Written in Bones

In February of last year I visited Washington DC with my family. We visited a lot of museums but one that I really enjoyed was the Smithsonian Nation Museum of Natural History. The exhibit on the second floor was what really caught my eye. The exhibit was called “Written in Bone; Forensic Files of the 17^th-Century Chesapeake”. 

This exhibit had to do with the bones found at the site that was once Jamestown.  The museum used forensic anthropologists to help investigate the bones. Forensic anthropologists are used to help in the examination of human skeletal remains for law enforcement agencies to determine the identity of unidentified bones.  What the forensic anthropologists found provides interesting information on people and events of America's past. They used the skeletons of the settlers to determine what the person stories were, what their lives were like, and even what was responsible for their death.

One of the skeletons was of a young boy. The forensic anthropologists used some records of Jamestown to find that during one of the many Native American attacks a boy died. The boy whose remains are now located at the Smithsonian. Stuck in his thigh is the arrowhead that killed him.

In history class we learned all about the early years of Jamestown from 1607 to 1610. We learned about the many Native American attacks that took place in Jamestown. One of these attacks killed the boy in the exhibit. The English wanted to settle in Jamestown because there were Native Americans that could possibly be converted to Christianity, possible riches, and maybe even a hidden trade route to China. The thought of being killed by a Native American arrow probably didn’t even cross their minds. This exhibit was most interesting because even though these people have been dead for hundreds of years the forensic anthropologists can still find their age, what they looked like, and even their stories.