It is the first time that a study of the bone trace element chemistry has been conducted to this level of detail on Danish medieval skeletons.
Within these mud-brick buildings researchers also retrieved carbonized grains and animal bones, traces of daily life that offered a glimpse of how this ancient civilization fed itself — and, as Weiss has long argued, evidence of the surprising role of climate change in its ultimate collapse.
Insects can modify bone, but traces left by dermestid beetles are small and characterized by minute scratches left by the mandibles; termites produce meandering tunnels [21].
Among other things, scientists want to scrape the plaque off Kennewick Man's teeth to get an idea of his diet, to search his bones for traces of DNA and to compare his skeleton with others.
The same areas held pieces of large cooking pots and animal bones and traces of wheat, barley and oats for what must have been a bakery and also probably a brewery.
Dr. Agelarakis said yesterday that further analysis would concentrate on what the bones could reveal about the age and physical size range of the soldiers, their diets, the diseases and accidents they suffered, any evidence of surgical intervention in treating broken bones, and traces of heavy metals possibly ingested from vessels they ate and drank from.
Use of inorganic compounds, which are present in bone as trace elements and known to be involved in processes related to bone formation and remodeling, as additives to synthetic bone graft substitutes is a potentially interesting approach to improving their biological performance.
One in seven people suffer from "sleep drunkenness". Richard III's bones show traces of a rich diet including wild birds and freshwater fish.
An archaeological excavation by the Museum of London in the 1990s found evidence of flint items shaped by Mesolithic hunters, as well as various animal bones and traces of charcoal from the remains of campfires.
His analysis of the animal bones there traced the shift from intensive and communal hunting of gazelle, using stone enclosures to trap them, to sheep- and goat-herding.
