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Like last year's "Bodies From the Ice," this book takes the remains of the long-dead and reconstructs elements of their lives in startling detail. Sally M. Walker follows Smithsonian forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley as he and his colleagues investigate colonial sites in the Chesapeake region; photographs capture every crucial step in disciplines ranging from geology to nuclear physics. Through... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) all the meticulous sifting, digging, examining and testing, what becomes clear is the immense hardship experienced by the 17th-century settlers. (The author considered Native American graves off-limits out of respect for their burial traditions.) The first of many skeletons Walker discusses turns out to be that of a teenager who endured a raging infection in his jaw before dying in some still-mysterious way at Jamestown. No better off was the young indentured servant in Maryland afflicted with tuberculosis, bone fractures and horrendous dental pain; his body was thrown into the house's trash pit, presumably to save his master the expense of a burial. Even the wife of the most prominent leader in St. Mary's City suffered from severe osteoporosis, infections and poisoning by arsenic, a medical remedy of the time. Walker's absorbing book reveals what can be gained from digging deeply and patiently. — Abby McGanney Nolan Reviewed by Various Reviewers, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Synopsis:
Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia: a teenage boy, a ship's captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.
"Synopsis"
by Ingram,
Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia: a teenage boy, a ship's captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official and his family, and an enslaved African girl. All are reaching beyond the grave to tell us their stories, which are written in bone.
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