Question: what makes you interested in bones who it is

Anna Williams answered on 24 Jun 2011:

Hi 10mrfut again!

I am not sure *exactly* what you mean by this question, as I can see two possible questions you could be asking…so I’ll try and answer them both!

If you’re asking ‘Who made you interested in bones?’ then my answer is a combination of people, from my Dad who first gave me a book on detection, and encourgaed my interest in archaeology, to brilliant detectives on the TV such as Inspector Morse and Quincy. When I was at school, I loved biology, and I had lots of really good biology teachers who helped me realise that I could do it! When I was at university, we learnt a bit of osteology (bones) in order to help us understand how humans evolved, by looking at the fossil record. This clicked with me, as I saw that features in the bones could give you clues as to what the person was like. Then, by chance, one day, I found out about a course in forensic anthropology, and everything fell into place!

If your question is ‘What makes you interested in identifying people from bones?’ (ie working out who the person is), then my answer is that it is absolutely AMAZING what bones can tell you, if you know where and how to look at them. You can tell the big stuff about a person, like what sex they were, or how tall, or how old they were when they died, or where they came from, but you can also tell little things about them, like the fact that they might have held needles in their teeth a lot if they did a lot of sewing, or they favoured putting their left foot down first. You can tell a lot of their medical history..for example if they went through a period of stress or disease when they were about 4 or 5, their teeth may have tiny horizontal lines in the crowns. Also, you can see how many bones in their body they have broken, and can sometimes work out exactly the accident they had….so for example, I might be able to look at a skeleton of a 30 year old, and say, when he was 15, he had a skiing accident and broke his leg, and then when he was 23, he broke his collar bone, probably playing rugby. I could also say things like, he has early stages of anemia, which he may not have even known about himself! All these things can help you find out exactly who a person was, and put a name to an unidentified body, which ultimately helps the relatives and the family of that person, as they get to grieve properly and say goodbye properly. I find the ability to do that (or help to do that) very rewarding.