Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally Walker

There are stories waiting under the ground. Our ancestors buried their history along with their dead, and for those who have been trained to read the signs, a pile of bones can be a buried treasure. Find out how to read a jaw bone to see the infections and pain hidden there. Discover how a spine can reveal a life of hard labor. Bones can even tell you if a person who died hundreds of years ago was left or right handed! Take a tour of the harsh life of early settlers viewed through the evidence that it left in their very bones.

Being able to understand the jargon on popular crime investigation shows is obviously a big draw for the book, but there are great details about other fields of study as well.They get a physicist to develop an x-ray that can penetrate lead, mathematicians to calculate how heavy the coffins will be, and historians  to find documents that lead to identifying the bodies. At the end they have artists create a sculpture based on a skull they find. It is all beautifully formatted and explained in a clear way.  An excellent example of narrative nonfiction.  

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally Walker

Erica's Picks
5th - 8th Grade
Tags: History, Nonfiction

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