DISCOVERY
Anne Grauer, PhD, is an expert in human skeletal analysis. Making bones about it
Anne Grauer, PhD, studies Peoria cemetery remains
doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot to say. An expert in human skeletal analysis, Grauer is ana- lyzing the remains of people who were buried in the mid-19th century, hoping to learn about their lives and backgrounds. The remains come from a city cemetery in
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Peoria, Illinois, which is being removed to allow for the expansion of a public library. According to state law, the remains must be archaeo- logically excavated and preserved, which gives
nne Grauer, PhD, of the anthropology department, has been spending her time with a pretty quiet crowd. But that
Grauer and the undergraduates who work with her the opportunity to study them. After Grauer and her students carefully clean
the remains, they take a complete inventory of every bone. From a visual assessment, Grauer can determine the age and sex of an individual. They check the condition of the teeth and look for evidence of any disease or traumatic event. “With the Peoria remains, there’s a substantial
amount of trauma and arthritis,” says Grauer. “Day-to-day life was perilous in many small cities through the Midwest; they were quite industrial. Peoria was a mining town on the Illinois River. The people who lived there worked hard.” And Grauer can see this in their bones. One student, Caitlin Derango (anthropology
’11), hopes to do more invasive studies looking at the isotopic values in the teeth in order to
learn about population movement. This should help her get a sense of where the people came from. Were they immigrants? And if so, as is likely, where were they from? Of her experience working with Dr. Grauer, Derango says, “It’s been really valuable. It’s helped me understand what research is really about—how you go from an idea to a concrete question with expectations to a process you’re following.” The people in the Peoria cemetery were
buried in and around 1850. Through their remains, Grauer will be able to put together a picture of an Illinois river city community from over a century and a half ago. She will know how long its members lived, how hard they worked, and what illnesses plagued them. And this, in a sense, will allow these people to tell their stories from beyond the grave.
LOYOLA UNIVERSI TY CHICAGO
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