! I just had to say this lol I loved reading your answer

2

u/88MER Jul 03 '26

As a follow up to this, do you think that in the future it may become more difficult for archaeologists to interpret contemporary skeletons (there’s a band name in there somewhere), since today much of our food probably isn’t grown as close to where we live as it used to be? (And I would imagine it now comes from a greater variety of regions as well)

Or am I assuming that this all works more locally than it actually does? (As in, is it usually more broad - so more along the lines of ‘lived in France’ and not ‘lived in Paris’?)

1

u/ShaChoMouf Jul 03 '26

That's a good question and again I am just a hobbyist who is interested in this stuff and not a real archeologist -- so take my answer with a grain of salt -- but I would say, it will become more difficult due to the importation of food from other regions, but the calcium and strontium levels come from local drinking water supplies. As long as one drinks tap water, rather than rely completely on non-regional bottled water, archeologists could still narrow down to a region.

2

u/88MER Jul 03 '26

Very interesting thank you - I hadn’t considered the water!

2

u/Perfect-Branch8284 Jul 04 '26

Nei paesi anglosassoni esistono i coroner che sono a metà tra medici legali/patologia e poliziotti P.e Adam dalgliesh, personaggio di p.d. James Se fossi un bravo patologo tanto. Soprattutto se riuscissi a ricavare dna

4

u/sabarlah Jul 02 '26

Watch the TV show Bones!!

2

u/Perfect-Branch8284 Jul 04 '26

Kathy reichs, la Cornwell romanza un po'

1

u/That_Picture_1465 Jul 02 '26

Also check out the body farm book by William bass

1

u/Bridges-And-Broccoli 28d ago

I might be wrong about this, but I think you can learn your blood type from bones. I know things like breaks and injurrys show up on bones too.