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sleepin' with bones

created by olmanrvr

(idea) by olmanrvr (2.7 wk) (print)   ?   (I like it!) Thu Mar 29 2001 at 23:39:09

We do things we don't think are weird at all, then time goes by or we tell someone else, and all of a sudden, it seems weird. When I was in college, a couple of decades ago, I was an anthropology major and I was really digging archaeology(pun intended). I was chosen to do a project with five other students and present a paper at a future archaeological symposium. The project dealt with the skeletal remains of 102 native americans excavated from a site in northern Georgia. These skeletons were in fairly good condition considering the site was dated to around 1500, just before european contact.

We all spent a lot of time in a small lab with each skeleton laid out on a table the size of a picnic table. They ranged in age from very young to the oldest, who was a male , age 55. Now if you're wondering how all this information was known, trust me, there are methods for dating and sexing skeletons, as I'm sure many of you know. Anyway, my research was examining each cranium for artificial cranial deformation. By using cradleboards or head binding, the skull of an infant could be intentionally deformed so that in adulthood they would be recognized as from a certain lineage which might indicate a certain status or class.

I digress. All of the above can be further examined with a copy of "The King Site", a book that was eventually published about these people. Edited by my professor, Robert Blakely, and currently out of print but available through university libraries, one would hope. Now, back to the story line; I would often go to this lab late at night and study with silence and concentration, not available during the day. Often when I returned to the lab, I would have drank a beer or two and smoked a doobie. Now, I would just get so comfortable, that I'd lay out the old man, skeleton # 102, and I'd just climb up on the table beside him and, hey, go to sleep. It was really neat; to sleep beside a 500 year old skeleton that had been here before we even got to this country. I can't explain it. Eventually, my classmates discovered this pajama party and I had to give it up.


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