Bradford bones unit peek into the past

But they help the experts who handle human remains provide an intriguing insight into the nutritional impact on people’s diets in the past.

Participants in the recent You Are What You Ate osteology workshop in Bradford University’s Archaeological Sciences department were given the opportunity to do just that, as organisers Jo Buckberry and Alan Ogden explained evidence of historic diseases such as rickets, gout and scurvy on human skeletal remains to the 30 or so people gathered in the lab.

Funded by the Wellcome Trust, a London-based charity concerned with medical education and improving public health, the three-year project involves the University of Bradford, the University of Leeds and Wakefield Council.

Jo, a lecturer in biological anthropology, who led Saturday’s workshop with Alan, a research fellow who gained a masters degree in osteology, the study of bones and paleopathology at Bradford, says curiosity leads many to learn about how past lifestyle choices can influence how we live today.

“I think it is very timely to look at healthy eating and I think that by putting it in the medieval context is a bit different, it is a bit quirky. We look at it in a much broader perspective in a way which is much more engaging,” says Jo.

Bradford has a worldwide reputation for human osteology. “It is one of the things the university is known for around the world. We have colleagues in Europe, Canada and America and they all know about Bradford.”

“In academic circles we have an amazing reputation for human and broader archaeological sciences as well.”

“I know from teaching that when we feature things like joint disease and look at lots of interesting spines, the entire class start standing tall and not hunching, it has an immediate short-term effect.”

She says the legacy from the project is that people will reflect on what they eat and, hopefully, make positive lifestyle changes.

The project also incorporates children’s workshops, but unlike Saturday’s event when the adults were able to handle human skeletal remains, youngsters handle plastic skeletal pieces.

For trained dentist Alan Ogden, the project gives him the opportunity to talk about a subject he is immensely passionate about.

Another important aspect, he says, is to be able to explain to the public what they do and what is involved when they receive skeletal remains, either from the archaeologists they work with or people who may come in, such as the police if they find bones they need identifying.

Alan says more often than not the remains are from a large dog or a calf, but on occasions the bones have turned out to be body parts. In that situation they are then passed to the university’s forensic sciences department for further investigation.

He says skeletons are a common find. “Very often when they are going to build a new factory or housing estate. Britain is only a small island and they have been burying people for 2,000 years, so it is common to find human skeletal remains.

“They are excavated and recorded in detail and the bones are sent to us to report on them.”

Alan and his colleagues’ role is piecing together the person’s past. Being able to do that is his greatest reward.

According to Alan, there are many tell-tale signs on a skeleton which indicate what a person’s diet was like. Thickening and fusion of the backbone could indicate someone lived on a rich diet.

Interestingly, the chemical in teeth and bones can provide some fascinating facts, too.

Alan explains the chemical built into tooth enamel doesn’t change in the first ten years of life so someone may have died from poor calcium levels, yet their teeth would still be in perfect condition.

The condition of the person’s teeth can also indicate which part of the country they lived in.

For Alan and his team, the quest is to glean as much information as possible. “My interest is bringing the past to life,” says Alan.

He says it should also make us appreciate today’s living standards compared to the poor lifestyles our predecessors had to endure.

“The important thing that comes out of our studies is to teach us how lucky we are. We have clean water, we have food that is not adulterated and it is not poisoning us, and we have a good chance of living to a good age,” he says.