osteology project

I like bones, for the most part. I just like living people better. Trying to combine the two in our final project entitled: Who are these guys? But now since I and my female research partner have entered the picture, it's Who are these people?

Here's part of the intro...

1 INTRODUCTION

We all tell stories of our lives, of our journeys and they bind us. They bind us to our experiences and, as we share them with others, they bind us together across time. In our project, we encountered three stories: two we learned from others, and one we lived through ourselves. And here we will retell pieces of each of them to you: the story of the ancient Nubians at Kulubnarti, the story of those who excavated them, and our story of discoveries through investigation as we sought to understand the title of our quest: Who Are These People?

1.1 Kulubnarti

He scrambled over deep tan boulders, eyes shielded from the sun with his right hand. His long-sleeved woolen gown flapped about his ankles as a brisk wind swept over the dry wadis and quiet alluvial plains, kicking sand into his face. Headed to one of the few plots of farmable land, irrigated most years by flowing river waters that made his home into a temporary island, he thought of the lentils and other legumes his family hoped to plant this year, perhaps even fodder for their cow. They needed enough to eat and enough to pay taxes to the king in Dongola at the end of the season. Last year, there was barely enough food for both…

Kulubnarti is located in the extremely arid region of modern day Sudan called the Batn el-Hajar (“Belly of Rock”). The area has poor soils and is marked by intermittent wadis, or hardened valleys, large granite boulders and a few fertile flood planes. The area of Kulubnarti is located along the banks of the Nile between the second and Dal cataracts, a portion of the river that was, at the time of these populations, relatively un-navigateable due to rapids. Even so, the Batn el-Hajar has been home to many scattered populations living off its scattered but relatively fertile flood planes (Van Gerven et al. 1995; Adams et al. 1999; Turner et al. 2007).

Kulubnarti is one of these.




Okay, okay, okay... back to the real stuff... evidence of rickets in skeletal material for example...