Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake - Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

Written in Bone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century Chesapeake – Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History

These videos from the Written in Bone exhibition examine history through 17th-century bone biographies, including those of colonists teetering on the edge of survival at Jamestown, Virginia, and those living in the wealthy and well-established settlement of St. Mary’s City, Maryland.

The forensic investigation of human skeletons provides intriguing information on people and events of America’s past. No other inanimate objects make us feel the same passionate curiosity as the remains of once-living, breathing individuals like us. And nothing else can answer our questions in quite the same ways.