Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland

 “ The text suc­cinct­ly explains com­plex foren­sic con­cepts, such as deter­min­ing the gen­der and age of a skele­ton, or whether a skull rep­re­sents a per­son orig­i­nat­ing from Europe or Africa. Cap­tioned, full-col­or pho­tographs of skele­tal, den­tal, and arti­fac­tu­al remains shed light on colo­nial life. His­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments, illus­trat­ed maps, and anatom­i­cal draw­ings com­ple­ment images of var­i­ous spe­cial­ists at work in the field. Pho­tographs of reen­ac­tors per­form­ing peri­od tasks, such as grind­ing corn, pro­vide insight into the dai­ly life of the recov­ered indi­vid­u­als. Though oth­er recent vol­umes dis­cuss foren­sic anthro­pol­o­gy, such as James M. Deem’s Bod­ies from the Ice (Houghton, 2008), Writ­ten in Bone casts a mag­ni­fy­ing glass on the hard­ships and real­i­ties of colo­nial life so often roman­ti­cized in Amer­i­can lore.” (School Library Jour­nal, starred review)

 “This unusu­al vol­ume, sug­gest­ed to Walk­er by a sci­en­tist at the Smith­son­ian Insti­tu­tion, dips into Amer­i­can his­to­ry to intro­duce the work of foren­sic anthro­pol­o­gists. Focus­ing on colo­nial-era sites in the Chesa­peake Bay region, the large-for­mat book pro­vides detailed dis­cus­sions and  intrigu­ing close-up views of the grave exca­va­tions at Jamestown, Vir­ginia, as well as in three Mary­land loca­tions: Prov­i­dence, St. Mary’s City, and Harleigh Knoll. With pre­ci­sion of her own,Walker describes the metic­u­lous work of the archae­ol­o­gists and oth­er sci­en­tists who study skele­tal remains, using phys­i­cal clues as indi­ca­tors of a skeleton’s sex, age, birth­place, sta­tion in soci­ety, and length of time in the colonies. They com­bine trained obser­va­tion, back­ground knowl­edge, and sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise with detec­tive skills to illu­mi­nate facets of our his­to­ry; the final chap­ter dis­cuss­es how foren­sic anthro­pol­o­gy has con­tributed to his­to­ri­ans’ under­stand­ing of colo­nial times. Near­ly every page car­ries at least one illus­tra­tion, usu­al­ly a col­or pho­to but some­times a help­ful dia­gram, a map, or a peri­od doc­u­ment or print. Back mat­ter includes source notes, a source bib­li­og­ra­phy, a time line, and lists of rec­om­mend­ed books and Inter­net sites. The read­ing lev­el is rel­a­tive­ly high and the quan­ti­ty of detailed infor­ma­tion is not for every­one, but those intrigued by foren­sics and his­to­ry will find this absolute­ly fas­ci­nat­ing.” (Book­list, starred review)