Written in Bone

"Readers will be enticed by both the scientific detective work and by the tantalizing mysteries that remain."
—starred, Kirkus

"Those intrigued by forensics and history will find [Written in Bone] absolutely fascinating."
—starred, Booklist

"Written in Bone casts a magnifying glass on the hardships and realities of colonial life so often romanticized in American lore."
—starred, School Library Journal

Written in BoneBright white teeth. Straight leg bones. Awkwardly contorted arm bones. On a hot summer day in 2005, Dr. Douglas Owsley of the Smithsonian Institution peered into an excavated grave, carefully examining the fragile skeleton that had been buried there for four hundred years. "He was about fifteen years old when he died. And he was European," Owsley concluded. But how did he know?

Just as forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve crimes, they use similar skills to solve the mysteries of the long-ago past.

Join author Sally M. Walker as she works alongside the scientists investigating colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia, as well as other sites in Maryland. As you follow their investigations, she'll introduce you to what scientists believe are the lives of 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.

The Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., will open the exhibition "Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th-Century  Chesapeake" in February 2009.

Written in Bone Slideshow

Written in Bone
 
 
Written in BoneWritten in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

by Sally M. Walker

©2009

ISBN: 978-0-8225-7135-3
Hardcover

List: $22.95
S&L price: $17.21

Ages 10 -14
144 Pages
8 3/8" x 10 1/2"


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