As I walked through the dense forest, I felt a crunch beneath my feet. It was an unfamiliar feeling, but as I removed my foot from the spot, I saw it. Several small bones had been crushed beneath my weight. They were likely remains of a small mammal that had wandered too far away from home. The stories of how it could have died raced through my mind like a movie theatre. I could play as many scenarios as I could, but I would never know or could ever know what had happened to the animal… or so I thought.
About a decade later, I was working on a project for my graduate studies. My focus was geochemistry, and my topic was Bone collagen. It was my job to determine how to successfully retrieve information from bones that would provide evidence for how it lived and how it died. That problem I had faced many years before haunted me in that laboratory. Somehow, my curiosity had brought me to a place where I could discover something that no one else had before.
How can you derive life-related information after death?
Getting Isotope information from bones was nothing new. In fact, the core of my research began with examining past studies on getting carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen isotopes extracted from the bone collagen. Of course, none of the methods used were perfect, but it started me down my own path of figuring out how to make something of nothing.
As the peaks came in and the graphs were drawn, the picture became clearer. A dream so heavily burdened by the promise of death was finally a reality. It is hard to believe that even after death, a remnant of life still remains in the bones of the deceased. A life full of memories, experiences, and feelings, all but forgotten. With the incredible pursuit of science, we can now investigate the past and more precisely witness a civilization that may have been long passed.
What can be learned from the remains of an ancient skeleton?
Forensic science is a particular field in which the dead are the primary focus. Consider the earth’s population ~8 billion. Now consider the number of people who have ever lived – zillions. There may be much to learn from those of us still alive, but how much more can we learn from those who have gone before us? A world pock-marked by disease, war, famine, disaster, each event causing more questions needing answers. While I can’t answer them all, the one question I was able to answer was how that small goat died in the forest 10 years prior.
Perhaps the most useful application of forensic science is its contribution to criminal investigations. While who we are may be forgotten, where we came from and where we lived are incredibly important to an investigation. With the research of new methods for extracting isotopes from bones (such as my own), it provides these investigations with a way to bring justice to a world that can’t speak for themselves – the dead.
If you liked this discussion, you can discover more about the field of forensic science by reading “All That Remains”: A book by Sue Black. She is a Forensic Scientist who aids in criminal investigations to uncover secrets that might otherwise have been long forgotten. You can find more information here: All That Remains | Book by Sue Black | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster (simonandschuster.com)
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