Ancestors Quotes

“Perhaps the Romans were right to be wary of the formidable females of Britain -wise women, prophetesses, priestesses, Ladies, Queens; we'll never capture exactly how they saw themselves and how their communities saw them, but they appear charismatic, formidable, powerful even in death.”
― Alice Roberts, Ancestors: A History of Britain in Seven Burials

“Entering the vestibule of Gough’s Cave today, a plastic skeleton lies on a sheet of plastic netting in the area where Cheddar Man was discovered. (The completeness of the ribcage and pelvis in displays like these – and indeed in any number of horror and adventure films – always irks me. When bodies rot, soft tissue – including cartilage and ligaments – decay. The ribs, once bound to the sternum by long rods of costal cartilage, then exist as separate bones, and collapse in a heap. The two bones of the pelvis eventually fall apart from each other at the front, where they were once joined by fibrocartilage, and away from the sacrum at the back, where the sacroiliac joint once existed. Plastic skeletons, with costal cartilages helping to keep the thorax three-dimensional, and complete pelves, abound in films, standing in for skeletons which really should be just bones. Now you know about this, it will irk you too.)”
― Alice Roberts, Ancestors: The Prehistory of Britain in Seven Burials