Written by 2021 REU fellow Christian Berends

This week has consisted of a great amount of work as we continued our data collection and were advised by professionals in our field from across the United States to help in our project design. We were first advised by Dr. Zuckerman, a bioarchaeologist at Mississippi State University. She shared with us various ethical guidelines at the forefront of our field. This allowed me to think about crucial aspects of research that I had never considered before such as how to incorporate ethics into future projects. Dr. Zuckerman is a wonderful mentor; she demonstrated the steps of ethical consideration from the wishes of the deceased taking first consideration to shared community-based desires.

Currently, we are finishing up data collection and will be transitioning into making inferences about what our data mean, not only for the individuals represented but for this ancient community at large. Though it has been an intensive week, we kept the lab light and airy through jokes, laughter, and the occasional music dance party. Rachael Orkin and I are measuring (a) petrous portions that house the auditory bones of the middle ear and (b) the basilar portion residing along the base of the skull to interpret whether fetuses were allowed to be interred in collective burials with adults. This will tell us what the people of Bronze Age Arabia thought of community membership in death. We have recorded the lengths and/or widths of 354 petrous portions and 11 basilar portions, measuring the age of individuals at death which gives insight into population dynamics and fertility. These methods are based on prior research done by Fazekas and Kósa (1978) and Nagaoka and colleagues (2012 [basilar]; 2015 [petrous]). Even though these are well-known methods and have been implemented by many bioarchaeologists working with fetal skeletons, the measurements themselves are not always clearly defined, and this has been a hurdle we’ve had to navigate during our project synthesis. Once we have our results, we will then compare these with other populations from the time period to see what these data mean about infant mortality and tomb membership at the Shimal Necropolis in Ras al-Khaimah, UAE. 

We were also visited this week by microbiologist Dr. Dwayne Boucaud of Quinnipiac University. He presented us with insight into the human microbiome (the habitat of microorganisms like bacteria that reside within the human body). This lecture was of particular importance to the project of REU fellows Urvi and Brittany, as they are analyzing the bones of perinates to determine who was stillborn versus those who experienced live births, which can be seen through bone bioerosion after these infants obtained microbes through their mothers’ breast milk. This bioerosion will show up on microCT scans of long bones. We also received help from Dr. Boucaud on modifying our own research methods. Rachael and I will now be able to approach these rather vague published methods through a new lens, making consistency between each other our biggest factor towards a successful project. 

One thing that will always strike me about research is how much information can be gleaned from others who have been there first. Even if they do not necessarily work in the same field or with the same materials as we do, their counsel about setting parameters and exploring questions that we can address through research has been incredibly helpful, especially to early career researchers like ourselves! I am grateful to all of our project mentors that have guided our research, as I have learned so much from them that I can take into my future career!

Bibliography

Fazekas, I. G., & Kósa, F. (1978). Forensic fetal osteology. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó

Nagaoka, T., & Kawakubo, Y. (2015). Using the petrous part of the temporal bone to estimate fetal age at death. Forensic Science International, 248, 188.e1–188.e7.

Nagaoka, T., Kawakubo, Y., & Hirata, K. (2012). Estimation of fetal age at death from the basilar part of the occipital bone. International Journal of Legal Medicine, 126(5), 703–711.