“Our bones are the last of us to go, and even hundreds of years later they can still tell us so much about who someone was, how they lived, and in some cases, even how they died. Just like the lines in tree trunks, our lives are written into our bones. And if you know how to read them”—she glances at her students—“they speak. They tell us whether someone was healthy, muscled, strong, frail, ill. They reveal whether a person was a pescatarian, vegetarian, omnivore, carnivore, and if they were breastfed and exactly when breastfeeding stopped. They tell us if someone was abused, injured in the
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