Jaime Ullinger Transcript
Victoria:
Hello listeners. Welcome back to the next episode of Ask a Scientist.
Today, we are talking to Dr. Jamie Ullinger. She is a bioarcheologist, which means that she studies skeletons from archeological sites in order to ask questions about humans and culture in the past. Dr. Ullinger, thank you so much for being here today.
Dr. Ullinger:
Thank you so much for having me.
Victoria:
Before we get into the questions. Would you explain a little bit about what you do and who you are to the listeners?
Dr. Ullinger:
Sure. So I am a bioarcheologist, as you said, and I’m also a professor of anthropology at Quinnipiac University. And that means that I both teach and do research as many people who do science do.
And, I study skeletons from the past. So that could be the recent past, maybe, you know, only a hundred years ago, or it could be 5,000 years ago. And whether it’s a hundred years ago or 5,000 years ago, we use the same approach to look at skeletons. So we try to learn as much as we can both about an individual, but also about a group of people and what that meant for how they were living and what that meant about society, what it meant about the culture that they came from, how they lived, what kind of work they did, maybe what food they were eating. We can ask all different kinds of questions about these different groups of people in the past, by looking at their skeletons.
Victoria:
(Tim – How many skeletons have you seen in your whole job?)
Very cool. So with that, we can get to the questions. So these questions were all submitted by students at Bromwell Elementary in Denver, Colorado, and by listeners through emails and on social media.
So this first question, I think it’s a great question to start off with. It comes from Tim. How many skeletons have you seen in your whole job?
Dr. Ullinger:
That’s a good question. I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t know that I could calculate it. I would say I have been doing this for 20 plus years, and that means many thousands of skeletons, but I don’t know that I could actually give you a specific number. So it’s quite a lot of skeletons.
Victoria:
(Ava – What is the oldest skeleton you have seen?)
That’s awesome. All right. And we’ve got a bunch of questions coming up here just about those skeletons. Students are very curious about them. Ava wants to know what is the oldest skeleton that you’ve seen?
Dr. Ullinger:
This pro, I mean the oldest skeleton that is, a real skeleton, right? So I’ve seen, we, you know, if you go to a museyou can see copies of skeletons, for example. And some of those can be quite old. But the oldest that I have worked with myself, is probably about 10,000 years old. So it’s pretty old. But certainly, if we think about, you know, the fact that our species has been around for 300,000 years, it’s, it’s not that old actually. So, that’s probably the oldest that I myself have actually seen kind of in-person.
Victoria:
(Michael – What is the biggest skeleton you have seen?)
That’s very cool. This next question is from Michael. What is the biggest skeleton that you’ve seen?
Dr. Ullinger:
Uh, this is an interesting question. So I, I mean, if we’re talking about things that aren’t humans, right? I mean, there’s certainly things like the megafauna of the pleistocene, which, which, are these really big animals, right, that lived 30,000 years ago and earlier. You know, some of which are really huge, like wooly mammoths, right? So things that are really big.
But if we’re talking about human skeletons, you know, I think there is a myth that maybe there were giant skeletons in the past, or really, really big people that lived a long time ago. But generally humans haven’t changed that much, in the kind of time that we’ve been around.
So, you know, the kind of biggest skeleton that I would have seen would, you know, maybe be someone who was, maybe like six feet tall or something like that. So, you know, there’s certainly is variation, like we see today between people, some people who are shorter and taller, but they wouldn’t have been any bigger than, or smaller really, than we are than we see in terms of human variation today.
Victoria:
Okay. That is good to know. Cause I’ve definitely heard the rumors that there used to be giant humans.
Dr. Ullinger:
Right. And you’ll see pictures on the Internet sometimes of this tiny person, you know, kind of excavating this really big skeleton, but it’s all been photo-shopped. None of that is, is real. So it’s important to always kind of think about where does a picture come from and you know, why would there have been these really giant people in the past, that are somehow being kept secret from most of us. And that we really only see in these tiny images online. But yeah, they’re not, they’re not real as far as I know, I have never, you know, like I said, I’ve looked at thousands of skeletons. And they all pretty much look like people today.
Victoria:
(Ellie – What things can you tell by looking at a skeleton? Sex? Age? Weight?)
That’s good. Good to know that, you know, people look similar.
Yeah. All right. And speaking of your, your study of skeletons and looking at these thousands of skeletons, Ellie wants to know what things can you tell by looking at a skeleton? Sex? Age? Weight?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. So there are a lot of things that we can determine related to that. Although it’s a lot more complicated than, it’s often made to seem say on television, when you’re kind of learning about the ways that people might look at a skeleton on a, on a TV show.
So we do try to estimate sex. But we use the word estimate because we don’t know that we have it right for certain, there’s, you know, a kind of percentage correct that we might be, we don’t know what that actually meant for that person. Particularly in terms of say how they identified themselves, but also as anthropologists, we now know that it’s not as easy to say that there are males and females in terms of sex. We know that biology is really complicated and there’s a lot of human variation, and we certainly know today that individuals are intersexed, meaning they aren’t necessarily biologically male or female as easy as we think those two categories exist. And so, we estimate sex in the past, but that’s not something that we can definitely determine.
In terms of age, we also try to estimate age. And if someone actually is a child, it’s easier to estimate age because the skeleton develops at a particular pace. And that’s something that we can identify a bit more accurately. But once we get into adulthood and bones are no longer developing, it becomes a lot more complicated to estimate age. And there’s actually a lot of discussion amongst bioarcheologists right now about the best way to age a skeleton and to estimate age. And a lot of our techniques don’t really work once someone is identified as over the age of 55. And so there’s also this kind of common idea that people didn’t live to be very old in the past. But some of that unfortunately is because we don’t have a good technique for identifying older people in the past. And so people probably did live to be, much older than, than we than we currently have an idea of. So this might be a little disheartening.
In fact, we aren’t able to identify these things as easily as it seems, but in many ways, you know, this is to me is what is exciting about science is that it always changes and that we learn things. And the more that we learn things, the more questions there are, right? So the more we get answers, the more we realize that things are complicated and difficult and messy, and that we need to explore those questions more and more.
In terms of weight, that’s actually a lot more complicated. There are some ways that we try to estimate weight based on muscle attachments on bone and thinking about kind of how robust someone might have been, or if they have evidence of a disease like gout, they probably were eating a lot of rich fatty foods. But that’s something that is even more difficult because that’s really reliant on soft tissue, that has generally disappeared, or decomposed. And so we, that’s even more complicated than the other two, but the other two are actually not as, not as clear cut as we think they are.
Victoria:
I always love it when the answer is there’s always more questions to be asked and to be done. And I always remind the students that if you’re interested in this, you can grow up and be a scientist and answer those questions.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, absolutely.
Victoria:
(Brooke – How does what we eat affect skeletons?)
Yeah. Okay. Speaking of what we were, what you were getting into a little bit with the soft tissue in the weight, Brooke wants to know how does what we eat affect skeletons?
Dr. Ullinger:
One thing that’s pretty important for the skeleton are a variety of vitamins that may affect how your skeleton grows or how in particular, your marrow or the things, the part that produces your red blood cells grow, which then affects, which is part of your bone, right? So your bone is actually really important in red blood cell production.
So if you have a vitamin D deficiency, if you have, a vitamin C deficiency, which we would identify as scurvy, that can all affect the way in which your bone is growing and responding to having to make maybe more red blood cells.
And it also affects your bones chemically. So one thing that a number of researchers study, this is not something that I personally do, but I have used in studies that I have worked on, is to look at stable isotopes from bones. So this is looking at ratios of particular of chemicals in the bone that can help you identify maybe whether somebody ate more meat or whether they ate certain types of plants. So there are kind of certain chemical signatures that will change in the bone based on what people eat.
But also if you’re not getting enough nutrition that can have an impact on your skeleton, which would show up, or as I mentioned, you know, if you’re eating too much of something that is really kind of fatty or rich, you may develop gout, which is a disease where kind of crystals begin to form and the ends of bones, and you begin to kind of lose the ends of toes or get a lot of pain in your feet initially as these crystals build up, and that can affect your skeleton pretty significantly.
So there are a lot of different ways in which the foods we eat affect our skeleton. But they’re kind of indirect in many ways.
Victoria:
(Arriae – Can you look at a skeleton and tell what the last thing the person ate was?)
Wow. This next question is from Arriae. Can you look at a skeleton and tell what the last thing the person ate was?
Dr. Ullinger:
So generally, no, your skeleton will not tell you that. But, we do have evidence of mummies. Right. So mummies are individuals who have soft tissue that has preserved. And you may have heard of, let’s see, the Iceman. So this is a mummy that was found between kind of Italy and Austria in the Alps. And let’s see the Iceman had a stomach still preserved. And inside of his stomach were the remnants of his last meal, which include ibex and red deer. So, ibex is something like a deer. So he was eating, particularly fats from these animals, and einkorn wheat, which is a kind of older form of wheat that was grown in Europe, in the middle East. And I think also some, kind of toxic plant material as well. That was like slightly, slightly toxic.
So, he, we have evidence of his last meal, because we still have that kind of soft tissue preserved, but that’s a very, very unique situation and very rarely happens. So your skeleton itself will not, will never give that information, but if something happens to mummify, you might learn about it.
Victoria:
That’s cool. Was the toxic substance in his stomach? Was that what killed him?
Dr. Ullinger:
No. there was a, point in his back, they think that he actually had been, you know, shot at, the lack of a better word. So no. What they had said was that there was toxic bracken in his stomach. And they had identified parasites in his gut, and they think that that was some kind of medicinal use of that material, that, that maybe if you had this kind of pain and illness, this was something that people may have eaten in order, to kind of remedy that.
Victoria:
Oh, interesting. Like early, early medicine.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it’s interesting because certainly we know. I mean, for example, that orangutans will eat a certain kind of plant when they are sick and only when they’re sick, that has medicinal properties. So, you know, humans have also, so, you know, using plants as some kind of palliative substance has been identified, even in our kind of non-human primate relatives. And so certainly humans in the past for using different, all different kinds of things as possible kind of medicines.
Victoria:
That is super cool.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(Akeem – I broke my arm in first grade. If you looked at my bones would you be able to tell that?)
Awesome. This question is from Akeem. I broke my arm in first grade. If you looked at my bones, would you be able to tell that?
Dr. Ullinger:
I love this question because Akeem, I broke both of my arms right before first grade at the same time.
Victoria:
Oh no!
Dr. Ullinger:
I also was really curious about whether this is something that I would be able to see maybe in my own skeleton years later. But, you know, I was about, I was kind of five turning six when I broke both of my arms. And you’re, you’re probably a similar age, maybe a little different.
But because of that age, our bones are growing and changing so much that after they heal from that break, they’re going to go through all kinds of other processes as they grow bigger that are going to change them anyway. And so there’s almost certainly no more record of the fact that you broke your arm.
I mean, at this point in your life, maybe there is still a little something that you could see there. And if you break your arm, when you’re an adult and it heals, there usually is more of a marker. but because you’re young, by the time you’re an adult, your bones will have grown and changed so much that you’ll would never know that you had broken it when you are younger.
Victoria:
(Ashley – What diseases do you see in the skeletons?)
That’s cool. And this is a good follow-up to that from Ashley, speaking of injuries and diseases like we’ve been talking about a little bit. What diseases do you see in the skeletons?
Dr. Ullinger:
So there are a lot of different things that we can see in the skeleton, although there’s also a lot that we can’t. Right. So for thinking about, you know, coronavirus, for example, a disease that we are all very familiar with at the moment, that is something that will not leave any skeletal record, right? It’s not something that affects the skeleton directly.
So diseases have to somehow involve the skeleton in order for them to show up in the skeleton, hundreds or thousands of years later.
So some of these are things like tuberculosis, for example, is something that if it progresses to a later stage is something that can show up in the skeleton. I’ve already kind of mentioned things like gout or vitamin D deficiencies or vitamin C deficiencies. Syphilis, tertiary syphilis will show up in the, in the skeleton eventually. So also, certain things like cancers.
Those, so diseases do different things. Some diseases will take bone away. So cancers generally are a soft tissue disease that erodes bone. So you’re actually looking at sometimes the loss of bone, that tells you that there was a disease; while other diseases may both take it away and add it. So with tuberculosis, you get both of those things happening actually. And then some things will, kind of add more bones. So, you know, if we think about, arthritis or degenerative joint disease as a disease that someone might suffer from. Generally what you’re getting is the erosion of cartilage, but kind of the creation of bone to stabilize the joint around that.
So, diseases affect the skeleton differently. some of them are congenital, right? So there are things that we might be born with that may have an effect on the skeleton, like spina bifida, where the bones are formed, a little bit differently. So there are a lot of different types of diseases that can show up in the skeleton.
Victoria:
Wow. That’s yeah, just, wow.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(Michael – Has there always been bone diseases like arthritis?)
All right. And since you mentioned arthritis, this is a good follow-up to that question from Michael. Has there always been bone diseases like arthritis?
Dr. Ullinger:
The short answer to that is yes. That has always been a possibility. But something like arthritis is it’s degenerative, right? Meaning it it’s something that, is kind of a slow erosion of cartilage over time. And you know, it’s not until humans begin to live into older ages that we start to see things like arthritis. So if we look at, one of our ancestors from say 2 million years ago, you’re not likely to see anything like that. It doesn’t mean it wasn’t possible. It doesn’t mean they were using their joints differently. But it means that they probably didn’t live long enough for a lot of this to form.
But, you know, our ancestors like Neanderthals, some of them had quite a lot of arthritis, which is why one of the reasons that they get, we have this image of them kind of being stooped over. And, these kinds of brutes that lived a long time ago. And it’s simply just that they had a lot of healed broken bones, they had a lot of arthritis, and that was something that was interpreted as kind of them being rough and tough and, you know, cave men. When in fact it was just that, they had arthritis and they were living to be older.
And so these are things that have affected humans for many, many years.
Victoria:
(Ava – If the skeletons have diseases can you get sick from them?)
Wow. And we’ll get in, I think there’s some questions a bit later on specifically about Neanderthals. So that’ll be good to talk about them a little more. This next question is from Ava. If the skeletons have diseases, can you get sick from them?
Dr. Ullinger:
Generally, no. Any disease that they had, that bacteria or virus, or, or whatever was affecting them is no longer kind of a living bacteria or virus. So, no. So they’re, they’re kind of these stories about, you know, the curse of King Tut that people got sick after opening the tomb and they were these kind of old diseases, maybe like out to people, but, there are certain situations where even, you know, the CDC has come in to test to see if something was viable because a body looked so, kind of recently diseased.
So there’s a documentary on PBS about the woman in the iron coffin. And this was a woman who was found in New York. And when they opened this coffin, she had smallpox all over her body and she, because she had been sealed in this iron coffin, very, there was almost no decomposition. So even though she had died, something like 150, 200 years ago, I’m not quite sure of the date. She looked like she had died very recently. And, and that actually kind of shuts down the medical examiners office in New York, because they are afraid that it could be, you know, still viable smallpox, which is something that we haven’t had in the US for a while. Right. So this felt very, very serious. But they, they, they sent samples off and it was tested and it was found that in fact it couldn’t infect anyone.
So I feel that, you know, in that situation, if that’s going to, if that’s going to be safe and not be a problem, then, then probably most situations that wouldn’t be. But especially with older material that I work with, there’s really no fear of contracting a disease from a skeleton.
Victoria:
Wow. That sounds like a really interesting documentary. I’ll have to check it out.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, it’s really, it’s really quite good. some people from the university that I work at did the digital imaging. So they took CT scans and things like that with, of the, of the individual. And, it’s, it’s a really interesting story for a number of reasons. She was an African-American woman, who had, anyway, there’s a whole kind of story about who is she and why was she in this coffin and why was she in this location. And, so I won’t, I won’t give any spoilers about anything, but it’s, it’s really quite interesting.
Victoria:
(Gabriela – What do you do if you find skeletons that don’t have all the bones?)
That does sound interesting.
All right. This next question comes from Gabriela. What do you do if you find skeletons that don’t have all the bones?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, this happens all the time. It is a very, very rare to find a skeleton with all of its bones. In fact, most of what I work with are actually skeletons that have been mixed up.
So for example, I’m working on a big project right now, with skeletons that are from two very large tombs in the United Arab Emirates. And in these tombs, there are, in one of them there’s over 400 people, but they mixed all of their skeletons together. So you don’t even find sometimes one complete individual, right? You’re going to find just all different kinds of bones from hundreds of people, all mixed together. So that’s one situation, right?
Another project that I’m working on is a cremation cemetery in Hungary and there because the bones were cremated or burned after the person had died, you may only find, you know, a few fragments of that individual. Because it seems like not only were some of them burned, but they also maybe didn’t take all of the material that was left over.
So, you know, it’s, it’s actually more common to not find an entire skeleton than it is to find a skeleton with all of the bones.
So what we do is we still try to learn as much as we can from those bones. And there are a number of different techniques that we use to do that. But sometimes we have to look at things on, say a bone by bone basis. So you have a big bone in your upper leg called the femur. It’s the biggest bone in your body. So maybe we’re just look at things that are affiliated with the femur. And we talk about that as opposed to you’re talking about an entire individual, because yeah, you usually don’t find a skeleton with all of the bones.
The first time I worked in Egypt, and there was really good preservation, I almost felt like there’s too much here, what can I do, how am I going to, how am I going to study like an entire skeleton? And, and, you know, it was kind of overwhelming actually to have really good preservation. And I was so used to working with material that was not as complete or that was all mixed up. And so, yeah. That’s often the more common situation.
Victoria:
In the case of the tomb that has 400 individuals, would there be any way of matching them up, like picking the bones that go from the, that came from the same individual?
Dr. Ullinger:
Right. So there are some techniques that forensic anthropologists have tried to work out, but they really only work if you have a few individuals. So, you know, if you have less than 10 individuals in a tomb, some of them might be slightly different ages, different sizes, you might be able to use a number of techniques that involve both measuring bone, but also just kind of looking at it qualitatively or just kind of making observations about size and shape, where you can potentially reconstruct individuals.
In a tomb that has over 400 individuals that have been what’s called commingled or are all mixed up, possibly in the future, you could do that, but I just can’t, right now no, that would be impossible.
Interestingly, there are a couple of skeletons that were left articulated or together inside of the tomb. And that becomes an interesting question of, you know, why were they kind of left as an individual when everyone else has been mixed together? And so in that case, we can identify an individual, but, yeah.
Victoria:
Wow.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah.
Victoria:
(Vaughn – Do you ever just find teeth and not find the skeletons?)
All right. This is a good follow-up to that from Vaughn. Do you ever just find teeth and not the skeletons?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, that can definitely happen. Teeth tend to preserve really well because the enamel, which is the outer kind of white hard part of your tooth, is about 97% mineral, whereas your skeleton is about 70 to 75% mineral. So in many situations, your teeth preserve better than your skeleton. And there are conditions where they’re going to preserve much better than the rest of the body. And so that can certainly happen that you would only find teeth. And teeth tend to be one of my favorite parts of the skeleton. So I am perfectly happy with that as a scenario. They also give us a lot of information in kind of a very small package. So, but yeah, you can definitely only find teeth sometimes.
Victoria:
That’s cool. That’s like in all those like CSI movies and stuff where they’re like, or TV shows or like, Oh, we have to run the dental records.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. And actually, I mean, that is, that is pretty important for kind of modern forensic work, is that a lot of people, right, have these dental x-rays that, you know, the ways that your teeth develop and the different wear on them and the different things you’ve had done to them all make your mouth, very individualistic. And so, you know, if a body is burned and you can’t get a lot of information from it, the teeth often are still in decent shape, but if you take an x-ray of them, they don’t even have to, you don’t even have to be able to see them necessarily. You can get an x-ray and compare that to an x-ray that was taken at the dentists. And then that is, pretty, pretty important information. Yeah. And it’s, it’s something that most people, if you have access to dental health care, you have then this kind of record that that will help identify you.
Victoria:
(Ava -Do you ever study mummies?)
Wow. Yeah.
All right. Let’s see. this next question is about mummies. And Ava wants to know, do you ever study mummies?
Dr. Ullinger:
So I have, yes. it’s not something that I do a lot. I tend to work a lot more with just bone, but I did work on a project in Egypt where there were mummies that we were excavating, both kind of intentionally mummified, but also unintentionally mummified. So things that are buried in hot, dry sand may naturally mummify. And so, I have worked there.
I’m working on a project right now. That is looking at individuals who are primarily skeletonized, but may still have mummified brain tissue, for example, still in the skull or, hair still on part of the skull. That’s a project that I’m working with Brenda Baker at Arizona State on a collection of skeletons from the Sudan. So these are people who are identified as part of the Nubian culture and they are kind of, they’re naturally mummified. So they’re not, not, it’s not a complete mummy, again, but parts of the skeleton have some tissue that has mummified.
Victoria:
(Sydney – Do you ever look at skeletons to figure out how someone died like in TV shows?)
Wow.
All right. This next question. Similar to what I was asking before about teeth, Sydney wants to know, do you ever look at skeletons to figure out how someone died, like in TV shows?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, so we can do that. And certainly, there are often times where people want to know that answer of how did someone die. But it’s actually really difficult to determine that. And unfortunately, there are a lot of ways in which we can die, but don’t leave any evidence on the skeleton.
And so, for example, I was talking about a project that I had worked on in Egypt. And one of the questions was, if the, in the area that we were excavating, these were people that were buried around the same time as the pharaohs died. And so people were really interested in knowing where these individuals sacrificed to go along with the pharaohs. And so that was something that was a big question. But, as is the case for most skeletons, we generally don’t know what would have been, what killed them. That’s that is rather uncommon.
There are only a few skeletons that I have ever seen out of the many thousands where it’s pretty evident what would’ve killed them. And it’s usually something pretty traumatic.
Victoria:
Yeah, that makes sense. So would you say that the TV shows exaggerate it a lot?
Dr. Ullinger:
I don’t know if they necessarily, well, sure, yes. But they’re also kind of writing stories around things that would leave those markers to begin with. Right. So they do consult with professional forensic anthropologists, for example, but they’re kind of writing stories where there would be evidence of what was there. And I mean, that is a major job for someone who is working in a forensic situation where they’re suspected foul play, but you know, yeah, a lot of the time they may not be able to determine from the skeleton, if that’s all that remains, what actually happened to a person.
Victoria:
(Spencer – Are there any vestigial bones, like our appendix or wisdom teeth?)
Okay. Yeah. That makes sense.
All right. Let’s see here. This next question is from Spencer. Are there any vestigial bones, like our appendix or our wisdom teeth?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, the appendix obviously itself is not a bone, it’s a vestigial organ, but not part of your skeleton. Your wisdom teeth, which are your third molars certainly are something like that in terms of, you know, other bones themselves that would be vestigial. I mean, we’re probably getting to a point where like our pinky toes aren’t really doing much for us. There’s not a lot of function there. I don’t know that they’re necessarily described as kind of a vestigial bone at this point, but, you know, they’re probably pretty close to it. And a lot of people, instead of having two separate bones and their pinky and their baby toe at the end, maybe only have one bone, the bone kind of doesn’t actually separate because again, we don’t have a lot of mobility there and we don’t really need it. So I would say that probably comes somewhat close.
Victoria:
Yeah. I know the number of times I catch my pinky toe on the edge of like a chair or something. What are you doing, toe?
Dr. Ullinger:
Could you at least do something for me if I’m going to hurt you?
Victoria:
(Joe – Are there skeletal differences between Neanderthals and homo sapiens? If there are differences, are they still evident today or are we too interbred?)
Yeah. All right. And here’s the question about Neanderthals that I said that we would get to. This question comes from Joe. Are there skeletal differences between Neanderthals and homo sapiens? If there are differences, are they still evident today or are we too interbred?
Dr. Ullinger:
So there are quite a few skeletal differences between Neanderthals and homo sapiens. Having said that a lot of people today would say that Neanderthals are part of our species, but they are homo sapiens as well. They were just particularly adapted to cold environments. So, there are a number of features that we kind of, again, I don’t study Neanderthals myself, so I do know a little bit about them, but this is not my particular specialty. So.
But they do have some differences on their skull. They have kind of a piece at the back called the occipital bone. They have, you know, pretty pronounced brow-ridges, their forehead isn’t as high. They have something called a retromolar gap, which is a space between those third molars or wisdom teeth in the back of their jaw. They have really robust bodies, so they had large muscle attachments. They often have a rib cage that’s somewhat barrel shaped.
These are all things that sometimes can show up in groups today. And a lot, some of these features are more adaptations to particular environments than they are necessarily directly from the Neanderthals themselves. But certainly, we do have a lot of evidence that we interbred with them as a species.
But again, maybe they’re just part of our species and. You know, kind of this idea of interbreeding with them is more just that there were a number of different groups on the planet that had different adaptations to different environments, and that was evident genetically and that we see it in people today.
Victoria:
(Jane – How has human burial changed through the years?)
Yeah. That makes sense.
All right. we’ve got a couple of questions coming up about how things related to skeletons and burial practices have changed over time. So this first question is from Jane. How has human burial changed through the years?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, I don’t know that it has changed through the years as much as, as, as it is just incredibly diverse across the planet. Even today, but also in the past. So there are so many different ways that humans have dealt with bodies after they have died. So in some cases that is burial. And in some cases that’s cremation, and then sometimes that’s burial after cremation. In some cultures, people are put up onto scaffolds and birds may eat part of the body. There are so many different ways that we negotiate death and that we negotiate bodies after death.
And, you know, I think there’s a lot of there, there are a lot of ways that it’s been similar in the past and a lot of ways in which it’s been different. Right. So we have evidence and the Neolithic of people would bury a body and then they would dig up maybe a skull and put plaster on it and seashells for eyes, and then kind of keep it in their house as a memorial to that person we think, or they would dig up bodies and then rearrange bones to make shapes. There was a lot happening in the Neolithic that is really interesting. And what we would probably identify as kind of strange today, but there’s a lot of things that we do with bodies that might seem strange to people, you know, 12,000 years ago. So there’s a lot of difference over time, but it’s not maybe over time as much as it is just difference across space and humanity.
And we see, you know, the first cremations are maybe 40,000 50,000 years ago in Australia. And we still practice that today. You know, we have evidence of burials around the same time, but now there are these new finds in South Africa with Homo naledi, that are much older, where they may have been collecting bodies in a possible burial scenario, right? There’s a lot, these are really new finds that people are just starting to learn about. But, you know, I think what we start to see about 500,000 years ago are things that are like us, our ancestors doing something with bodies of the same species. And that is something that is a relatively kind of new phenomenon at that time. But the ways in which that manifests is just in so many different ways. I mean, it’s really interesting that we do so many different things to people in ways that are both, well, in ways that are mostly probably showing them some kind of respect or community, maybe thinking about afterlife.
But that, yeah, in many ways things have changed, but in a lot of ways, they’re very similar.
Victoria:
(Jon – Has the average size of humans changed over the years? Are we getting larger? Smaller?)
Wow. Yeah, that is really incredible. Never really, never thought about it.
All right. Speaking of things changing or not changing, John wants to know, has the average size of humans changed over the years? Are we getting larger? Smaller?
Dr. Ullinger:
Well, it probably depends on if we’re kind of thinking about deep time and human evolution, or, you know, kind of recent time. Certainly say in the last few hundred years, generally people are getting taller. Certainly they’re getting heavier. But there’s also some evidence that we’re now getting shorter again.
And there’s pretty good evidence that, you know, I mean, Homo erectus, 2 million years ago, kind of 1.8 million years ago, is roughly our size in terms of height.
So that’s, that’s kind of a complicated question and it definitely varies by group as well. Right? So people at high altitudes, for example, tend to be much shorter. That’s an adaptation to high altitude environments. people who live near the equator, maybe much taller. So there’s a lot of difference and variation in terms of human size in living peoples. And so looking at it over time is a little bit complicated because you might have to think about a specific area as opposed to say, you know, our whole group or our whole species over time.
Interestingly, I mean, we know that our brains were increasing in size and now there’s some evidence that over the last 10,000 years, those are actually decreasing in size.
So. It’s kind of one of these questions again, where the more we think we’ve identified a pattern and we’ve learned something and the more we study it, the more we realize it’s actually a lot more complicated, and that there’s a lot more research to do on it.
Victoria:
(Will- How has human skeletal structure evolved?)
Yeah. Always more work to be done. That’s what we like to hear in science.
All right, let’s see. And another question, I think this is more thinking in terms of deeper time. Will wants to know how has human skeletal structure evolved?
Dr. Ullinger:
This is a very big question. How much, how much time do we have to talk about human skeletal structure?
So certainly, you know, we are bipedal, which is relatively unique. There are not many other animals that currently live or have lived that were bipedal. Dinosaurs, right, being one exception where we do have by penal dinosaurs. So our bodies have changed quite a bit in terms of evolution in order to be bipedal. And so there are quite a lot of changes to our skeleton in that sense, that begin sometime, you know, five to 10 million years ago, but, you know, they didn’t change all at once. And so we have a lot of different changes towards that over time. We ultimately do see a change, like I was saying in brain size. So our skeletons have become a lot less muscular, and we are a much more kind of gracile, what’s called a gracile species than our ancestors. And so we kind of exchange in some way muscle for brain. And so that, that was a pretty significant change, particularly in our skull and cranium. That we have much smaller muscles and a larger braincase.
Then there’s the whole issue of how our skeletons have adapted to a variety of different environments on the planet. So humans have occupied all of the continents except Antarctica for quite some time. And so, our bodies have also had a lot of time to adapt to a variety of environments, and that has changed our skeletons.
Victoria:
(Joe – Are there discernible differences between skeletons originating from different climates or geographical areas? For example, do people from high elevations have larger rib cages to allow for greater lung capacity?)
Wow. Very cool. And speaking of these different environments, I think this next question is a good follow-up. Joe wants to know. Are there discernible differences between skeletons originating from different climates or geographical areas? For example, do people from high elevations have larger rib cages to allow for greater lung capacity?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, I think he mean high altitudes. Yeah. So yes, people at high altitudes, some people at high altitudes, not, not all groups at high altitudes, but some may develop, a larger rib cage to accommodate larger lungs and a larger heart. And so what’s interesting is bone tends to respond to soft tissue. So what we see is if we have kind of this increased developmentally in say lung and heart size, then the bone around it will change as well. So that is one example of a skeletal difference in a particular environment.
There may also be other skeletal adaptation. So as I mentioned, at high altitudes, people tend to be shorter. And so growth and maturation is slowed at high altitudes, because of the, you know, difficulty in getting oxygen. And so what we see is oftentimes people tend to be shorter, which is also a skeletal difference that someone who’s at a lower altitude.
We also see differences in maybe some ratio of kind of arm and leg length to the body length. And that is something that also, that tends to be more of a latitude issue than an altitude issue. So in cold environments, people tend to have kind of shorter arms and legs for their body size than we see around the equator, for example.
So, there definitely seemed to be some ways in which the skeleton does adapt to different environments. Humans, we say, are very plastic, which means our bodies may develop quite differently in different environments, which is certainly something that’s good for our species, because we’re able to live in many different areas.
Victoria:
So does the, does the arm and leg length in the higher latitudes, does that just have to do with like, efficiency and keeping a body warm.
Dr. Ullinger:
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s something that we see across other animals. Right. So it’s not necessarily unique to humans, but it also occurs in other mammals in particular.
Victoria:
(Becca – What made you want to study skeletons specifically?)
Okay. Cool.
All right. So now we’re going to move on to a section of questions that are all about you and your interests and your career. So this first question is from Becca. What made you want to study skeletons specifically?
Dr. Ullinger:
So I think the reason that I’m really interested in skeletons is that, you know, I had an interest in archeology and learning about past cultures. And material culture or the stuff that we make is really interesting, and that’s often what archeologists are finding.
But what really interested me about the skeleton is that it’s the people themselves, right? So it’s not the stuff that they’re making; it’s not the things they left behind. It’s actually them. And that a lot of what anthropologists focus on is this kind of biocultural model. The idea that both biology and culture influence and are influenced by each other. And the human body is this incredible example of biology and culture kind of coming together. Right. So you have the biology of your skeleton, but then you have all of these cultural influences that affect what that biology is like. And so I just, for me, studying the skeleton is just so interesting for that reason. And it’s just so interesting that you’re actually looking at the people who lived in that time, which I just think is, really interesting.
Victoria:
(Tim – Where do you go to study skeletons?)
(Brooke – Do you go to a lot of graveyards?)
Yeah. That is really interesting.
All right, Tim and Brooke have two questions that go together. Tim wants to know where do you go to study skeletons, and Burke wants to know, do you go to a lot of graveyards?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yes, I do go to a lot of graveyards. In fact, I had a class that studied gravestones this semester. And I spent a lot of time in a graveyard here in Connecticut taking photos of every single gravestone so that my students could do some research on the cemetery. So I wasn’t digging anything or looking at the skeletons, but, trying to get, right, some of this biological and cultural information just from the stone. So, yes, I do spend a lot of time there.
Skeletons, sometimes we are excavating them in the field quote unquote. Right. So we are, actually going to a location, so for example, the work, the project that I’m working with in Hungary, they are actively excavating a cremation cemetery. So the skeletons are, you know, found in these ceramic vessels that have been buried underground. So people are excavating them in the field and then bringing the entire urn to kind of where we are working at a house nearby. And then we’re excavating that urn very carefully and removing the bone pieces. And so in that case, you know, you’re kind of working in that area very specifically.
But we also have a lot of skeletons that are in museums or kind of collections. Some of them, you know, probably should not be in those locations. And there’s a lot to talk about there in terms of how we, what do we do with skeletons and you know, who has given permission to look at them. Because although I find it very interesting to work with skeletons and, you know, I’ve just said, how, how, you know, interesting it is to me that that’s the person that you’re actually working with. You know, you have to consider are there individuals who are harmed by you looking at those skeletons and, you know, is that something that people are in agreement that you should be, that you should be doing? And so there are a lot of considerations like that.
So there are a number of different places that you might go to study skeletons, both kind of, if you’re excavating them out of the ground,or if they were already kind of, you know, taken out of the ground and are now at a museum or some other curation facility.
Victoria:
Wow. How old are cremation remains that you’re studying?
Dr. Ullinger:
So those are about 4,000 4,500 years old.
Victoria:
Wow.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. Yeah. And it’s pretty interesting because you know, a lot of people think that, today, if someone is cremated, when you receive the remains, they’re completely ash, right? There’s, there’s no bone left in there. But that’s because cremations today they burn a body and then they actually mechanically process it. You know. So your bones, which are 70, 75% mineral, that mineral cannot be burned. There will always be something leftover, even in very high temperature crematoria today, they cannot burn all the parts. So, you know, from ancient cremations, you get a lot of different bone parts because it’s actually impossible to burn a body to the point where it would just be ash.
And one thing that we’re doing now is we’re doing some experimental cremation. So in order to kind of understand maybe some of the processes that happened in the past, we have been doing what’s called experimental archeology and trying to see what happens when we burn things ourselves. We are not using people. So we are using things, so sheep tend to be good analogs or have similar bone structures to humans. And so we just go to a market or a farm, as if you would buy, you know, meat to eat, but instead of having, you know, kind of a normal barbecue, we are taking notes and checking fire temperature, and then, you know, measuring, measuring the bone after the fire.
Victoria:
(Ciara – What is your favorite place that you have gone to study skeletons?)
Oh, that makes sense.
All right, this next question comes from Ciara. What is your favorite place that you have gone to study skeletons?
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah, my answer has to be all of them. I have a really hard time picking a particular place. I, you know, I used to joke in college that I wanted a job where I could travel, but not have to do much. And, I do a lot now, but at least I found a job where I can travel quite a lot. And, I really like learning about different places. And so for me, I don’t know that I have a favorite location because I learn so much every time I visit a new area. And I think, you know, anywhere you go and you’re meeting new people and learning new things, it’s such an invaluable experience. and all of those places have just taught me so much about, about different, different ways of doing things and learning. And, I just am so grateful that I’ve had those opportunities and chances.
Victoria:
(All students in Mr. R’s class – Is it scary to work around death so much?)
That’s awesome.
All right. We’re getting down to the last couple of questions. Three more here. This is a question from all of the students in Mr. R’s class. Is it scary to work around death so much?
Dr. Ullinger:
This is a really interesting question. And, for me, I mean, I don’t think it’s scary. I think that it actually has made me a lot more comfortable to say, go to funerals because I kind of have the sense of how humans have done this for thousands of years and that this is part of a bigger process. And in many ways, I think that has meant that it’s actually far less scary in many ways to me than maybe to a lot of other people.
But I will say that there are times where it can make you sad. you know, there are certainly skeletons that I have worked with where I have just, you know, it’s evident that they had a difficult life or that maybe something happened to them that wasn’t great. Or even if they’re just, you know, it’s, it’s a baby. I mean, that does make you think about a lot of things, you know. And in prehistory in particular, right, infant and child mortality is over 50%. And so thinking about, you know, what was life like in that time, and what did that mean? you know, sometimes I think that can make you really think about life.
And, so there are times where I think it can be very sad, and there are things that I think about like that, but in many ways, I think, yeah, it has given me such an appreciation for what it means for people to kind of come together after someone dies and to send you off in this way that your culture thinks is important. And you know, that’s almost somewhat comforting as opposed to being scary.
Victoria:
(Anonymous question from the website: What past jobs and experiences have you had that have led you to be the person/ scientist you are today?)
Yeah, that makes sense. This question is from an anonymous listener that submitted the question through the website, askascientistpod.com for anyone who wants to submit a question. What past jobs and experiences have you had that have led you to be the person and scientist you are today?
Dr. Ullinger:
So I think in terms of experiences, you know, one thing that I would say, especially for kids who are listening to the podcast is that when you’re a kid, you naturally question everything around you, right? It’s just kind of part of what you do. And, you know, I think I had a family and teachers who encouraged me to ask questions. And I think that that experience is really important because, you know, I was encouraged to ask questions and to think about how things worked. And a lot of times I think somehow, as we get older, we start to lose that natural curiosity. And so I think just in many ways, not letting myself lose that was a really important experience, to just maintain this interest in the world around me, and to just keep asking questions about it. I mean, you know, we, we, we have them, so why not ask them think about them? So I think in terms of, you know, in some ways experiences, that’s, that’s probably just the most important is keeping that sense of curiosity about the world around you. And I was just interested constantly in not necessarily how things in my house worked, you know, I wasn’t in mechanical, but in, you know, just wondering why does this bug have four legs? And this one has eight, you know, like, why is this happening, and this isn’t happening. And just kind of being curious about things like that.
Victoria:
(Arriae – What is your favorite bone?)
That’s a great answer. I like that.
And this is our last question, and I think kind of a fun question from Arriae. What is your favorite bone?
Dr. Ullinger:
So I’m going to go a little rogue and say that my favorite bone is teeth. So it’s well known that I kind of really like to study teeth in particular, there are a lot of bioarcheologists who are not as fun of teeth, but I think probably I would say the teeth. They can tell you so much. And I don’t know, I could look at them and collect data on teeth for hours on end and be perfectly, perfectly happy. So, I’m going to choose something that’s not quite bone. But it’s an important part of bioarcheology in our skeletal system.
Victoria:
That’s a good answer. And also as a paleontologist, I studied dinosaur teeth. So I’d probably, if someone asked me what my favorite dinosaur bone was, I’d for sure say teeth.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. They’re the best.
Victoria:
They are.
All right. Well, that is all of our questions. Do you have any questions of your own for the listeners?
Dr. Ullinger:
I don’t know. I kind of want to ask people what their favorite bone is, but that seems like I’m copycatting though. The last question, but it is a pretty fun question. Or maybe what is the best thing that your skeleton does for you?
Victoria:
Oh, I like that.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah.
Victoria:
Yeah, it’s a good one.
All right. So listeners out there, if you’ve got an answer to what is your favorite thing that your skeleton does for you? You can send your answers in on Twitter at Jamie Ullinger.
Dr. Ullinger:
Yeah. Or if they have questions, they’re welcome to ask them there as well. I’m happy to, to answer more, more questions about the skeleton.
Victoria:
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed talking to you. This is great. I learned so much. I’m sure the listeners did too.
Dr. Ullinger:
Thank you.
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