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“ They were real people, they felt the world revolves around them much as we do now”


Bronze Age skeleton, “Gristhorpe Man”. PHOTO: SCARBOROUGH MUSEUMS TRUST / TONY BARTHOLOMEW


Cover image: Classic palaeopathology: surgical holes (trephination) in a Bronze age skull from Jericho


more abrasive, diet than that of the rich. “The lower down the pecking order you were, the coarser the food,” says Alan. This led to a clear difference between the social groups in terms of wear and tear on the molars. But the results of good living were not


always positive: “Sometimes the wealthy overdid it, so if they had a lot of meat, because vegetable food was seen as coarse and for the common people, they became prone to conditions like gout and disseminated idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis,” both of which leave characteristic signs on the skeleton. Other clues in the teeth, such as their


isotopic constituents, can point to the geographical area where the individual spent their childhood years. “Essentially, the chemicals embodied in teeth don’t change throughout a person’s life, thus giving away chemically where you spent your childhood.” When combined with the fact that a


person’s skeleton is replaced in its entirety every 20 years – and also shows signs of the locality in which the person was living during that period – this allows further conclusions to be drawn. “That’s one of the ways we can look at migration, in that the nearer the composition of the bone is to the area where people are found, the longer they have lived there,” says Alan.


In recent years, this has led to the


overturning of the belief that expeditionary Vikings tended to marry local women. Among the female bones and teeth examined, a discrepancy was found between where they were buried and where they grew up, in this


case Scandinavia, showing that Viking men often brought Norse women with them on their travels. Technological advances are constantly pushing the boundaries and scanning electron microscopy is currently unlocking a wealth of fascinating information held in the enamel of teeth. This has to do with the health of the person at the time the enamel was being laid down.


As Alan explains: “If there are periods of poor nutrition or a child has a high temperature for a fortnight or so, you get patches of substandard enamel. You find grooves in their teeth called enamel hypoplasia, and because we know at what age each part of the tooth was formed, we can say this individual was very ill on several occasions between the ages of about seven and 11.”


Facial reconstruction These are just a few of the many techniques that help to build the detailed picture that finally emerges from the archaeological team as a whole. But articulating that picture to the general public is often difficult, especially when you are dealing with advanced scientific processes and terminology. However, one means of stimulating the


public’s imagination is through facial reconstruction. It is a technique that Alan has become adept at in recent years. With a well-preserved skull and knowing the age and sex of the individual, it is possible to arrive at a fairly accurate representation of the person in question. “I still use the old-fashioned method


which is to build up the underlying musculature in clay and then build up a layer of skin over the top,” he says. He has famously reconstructed the features


of “Gristhorpe Man”, probably the best- preserved Bronze Age skeleton in the UK, as well as of those of a leper from a colony in Chichester and a medieval noblewoman buried at Stirling Castle. And as DNA techniques advance, it should one day be possible, he says, to add information on hair, eye and skin colour, making his stated aim of “bringing these people back to life” ever more real.


No complaints Alan’s move into archaeology, a lifelong interest, has been something of a dream realised for the former dentist. While he loved his dental and teaching career, he had always felt a little frustrated by the need to specialise so early in life. “With anatomy, for instance, we learnt head and neck, a little bit of chest and virtually nothing else. And one of the things that I love now is that I know the anatomy of the whole body. The great thing is I can integrate dental anatomy and dental pathology into the bigger picture.” It does mean, of course, that the question


of patient contact has taken on a rather different complexion. Does it bother him? Not at all, he laughs. “With skeletons, I can go for a cup of coffee and they don’t complain.”


Adam Campbell is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to MDDUS publications


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