1 00:00:05,500 --> 00:00:09,200 Beneath this sheet lie the remains of a person. 2 00:00:09,200 --> 00:00:12,240 But who were they and how did they die? 3 00:00:12,240 --> 00:00:14,920 By examining the details of these remains, 4 00:00:14,920 --> 00:00:20,280 what we hope to do is to reconstruct a life and to reconstruct a death. 5 00:00:20,280 --> 00:00:23,080 How did they live and how did they die? 6 00:01:10,560 --> 00:01:12,080 Good evening and welcome. 7 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:16,280 This is the first of three Christmas lectures from the Royal Institution, 8 00:01:16,280 --> 00:01:21,120 revealing how forensic scientists use a range of tools to help 9 00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:24,960 to investigate and bring criminals to justice. 10 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:28,520 In this first lecture, I'm going to show you how forensic 11 00:01:28,520 --> 00:01:32,120 anthropologists, such as me, study human remains 12 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:34,080 to uncover the stories 13 00:01:34,080 --> 00:01:37,440 that are written in our body and our bones. 14 00:01:37,440 --> 00:01:40,640 I'm Sue Black, and I'm a forensic anthropologist. 15 00:01:40,640 --> 00:01:44,640 And in my career, I've been involved in war crimes investigations, 16 00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:46,600 in mass fatality events, 17 00:01:46,600 --> 00:01:49,400 and in cases of suspicious deaths. 18 00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:52,920 My job is to examine what remains of the person, 19 00:01:52,920 --> 00:01:57,320 and through that investigation, to confirm who they were in life. 20 00:01:57,320 --> 00:02:02,320 Because without a name, it's really difficult to investigate 21 00:02:02,320 --> 00:02:06,800 a crime, and to determine if a crime has been committed. 22 00:02:06,800 --> 00:02:10,680 You might have seen forensic scientists on programmes on TV, 23 00:02:10,680 --> 00:02:13,120 and we've got a special guest this evening. 24 00:02:13,120 --> 00:02:15,920 What I'd like you to do is give us a really warm welcome 25 00:02:15,920 --> 00:02:18,400 for Amelia Fox. Amelia. 26 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:31,400 Not quite twins, but we're trying really hard. 27 00:02:31,400 --> 00:02:34,440 Amelia, thank you so much for joining us this evening. 28 00:02:34,440 --> 00:02:35,880 I'm really grateful to you. 29 00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:39,720 Now, you will all know, I'm sure, that Amelia plays the character 30 00:02:39,720 --> 00:02:45,400 Nicky Alexander, who is a forensic pathologist in the hit BBC show 31 00:02:45,400 --> 00:02:47,040 Silent Witness. 32 00:02:47,040 --> 00:02:51,200 And Amelia, there are lots of forensic experts out there. 33 00:02:51,200 --> 00:02:54,600 I'm a forensic anthropologist, and you portray 34 00:02:54,600 --> 00:02:57,000 a forensic pathologist. 35 00:02:57,000 --> 00:03:00,360 The difference between that being I'm usually looking at people's 36 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:02,720 identity, and you're usually looking... 37 00:03:02,720 --> 00:03:05,240 For the manner and cause of someone's death. 38 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:08,840 So you get the really exciting stuff, is what it amounts to. 39 00:03:08,840 --> 00:03:11,360 Now, when you took on that role, 40 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:13,520 did you have to do research? 41 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:15,000 Oh, yes, absolutely. 42 00:03:15,000 --> 00:03:17,720 I observed two real postmortems, 43 00:03:17,720 --> 00:03:20,680 and seen the immensely skilled work 44 00:03:20,680 --> 00:03:24,480 of pathologists who go through each and every part of the body, looking 45 00:03:24,480 --> 00:03:27,800 for clues as to the cause of someone's death. 46 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:29,880 Was that challenging for you to look at those? 47 00:03:29,880 --> 00:03:33,680 Well, I was a bit scared about whether I was going to faint. 48 00:03:33,680 --> 00:03:36,400 And I put my scrubs on thinking, "Well, at least I can pretend 49 00:03:36,400 --> 00:03:39,760 "to be a pathologist in the room." 50 00:03:39,760 --> 00:03:43,040 And the first postmortem that I saw, he was of an old man 51 00:03:43,040 --> 00:03:45,680 and he died of natural causes. 52 00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:50,400 But what really struck me was that we can still tell so much 53 00:03:50,400 --> 00:03:53,840 about a person's life and how they lived it, as well 54 00:03:53,840 --> 00:03:55,320 as what caused their death. 55 00:03:55,320 --> 00:03:58,480 And the second postmortem that I saw was of a young man, 56 00:03:58,480 --> 00:04:01,880 and his life had been cut short far too early. 57 00:04:01,880 --> 00:04:05,920 And that made me think we need to make the most of every day. We do. 58 00:04:05,920 --> 00:04:09,400 Now, that's a really important fact, I think, for us to all hold on to. 59 00:04:09,400 --> 00:04:12,560 So what we're going to ask you to do, if you don't mind, 60 00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:15,840 is we're going to ask you to do a little bit of a game with us 61 00:04:15,840 --> 00:04:20,000 to look at some of the remains we've got here, taking some 62 00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:22,280 of our audience here to help you. 63 00:04:22,280 --> 00:04:28,000 And the question is, are the remains we're looking at human or animal? 64 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:29,640 Can we tell the difference? 65 00:04:29,640 --> 00:04:32,200 And we're going to start with this one. 66 00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:35,800 So you might like to take that and you might like to show 67 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:39,120 it perhaps over on this side, and what we're looking for, 68 00:04:39,120 --> 00:04:42,520 do you think this is human or do you think it's animal? 69 00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:45,240 What do you think? Human or animal? 70 00:04:45,240 --> 00:04:48,880 Animal. Animal, OK. 71 00:04:48,880 --> 00:04:50,760 Why do you think it's animal? 72 00:04:50,760 --> 00:04:53,120 Because it's, like, shaped weirdly. 73 00:04:53,120 --> 00:04:54,960 Why is it an animal? 74 00:04:54,960 --> 00:04:57,440 They're quite long. 75 00:04:57,440 --> 00:05:00,200 So, long nails. Have you never been to a nail bar? 76 00:05:00,200 --> 00:05:03,120 You get really long extensions on your nails. 77 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:05,960 Animal. 78 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:08,680 Definitely. Does anyone think it's human? 79 00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:11,080 Oh, you're far too good. 80 00:05:11,080 --> 00:05:12,440 It is an animal. 81 00:05:12,440 --> 00:05:15,840 So what it is, is it's a seal flipper. 82 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:21,000 And so, frequently, because we're surrounded by sea, all sorts 83 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:23,040 of things get washed up on the shore. 84 00:05:23,040 --> 00:05:26,080 And so we will get a phone call from a police force that will say 85 00:05:26,080 --> 00:05:28,080 a member of the public phoned in, 86 00:05:28,080 --> 00:05:30,640 they found a human hand on the beach. 87 00:05:30,640 --> 00:05:32,600 No, they haven't. 88 00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:35,280 What they've found is a seal flipper, but we can't always 89 00:05:35,280 --> 00:05:38,280 be certain of that. So we will go away and check. 90 00:05:38,280 --> 00:05:41,240 And then we usually say, "What did you do with the seal flipper?" 91 00:05:41,240 --> 00:05:43,240 And they say, "We threw it back in the sea." 92 00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:47,120 Don't do that, because the tide brings it in, twice in the weekend, 93 00:05:47,120 --> 00:05:50,200 and we see the same seal flipper over and over again. 94 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,520 So, well done. You said that was animal. Well done. 95 00:05:53,520 --> 00:05:55,680 This one, we're not going to ask you to move. 96 00:05:55,680 --> 00:05:58,040 It's a bit heavy. 97 00:05:58,040 --> 00:05:59,800 Is it an animal or human? 98 00:05:59,800 --> 00:06:01,800 ALL: Animal! 99 00:06:01,800 --> 00:06:04,080 Does anybody think it's human? 100 00:06:04,080 --> 00:06:06,080 No. 101 00:06:06,080 --> 00:06:11,560 You're teasing me. So that, it's obviously a very large boar. 102 00:06:11,560 --> 00:06:13,240 A boar? A boar. Yes. 103 00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:14,840 As in a wild pig. 104 00:06:14,840 --> 00:06:19,600 And the skull is the most easy part for us to determine if something 105 00:06:19,600 --> 00:06:21,200 is human or animal. 106 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:24,400 But of course, we don't always have the skull. 107 00:06:24,400 --> 00:06:30,120 So what about if we had something really tiny, like this bone? 108 00:06:30,120 --> 00:06:32,960 That's much harder. That gets much harder, doesn't it? 109 00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:35,680 So maybe you'd like to take that - if you would, Amelia. 110 00:06:35,680 --> 00:06:38,800 And up into... Maybe up into this corridor up here. Right. 111 00:06:38,800 --> 00:06:40,440 Good luck, everyone. 112 00:06:40,440 --> 00:06:41,640 This is a much harder task. 113 00:06:41,640 --> 00:06:45,160 Is this going to be human or is this going to be animal? 114 00:06:45,160 --> 00:06:48,120 What do you think? Human or animal? 115 00:06:48,120 --> 00:06:50,200 Animal. Animal? 116 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,520 We've got lots of...lots of people saying animal. 117 00:06:52,520 --> 00:06:56,280 We're going to take animal. Yes? Human. Human. 118 00:06:56,280 --> 00:06:58,760 We've got one person thinking it's human. 119 00:06:58,760 --> 00:07:02,880 Doesn't it show that it isn't always as easy as you think? 120 00:07:02,880 --> 00:07:06,040 And, in fact, most of you who said this is animal have got it wrong 121 00:07:06,040 --> 00:07:07,440 because it is human. 122 00:07:07,440 --> 00:07:09,280 So, very well done. And what is it from? 123 00:07:09,280 --> 00:07:11,320 It's from this part of the hand. 124 00:07:11,320 --> 00:07:14,520 So it's from a metacarpal, which is the second one 125 00:07:14,520 --> 00:07:16,000 on the index finger. 126 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:19,600 It's also very commonly compared to bones of a horse's tail, 127 00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:20,920 for example. 128 00:07:20,920 --> 00:07:23,720 So it's very difficult sometimes to tell those apart. 129 00:07:23,720 --> 00:07:26,280 So that one we didn't do so well with. 130 00:07:26,280 --> 00:07:30,200 Let's try this one, because I think this probably looks like a bone 131 00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:32,040 that most people would recognise. 132 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:33,760 I think that might be from a leg. 133 00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:36,320 Oh, well done, you have done pathology training. 134 00:07:36,320 --> 00:07:38,640 So up onto this side, if you wouldn't mind. 135 00:07:38,640 --> 00:07:41,160 So it's a leg bone. 136 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:42,920 Is it a leg bone from a human, 137 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,840 or is it a leg bone from an animal? Animal. Animal? 138 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:50,360 What kind of animal do you think it might be? 139 00:07:50,360 --> 00:07:52,200 Dog? Go no further. 140 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:54,360 Well done. Spot-on. 141 00:07:54,360 --> 00:07:56,840 A future forensic anthropologist. 142 00:07:58,440 --> 00:08:00,280 I'm out of a job now. Well done. 143 00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:03,240 So this is the thighbone, the femur of a dog. 144 00:08:03,240 --> 00:08:06,120 And because it's doing the same function in the human, they look 145 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:07,440 very much the same. 146 00:08:07,440 --> 00:08:11,000 So I wonder, are we ready to have a look at what's 147 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:13,360 underneath the sheet behind me? 148 00:08:13,360 --> 00:08:16,880 I am. Are you guys ready? Are you ready? 149 00:08:16,880 --> 00:08:20,160 You want to see what's under here? We're going to take it off. 150 00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:21,720 Very gently. Animal or human? 151 00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:25,440 Ah, well, there's a question, isn't it? 152 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:26,440 So... 153 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:35,280 It's not just a pile of bones, though, is it? 154 00:08:35,280 --> 00:08:37,440 It is a human being. 155 00:08:37,440 --> 00:08:41,960 And because it's a human being, it needs to be treated with respect. 156 00:08:41,960 --> 00:08:45,000 This was somebody's son, somebody's daughter. 157 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:48,600 We need to remember that at all times when this is in the room, 158 00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:50,120 it is another person. 159 00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:53,080 It's not just a pile of bones. 160 00:08:53,080 --> 00:08:57,160 So what we are going to do for the rest of this lecture 161 00:08:57,160 --> 00:09:00,800 is we're going to reconstruct who this was. 162 00:09:00,800 --> 00:09:03,640 We're going to learn a bit about the life history. 163 00:09:03,640 --> 00:09:06,440 And I'm hoping that, at the end of it, we're even going to be able 164 00:09:06,440 --> 00:09:08,280 to see what they look like. 165 00:09:08,280 --> 00:09:11,960 So it has, at the moment, just a number. 166 00:09:11,960 --> 00:09:16,440 And that number is SK, which is a skeleton, and 2057. 167 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:19,600 So, for the moment, 2057 is all we have. 168 00:09:19,600 --> 00:09:22,080 Let's see what we have by the end of the lecture. 169 00:09:22,080 --> 00:09:24,160 Very best of luck with the next series when it comes. 170 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:26,600 Thank you. Good luck with the identification. 171 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:34,840 When we try to identify someone, 172 00:09:34,840 --> 00:09:37,560 and what makes us memorable, 173 00:09:37,560 --> 00:09:41,760 we need to look at what it is that we remember somebody by. 174 00:09:41,760 --> 00:09:43,880 When some of you sat down in your chairs, there 175 00:09:43,880 --> 00:09:47,640 might be a mirror that was placed on your chair. 176 00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:49,000 Have a look in it. 177 00:09:49,000 --> 00:09:50,960 What did you see? 178 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:52,880 You see your face. 179 00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:55,160 And isn't that a beautiful face? 180 00:09:55,160 --> 00:09:57,040 It's the one you woke up with this morning. 181 00:09:57,040 --> 00:09:58,880 You haven't changed it since. 182 00:09:58,880 --> 00:10:03,120 Everybody recognises you because of that face. 183 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:06,240 And when you look at the human body, there's two parts of the human body 184 00:10:06,240 --> 00:10:09,040 that are almost always in view to us. 185 00:10:09,040 --> 00:10:10,640 And you can see it in yourselves. 186 00:10:10,640 --> 00:10:14,080 We can see your face and we can see your hands. 187 00:10:14,080 --> 00:10:16,560 And in another lecture, we're going to come back to looking 188 00:10:16,560 --> 00:10:18,680 at identification of the hands. 189 00:10:18,680 --> 00:10:21,920 So what I'd like to do is I'd like to welcome from the Face Lab 190 00:10:21,920 --> 00:10:23,920 at Liverpool John Moores University, 191 00:10:23,920 --> 00:10:27,160 Professor Caroline Wilkinson and Dr Jessica Loo. 192 00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:36,480 Thank you, Caroline, thank you, Jessica, for joining us. 193 00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:39,760 Caroline, would you tell us the process, perhaps, that you go 194 00:10:39,760 --> 00:10:43,160 through - what it is that you do and then how you go about it? 195 00:10:43,160 --> 00:10:46,640 Yes. So when the police can't identify human remains, 196 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:49,280 they will sometimes come to Face Lab 197 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:52,640 and ask us to produce a facial reconstruction. 198 00:10:52,640 --> 00:10:55,720 And that image will be released to the public, in the hope 199 00:10:55,720 --> 00:10:58,400 that somebody will recognise the individual and that will 200 00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:01,280 then help with identification. 201 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:04,040 The fundamental premise behind facial reconstruction 202 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:08,360 is that our skulls and our faces are directly related to each other. 203 00:11:08,360 --> 00:11:12,840 So the skull provides the proportions and the shape 204 00:11:12,840 --> 00:11:16,280 of the face. And as your facial muscles grow and develop, 205 00:11:16,280 --> 00:11:19,560 they leave their marks on the surface of the bone. 206 00:11:19,560 --> 00:11:23,680 So we hope to be able to look at a skull and interpret it, 207 00:11:23,680 --> 00:11:27,720 and predict the living appearance of an individual. 208 00:11:27,720 --> 00:11:29,560 But it's a digital process. 209 00:11:29,560 --> 00:11:31,360 This is our laser scanner. 210 00:11:31,360 --> 00:11:35,400 It projects light onto the surface of the skull, and cameras collect 211 00:11:35,400 --> 00:11:40,920 that data, and put the images together to make a full 3D model 212 00:11:40,920 --> 00:11:43,360 of the skull of the individual. So clever. 213 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:47,560 So when we've got the fully-scanned skull, we can then take 214 00:11:47,560 --> 00:11:49,600 that into our computer system. 215 00:11:49,600 --> 00:11:52,200 We can see the 3D shape of the skull, 216 00:11:52,200 --> 00:11:54,600 and the blue areas are the areas 217 00:11:54,600 --> 00:11:56,680 that were missing, that we've remodelled. 218 00:11:56,680 --> 00:12:00,720 We then use tissue depth pegs to help us estimate the amount 219 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:03,280 of soft tissue over and above the muscles. 220 00:12:03,280 --> 00:12:07,280 And then we have a database of anatomical structures, mostly 221 00:12:07,280 --> 00:12:12,200 muscles that we import for each skull, so that we're slowly building 222 00:12:12,200 --> 00:12:15,000 the muscle structure onto the surface of the skull, 223 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:17,160 and building the face from the skull, 224 00:12:17,160 --> 00:12:19,840 through the muscles to the surface of the skin. 225 00:12:19,840 --> 00:12:21,760 What you used to do is you used to be able to mould 226 00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:22,920 on with clay, didn't you? 227 00:12:22,920 --> 00:12:25,720 Yeah, that was the traditional method. And now we can do it all 228 00:12:25,720 --> 00:12:27,080 digitally in the computer. 229 00:12:27,080 --> 00:12:29,920 So what we have here, because the most frequently asked 230 00:12:29,920 --> 00:12:32,160 question to me is, "How accurate is it?" 231 00:12:32,160 --> 00:12:34,280 We can do that using living individuals. 232 00:12:34,280 --> 00:12:37,600 So this is a test that we produced a number of years ago. 233 00:12:37,600 --> 00:12:41,760 A volunteer gave us his computed tomography, which is clinical 234 00:12:41,760 --> 00:12:44,280 imaging that you might get in a hospital. 235 00:12:44,280 --> 00:12:47,520 We could then take his skull without knowing what he looked like, 236 00:12:47,520 --> 00:12:50,280 produce the reconstruction that you can see at the top. 237 00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:53,800 This is his actual face from the scan on the bottom. 238 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:57,880 And then what you're seeing here is a comparison of those two 239 00:12:57,880 --> 00:13:02,120 surfaces so we can see where the errors are, the blue areas 240 00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:06,120 are the areas with the least error, and the red-orange 241 00:13:06,120 --> 00:13:08,200 areas are the areas with the most error. 242 00:13:08,200 --> 00:13:12,160 About 70% of the surface of the facial reconstruction 243 00:13:12,160 --> 00:13:14,600 has less than two millimetres of error. 244 00:13:14,600 --> 00:13:18,360 And you've scanned all the different parts of this skull. We have. 245 00:13:18,360 --> 00:13:21,440 And I'm hoping you're going to come back and you're going to show us 246 00:13:21,440 --> 00:13:24,120 what the face of this individual may look like. We will. 247 00:13:24,120 --> 00:13:27,040 Now, I've not seen it yet, so you and I are going to see it 248 00:13:27,040 --> 00:13:30,320 for the first time later on this evening. And I can't wait. 249 00:13:30,320 --> 00:13:32,880 So, Caroline and Jessica, thank you so much indeed. 250 00:13:32,880 --> 00:13:36,040 Thank you. And I look forward to seeing you later. See you later. 251 00:13:40,920 --> 00:13:42,880 So, how are we going to tell whether 252 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:45,800 this individual died recently or a long time ago? 253 00:13:45,800 --> 00:13:49,040 Now, sometimes it's about how the body looks, and sometimes, 254 00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:52,000 I'm afraid to say, it's about how the body smells, as well. 255 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:53,600 So, something that's decomposing, 256 00:13:53,600 --> 00:13:54,840 as I'm sure you can imagine, 257 00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:57,240 doesn't smell terribly well. 258 00:13:57,240 --> 00:14:00,680 So that we are going to use that to try to estimate something 259 00:14:00,680 --> 00:14:05,080 that's called a TDI, or a time death interval. 260 00:14:05,080 --> 00:14:08,000 And so that will allow us to determine whether this is 261 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,760 something that needs to be looked at by the police, or needs 262 00:14:10,760 --> 00:14:12,840 to be looked at by an archaeologist. 263 00:14:12,840 --> 00:14:16,240 And the cut-off point between those two is 70 years 264 00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:17,880 before the present date. 265 00:14:17,880 --> 00:14:20,520 So if you died 71 years ago, 266 00:14:20,520 --> 00:14:22,840 you're technically archaeological. 267 00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:26,840 If you died 69 years ago, you're technically forensic. 268 00:14:26,840 --> 00:14:30,040 And it's all based around the fact that man is expected to live 269 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:31,920 three score years and ten. 270 00:14:31,920 --> 00:14:37,320 And when you take back that 70 years, that takes us back to 1952, 271 00:14:37,320 --> 00:14:41,440 just after the Second World War, so that bodies that we find 272 00:14:41,440 --> 00:14:44,080 from the Second World War or before 273 00:14:44,080 --> 00:14:46,720 are technically archaeological. 274 00:14:46,720 --> 00:14:51,400 Now, I can tell you quite safely that our body here is not 275 00:14:51,400 --> 00:14:54,080 going to be recent. The bones are very dry. 276 00:14:54,080 --> 00:14:55,840 They don't smell at all. 277 00:14:55,840 --> 00:14:58,680 Or you'd know about it, sitting so close to it. 278 00:14:58,680 --> 00:15:01,960 This is going to be a body of somebody who's died 279 00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:04,000 a very long time ago. 280 00:15:04,000 --> 00:15:06,800 Now, we need to look at some features of decomposition to 281 00:15:06,800 --> 00:15:10,320 determine how much time has passed since death. 282 00:15:10,320 --> 00:15:14,640 Now, I want to show you decomposition in action. 283 00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:17,520 One of the things that's really important, and that affects 284 00:15:17,520 --> 00:15:20,720 decomposition, is insect activity. 285 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:25,560 So if you're a little bit squeamish, look away now and I'll tell 286 00:15:25,560 --> 00:15:28,160 you when you can open your eyes again, because we're going 287 00:15:28,160 --> 00:15:31,920 to look at a video, and we're going to look at a video of a specimen 288 00:15:31,920 --> 00:15:35,800 of a fox head, and that fox's head is going to decompose 289 00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:38,240 using dermestid beetles. 290 00:15:38,240 --> 00:15:40,480 And these are flesh-eating beetles, 291 00:15:40,480 --> 00:15:44,400 and they live perfectly normally in our soil every single day. 292 00:15:44,400 --> 00:15:46,040 There's our fox. 293 00:15:46,040 --> 00:15:48,720 Can you see the beetles starting to move? 294 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:51,320 Can you see the fur starting to shift? 295 00:15:51,320 --> 00:15:54,520 Look at the fluid that's starting to come out from the head. 296 00:15:54,520 --> 00:15:58,760 You can see the fur starting to pull away, clearing off all that 297 00:15:58,760 --> 00:16:02,880 soft tissue, so that underneath it you have the white bone. 298 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:04,920 You can open your eyes again. 299 00:16:04,920 --> 00:16:09,920 Our individual is dry and has no smell and it is not, 300 00:16:09,920 --> 00:16:14,040 I promise you, going to be of any interest whatsoever to the police, 301 00:16:14,040 --> 00:16:17,200 because it is clearly archaeological. 302 00:16:17,200 --> 00:16:20,640 So let's start to build up a picture of who this person 303 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:23,080 may have been in life. 304 00:16:23,080 --> 00:16:26,960 And what we will do is we'll develop some of the characteristics 305 00:16:26,960 --> 00:16:30,680 that you would expect to hear in a police bulletin. 306 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:35,200 "A male, aged between 25 and 30, 5'6'' to 5'8'' in height, 307 00:16:35,200 --> 00:16:36,840 "and white." 308 00:16:36,840 --> 00:16:39,880 Those are the sort of main characteristics, and we call them 309 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:43,680 the Fab Four, because we can look at sex determination, 310 00:16:43,680 --> 00:16:46,520 age determination, the height of an individual, 311 00:16:46,520 --> 00:16:48,680 and what is their ethnic origin. 312 00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:50,640 So let's start with the first of these. 313 00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:54,680 How do we determine if a skeleton is masculine or it's feminine? 314 00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:57,920 Now, what I want to have are two volunteers, 315 00:16:57,920 --> 00:17:02,960 and I will certainly look at this young lady here, 316 00:17:02,960 --> 00:17:07,120 and somewhere, this gentleman here. 317 00:17:07,120 --> 00:17:08,680 Thank you very much. 318 00:17:12,360 --> 00:17:15,840 And your name is? John. John and? Anna. And Anna. 319 00:17:15,840 --> 00:17:19,640 And what we're going to do with John and Anna is we want to be able 320 00:17:19,640 --> 00:17:21,240 to look inside them. 321 00:17:21,240 --> 00:17:25,120 So we want to see what your bodies look like inside. 322 00:17:25,120 --> 00:17:27,400 You're OK with that? Thank goodness for that! 323 00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:31,240 So what we're going to ask you to do is to go behind the screen, OK? 324 00:17:31,240 --> 00:17:32,880 Round the other side of the screen. 325 00:17:32,880 --> 00:17:36,200 And, Anna, I'm going to ask you to come to this side here. 326 00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:38,600 Now, we want to be able to look inside them. 327 00:17:38,600 --> 00:17:40,960 And what would we use to look inside somebody? 328 00:17:40,960 --> 00:17:43,920 We'd use an X-ray, wouldn't we? Of course we would. 329 00:17:43,920 --> 00:17:46,520 But we're not going to do that to you because an X-ray 330 00:17:46,520 --> 00:17:49,720 wouldn't be safe. But we're going to do something a little bit different. 331 00:17:49,720 --> 00:17:52,240 We're going to show you what your skeleton looks like. 332 00:17:52,240 --> 00:17:54,520 So we're going to do it on the countdown from three. 333 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:55,720 Are we ready? 334 00:17:55,720 --> 00:17:59,080 ALL: 3, 2, 1! 335 00:17:59,080 --> 00:18:01,920 There you go. That's what you look like. 336 00:18:01,920 --> 00:18:04,240 Now, we can all see what you look like inside. 337 00:18:04,240 --> 00:18:06,280 Would you like to see what you look like inside? 338 00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:08,400 Come on round and have a look. 339 00:18:08,400 --> 00:18:11,520 So what we've got there is... It's amazing. 340 00:18:11,520 --> 00:18:14,720 You came round and your skeleton stayed there. It's incredible. 341 00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:17,840 What we've got is a male skeleton, a female skeleton. 342 00:18:17,840 --> 00:18:20,760 Can you see any differences between them, do you think? 343 00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,720 Yeah. The male one's a bit taller than the female one. And it's maybe 344 00:18:23,720 --> 00:18:26,320 a little bit bigger. The bones are a bit bigger as well. 345 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:28,920 What about the female one? Can you see any differences there? 346 00:18:28,920 --> 00:18:30,160 The pelvis is different. 347 00:18:30,160 --> 00:18:31,960 The pelvis is a bit different, isn't it? 348 00:18:31,960 --> 00:18:34,640 So we can see some general differences. 349 00:18:34,640 --> 00:18:38,120 And we know that most of the general differences that we find in relation 350 00:18:38,120 --> 00:18:41,320 to the male skeleton are to do with levels of testosterone, 351 00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:44,600 because what they do is that they affect muscle, and muscles 352 00:18:44,600 --> 00:18:47,640 need some really robust bone to be able to attach onto. 353 00:18:47,640 --> 00:18:50,000 So they tend to be bigger and taller. 354 00:18:50,000 --> 00:18:53,120 And when we see the changes in the female, what we're looking 355 00:18:53,120 --> 00:18:56,520 at are the relationship between the bones and oestrogen, 356 00:18:56,520 --> 00:19:00,000 which is a feminising hormone, and we see those changes happening 357 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,480 in the pelvis. So thank you both very much indeed. 358 00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:05,560 Thank you for letting us look at your body. 359 00:19:12,240 --> 00:19:13,360 Thank you. 360 00:19:13,360 --> 00:19:15,720 What we need to do now is we need to look at something 361 00:19:15,720 --> 00:19:17,480 a little bit more specific. 362 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:20,320 And here we have some specimens. 363 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:22,480 Thank you very much indeed. 364 00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:27,480 So, on this side, what we have is we have a male skull, 365 00:19:27,480 --> 00:19:30,320 and on this side we have a female skull. 366 00:19:30,320 --> 00:19:34,280 We're going to look at this area just above the eyebrows. 367 00:19:34,280 --> 00:19:39,520 If I turn that around, can you see that there's ridges across the top 368 00:19:39,520 --> 00:19:41,080 of those eyebrows? 369 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:43,040 That's a masculine trait. 370 00:19:43,040 --> 00:19:47,200 If we look at the feminine skull, then they don't have that same 371 00:19:47,200 --> 00:19:49,640 level of bridging. 372 00:19:49,640 --> 00:19:53,040 It's only going to develop when you get towards the end 373 00:19:53,040 --> 00:19:56,880 of teenage years, and it's all to do with the muscles associated 374 00:19:56,880 --> 00:20:00,400 with chewing, and they dissipate up across the face. 375 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,440 So we find that bridging in males, we don't find it in females. 376 00:20:04,440 --> 00:20:08,080 And right behind your ear, there's a lump of bones sits 377 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:09,480 behind your ear here. 378 00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:11,880 And it's called the mastoid process, 379 00:20:11,880 --> 00:20:13,560 which is this one there. 380 00:20:13,560 --> 00:20:16,440 And it's got a big muscle with the most ridiculous name called 381 00:20:16,440 --> 00:20:19,880 sternocleidomastoid, that attaches to that. 382 00:20:19,880 --> 00:20:23,160 And because it's a much bigger muscle in men than women, 383 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:28,160 it's a much bigger bump in a male skull than it is in a female skull. 384 00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:34,200 And then, at the back of your head, there is a bump right at the back 385 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,960 of your head, if you're masculine. 386 00:20:36,960 --> 00:20:38,960 And that's got an equally ridiculous name. 387 00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:42,600 It's called the external occipital protuberance. 388 00:20:42,600 --> 00:20:44,840 You remember that one, and you'll impress everybody 389 00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:46,280 at Christmas lunch. 390 00:20:46,280 --> 00:20:49,560 What that does is, big muscles from your neck attach there, 391 00:20:49,560 --> 00:20:52,960 and your head's something really incredibly heavy. 392 00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,560 And if you're in any doubt, watch somebody who falls asleep 393 00:20:55,560 --> 00:20:58,560 on the sofa, watch their head suddenly fall forward 394 00:20:58,560 --> 00:20:59,720 like a nodding dog. 395 00:20:59,720 --> 00:21:02,400 It's because the head's so heavy and the muscles have got 396 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:03,840 to hold it up. 397 00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:07,720 We have this really well-developed occipital protuberance there. 398 00:21:07,720 --> 00:21:10,680 And if we can have a look, if you could hold it for me, Isla, 399 00:21:10,680 --> 00:21:12,440 that would be much appreciated. 400 00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:17,120 We just don't have that same level of bump on the back. 401 00:21:17,120 --> 00:21:20,880 So we can look at the skull and tell the difference between the skull... 402 00:21:20,880 --> 00:21:24,200 Thank you. ..that is masculine and one that is feminine. 403 00:21:24,200 --> 00:21:27,840 But in the pelvis we have something very different. 404 00:21:27,840 --> 00:21:31,960 The male pelvis is quite childlike in terms of its development, 405 00:21:31,960 --> 00:21:36,320 and we want to see it change at puberty in the female, 406 00:21:36,320 --> 00:21:39,360 and we're going to want to see the pelvis change and grow 407 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:40,880 from side to side. 408 00:21:40,880 --> 00:21:45,200 We're going to want to see it change and grow from front to back. 409 00:21:45,200 --> 00:21:48,840 And we're going to want to see the whole of the pelvis lifted up 410 00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:53,320 from the back. All of that happens in three or four years. 411 00:21:53,320 --> 00:21:56,760 How amazing, the way the skeleton can change. 412 00:21:56,760 --> 00:21:59,400 Why does it do that in the pelvis? 413 00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:03,880 Why do we see changes in the pelvis compared to the female 414 00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,120 rather than the male? Red jumper. 415 00:22:06,120 --> 00:22:09,120 Because as females develop, they need to be able to carry a baby, 416 00:22:09,120 --> 00:22:12,200 and so a bigger pelvis allows the baby to more easily fit through. 417 00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:17,280 Absolutely. So we want to be able to see, can we get the baby's head 418 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:19,000 through the female pelvis? 419 00:22:19,000 --> 00:22:21,520 Because if you're right, we should be able to. 420 00:22:21,520 --> 00:22:24,080 So that the female pelvis, 421 00:22:24,080 --> 00:22:26,880 it goes in, and if we get it in, 422 00:22:26,880 --> 00:22:30,880 we want to be able to get it out, and we can. 423 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:32,920 So it's a much wider pelvis. 424 00:22:36,120 --> 00:22:38,000 It doesn't happen. 425 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,000 So it's not changed in shape. 426 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:41,640 It's not changed in size. 427 00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:46,920 So what we're seeing in the pelvis are differences that oestrogen cause 428 00:22:46,920 --> 00:22:50,960 that allow that pelvis to change dramatically in size. 429 00:22:50,960 --> 00:22:53,840 So if we go back to our skeleton, 430 00:22:53,840 --> 00:22:57,120 what can we find in here that tells us about 431 00:22:57,120 --> 00:23:00,040 what sex the individual may be? 432 00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,240 And I'm going to go to the skull, first of all. 433 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:04,600 And the skull is very delicate. 434 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:09,080 So, at the front, can you see these brow ridges? 435 00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:14,360 And we know that we find brow ridges in? ALL: Males. 436 00:23:14,360 --> 00:23:15,560 Thank you. 437 00:23:15,560 --> 00:23:19,760 If we look at the mastoid process at the side, it's quite large. 438 00:23:19,760 --> 00:23:22,080 We find that in? ALL: Males. 439 00:23:22,080 --> 00:23:23,600 Thank you very much. 440 00:23:23,600 --> 00:23:27,360 And when we look at the back of the skull, look, we've got 441 00:23:27,360 --> 00:23:32,480 a lovely little external occipital protuberance which we find in? 442 00:23:32,480 --> 00:23:33,720 ALL: Males. 443 00:23:33,720 --> 00:23:37,680 I have a roomful of forensic anthropologists. Well done. 444 00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:41,360 So that skull tells us, and you've told me that you think 445 00:23:41,360 --> 00:23:43,320 that's a masculine skull. 446 00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,800 And the next thing we're going to do is to say, well, how tall 447 00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,680 might he have been? 448 00:23:49,680 --> 00:23:53,560 And most of our height comes from which part of our body? 449 00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:54,760 The legs, doesn't it? 450 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:56,760 If you've got long legs, you're going to be tall. 451 00:23:56,760 --> 00:24:00,080 If you've got short legs, you're going to be closer to the ground. 452 00:24:00,080 --> 00:24:02,720 So we've got long bones, particularly in the legs. 453 00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:06,040 And what we do, quite simply, is we take those long bones, 454 00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,800 we'd measure them and we'd come out with the height. 455 00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:14,200 And the height for this individual is around about 177 centimetres, 456 00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:16,680 which is about 5'10''. 457 00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:19,920 Now, bear in mind that this is an archaeological specimen, 458 00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:23,840 that's actually quite tall, to be 5'10''. 459 00:24:23,840 --> 00:24:26,280 The next thing I think we need to do in the Fab Four 460 00:24:26,280 --> 00:24:29,680 is we need to look at determining age. 461 00:24:29,680 --> 00:24:34,520 And there's one part of the human body that is really very useful 462 00:24:34,520 --> 00:24:37,000 for determining age. 463 00:24:37,000 --> 00:24:39,360 And what it is is... 464 00:24:42,440 --> 00:24:44,600 Yeah, seriously. 465 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:48,360 Thank you very much indeed for a set of chattering teeth. 466 00:24:48,360 --> 00:24:52,240 But teeth are incredibly useful for being able... 467 00:24:52,240 --> 00:24:55,080 Oh, it's like my daughter, it keeps talking. 468 00:24:55,080 --> 00:24:56,600 ..are incredibly useful 469 00:24:56,600 --> 00:24:59,960 for being able to tell us something about you. 470 00:24:59,960 --> 00:25:03,720 And we have lots of things that we do to our teeth. 471 00:25:03,720 --> 00:25:07,760 We go to the dentist, we have braces put on them, we have fillings 472 00:25:07,760 --> 00:25:10,320 put in, we have implants. 473 00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:13,600 I have got more fillings than I've got teeth because I've got 474 00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,640 a good Scottish mouth with very, very bad teeth. 475 00:25:16,640 --> 00:25:18,800 And that profile is mine. 476 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:22,720 And a forensic odontologist, which is a dentist, will be able 477 00:25:22,720 --> 00:25:26,600 to look at my records and be able to look at my teeth and say 478 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,040 that they're a match. 479 00:25:28,040 --> 00:25:31,720 Over a lifetime, humans have got three sets of teeth. 480 00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:34,240 Have a set of teeth. 481 00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:36,280 They have three sets of teeth. 482 00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,560 And we have baby teeth - or milk teeth - 483 00:25:39,560 --> 00:25:41,280 deciduous teeth. 484 00:25:41,280 --> 00:25:45,080 We have adult teeth, or permanent teeth. 485 00:25:45,080 --> 00:25:48,280 And then we have a third set, which are false teeth. 486 00:25:48,280 --> 00:25:50,880 So, whether they're plastic teeth or they're porcelain teeth. 487 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:54,880 So we have three sets in total, and I'd like to show you 488 00:25:54,880 --> 00:25:58,520 a really interesting set of those false teeth. 489 00:25:58,520 --> 00:26:03,440 Can you see that these teeth are set in a horseshoe, and that horseshoe 490 00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,280 is made out of ivory? 491 00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,080 And we don't know what bone it is or what tusk it is, 492 00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:09,440 but it's ivory. 493 00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,120 And when you turn it over, you can see that the teeth 494 00:26:12,120 --> 00:26:14,360 at the back are really quite crude. 495 00:26:14,360 --> 00:26:17,200 They're just sort of cut out of that block of ivory, 496 00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,920 but the teeth at the front are incredibly realistic. 497 00:26:20,920 --> 00:26:23,240 That's because they're real teeth. 498 00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:27,200 And these were called Waterloo teeth, and women used to be paid 499 00:26:27,200 --> 00:26:30,800 to go out onto the battlefields, extract the front teeth 500 00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:34,360 from the dead soldiers on the battlefields, take them back 501 00:26:34,360 --> 00:26:37,400 to the dentists and sell them. 502 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,600 And you could go into your dentist and be shown a chart of teeth, 503 00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:47,640 and you could choose your teeth that you wanted to build your set 504 00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:48,880 of dentures from. 505 00:26:48,880 --> 00:26:51,840 And it just shows the Hollywood smile that we want to be able 506 00:26:51,840 --> 00:26:54,520 to get these days, we were still looking for it 507 00:26:54,520 --> 00:26:59,200 200 years ago, but we were doing it in a slightly more grotesque way. 508 00:26:59,200 --> 00:27:03,080 Those baby teeth are really important as well, 509 00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:06,880 because if you remember back to when you were about five or six 510 00:27:06,880 --> 00:27:09,760 years of age, and this is what a jaw would look like. 511 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:13,560 What you didn't know was, underneath that gum margin, 512 00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,840 and what we've done is we've just cut away all of the bone 513 00:27:16,840 --> 00:27:21,120 on this model, your grown-up teeth were growing underneath there. 514 00:27:21,120 --> 00:27:25,920 And so we can see the crowns of the adult teeth developing 515 00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,840 down in your lower jaw, up in your upper jaw. 516 00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,880 You didn't even know they were there. 517 00:27:30,880 --> 00:27:34,880 And as they grow and they develop their roots, 518 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,400 they're going to push the baby teeth out. 519 00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:42,960 So we know that we can use teeth to help us determine age. 520 00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:46,520 And one of the things that we can find in our skeleton, when we go 521 00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:51,520 back to it and we look particularly at the mandible, which is the lower 522 00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:55,080 jaw, what you can see is, although we've lost the teeth 523 00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:58,240 at the front, that's just because of the process. 524 00:27:58,240 --> 00:27:59,840 That's archaeological. 525 00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,040 When we look at the teeth towards the back, 526 00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:06,240 and these are the molars, there's the first molar, the second molar, 527 00:28:06,240 --> 00:28:10,480 and the third molar, and the third molars we call the wisdom teeth. 528 00:28:10,480 --> 00:28:13,120 And those wisdom teeth are because they come into your mouth 529 00:28:13,120 --> 00:28:16,480 when you're suddenly supposed to be wise, and you become wise 530 00:28:16,480 --> 00:28:19,720 when you're about 18 years of age, apparently, which is why 531 00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:21,280 they're called wisdom teeth. 532 00:28:21,280 --> 00:28:24,320 But you can see there's quite a lot of wear on the first molar, 533 00:28:24,320 --> 00:28:28,440 less wear on the second molar, and very little wear on the third 534 00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:29,600 molar at all. 535 00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,040 That tells us those teeth, certainly the wisdom teeth have not 536 00:28:33,040 --> 00:28:35,600 been in the mouth very long. 537 00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:39,960 And I told you that they come into the mouth at 18 years of age. 538 00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:43,360 What else can we tell about the age of this individual? 539 00:28:43,360 --> 00:28:46,280 Well, we talk about three phases of ageing. 540 00:28:46,280 --> 00:28:49,120 So, from birth, right the way through to the end of puberty, 541 00:28:49,120 --> 00:28:51,760 that's where we grow. And then when we get to 542 00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,720 the end of our teenage years and we get to, maybe, 543 00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:58,120 into our early 30s, we kind of stop growing and we go 544 00:28:58,120 --> 00:28:59,960 through a bit of stasis. 545 00:28:59,960 --> 00:29:02,280 Once you get beyond your 30s, 546 00:29:02,280 --> 00:29:05,400 everything's degenerative. 547 00:29:05,400 --> 00:29:09,560 You start to break down, you start to get old, 548 00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:12,000 and we start to see evidence of 549 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:16,360 that degenerative change post-30 years. 550 00:29:16,360 --> 00:29:20,400 We have no evidence of degenerative change in this individual. 551 00:29:20,400 --> 00:29:23,120 Two areas just that I want to take you to, 552 00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:25,560 to see if we can narrow down his age. 553 00:29:25,560 --> 00:29:29,880 This is the sacrum which sits at the back of the pelvis. 554 00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:32,320 And what I'm going to do is I'm just going to take away 555 00:29:32,320 --> 00:29:34,120 this little section of bone, 556 00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:38,400 because it's not broken. It just hasn't fused yet. 557 00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:42,920 And because it hasn't fused, I know this individual is under 25. 558 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,360 And one more bone, which is my favourite bone. 559 00:29:46,360 --> 00:29:49,200 Every anthropologist needs a favourite bone. 560 00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:51,040 So if you're going to be one, choose one. 561 00:29:51,040 --> 00:29:52,440 Mine's the clavicle. 562 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:55,360 And this is a left clavicle, or collarbone. 563 00:29:55,360 --> 00:29:57,960 And if you can see along the surface, 564 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,920 this is the articular surface around here. 565 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,920 And if you zoom in, maybe you can see there's a little flake 566 00:30:03,920 --> 00:30:07,920 of bone there that looks as if it's been stuck on with glue. 567 00:30:07,920 --> 00:30:11,720 That's a growth plate, and that bone is going to cover 568 00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:13,120 the entire surface. 569 00:30:13,120 --> 00:30:17,240 But because there's so little of it present that I know this individual 570 00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:23,440 was somewhere between the ages of probably 17 and 19 years of age. 571 00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:26,200 So this is not an old man. 572 00:30:26,200 --> 00:30:32,120 This is a young man between the ages of 17 and 19 years of age. 573 00:30:32,120 --> 00:30:34,320 So we know it's a male. We know it's a young male. 574 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:37,800 We know he was about 5'10'', maybe 5'11'' in height. 575 00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:40,160 But the bones have got more to tell us. 576 00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:43,000 There's still more of a story for us to find. 577 00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:47,320 And have you heard the phrase, "You are what you eat"? 578 00:30:47,320 --> 00:30:50,880 Well, we are literally what we eat. 579 00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,600 And the human body is a recording machine. 580 00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,160 It lays down all the information. 581 00:30:56,160 --> 00:31:00,960 Everything that we eat, everything that we drink lays down the cells, 582 00:31:00,960 --> 00:31:05,200 whether those cells are bones or other kinds of tissue. 583 00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,120 What I'm going to do now is I'm going to hand over to a colleague 584 00:31:08,120 --> 00:31:11,080 of mine who's been instrumental in taking this area 585 00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:12,760 of research forward. 586 00:31:12,760 --> 00:31:17,880 And I'd like you please to welcome Professor Wolfram Meier-Augenstein. 587 00:31:22,600 --> 00:31:24,640 It is a great name, isn't it? 588 00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:28,160 Wouldn't you want to be called Wolfram Meier-Augenstein? Wolfram, 589 00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,400 tell us what it is that you do for a living. 590 00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:32,840 I'm a professor for stable isotope forensics. 591 00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:37,640 I'll occasionally help out police forces, law enforcement agencies, 592 00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,600 nationally and internationally, 593 00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,360 with crime investigations. 594 00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:44,600 So you mentioned the word stable isotopes there. Yeah. 595 00:31:44,600 --> 00:31:47,640 So what is...what does that mean? What are stable isotopes? 596 00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:50,280 How do we explain that? 597 00:31:50,280 --> 00:31:54,760 Obviously, what your body is made of has to come from somewhere. 598 00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:59,240 And that is basically the food and the water you drink, and we can, 599 00:31:59,240 --> 00:32:03,520 to a degree, track that, because nature has given us a marker 600 00:32:03,520 --> 00:32:05,760 in our hands - stable isotopes. 601 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,720 And I think the best way to describe these - stable isotopes 602 00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:10,960 are basically atomic twins. 603 00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,480 These atomic twins are all identical, basically identical, 604 00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:16,960 in virtually every shape or form that you can think of. 605 00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:18,680 But they differ in one aspect. 606 00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:20,000 They have a different weight. 607 00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:24,400 Virtually every element that makes compounds in your body - hydrogen, 608 00:32:24,400 --> 00:32:26,680 carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur - 609 00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:29,600 they all have a twin that is just slightly heavier. 610 00:32:29,600 --> 00:32:32,560 And this difference in weight we can measure in the way 611 00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:34,360 plants make things. 612 00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,880 And it also makes a difference for water. 613 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:41,240 And we have, actually, a map that illustrates this. 614 00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,720 You see, that is an isotopic map of a landscape of water 615 00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:46,360 across the globe. 616 00:32:46,360 --> 00:32:48,960 And the differences in how much hydrogen two, 617 00:32:48,960 --> 00:32:51,200 the heavier atomic twin of hydrogen, 618 00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:53,240 is present is expressed by colours. 619 00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,600 So what we saw on the global scale, 620 00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,000 we also see on the regional scale. 621 00:32:58,000 --> 00:33:02,320 This is a map of Scotland, and Isles that basically sit here 622 00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:03,960 get the first rainfall. 623 00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:07,320 That water that ends up then to be drinking water is heavier 624 00:33:07,320 --> 00:33:11,440 in hydrogen two than the water in the Cairngorms, and these things 625 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,440 translate into your tissues. 626 00:33:13,440 --> 00:33:16,320 So, for instance, hair, if we analyse your hair, 627 00:33:16,320 --> 00:33:18,440 we can actually, we can actually say, 628 00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,600 "Oh, you lived in Norway, you are Norwegian." 629 00:33:21,600 --> 00:33:25,640 We can do it in nail, we can do it in bone, even in teeth. 630 00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:29,000 And we have actually found a volunteer who very gladly gave up 631 00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:30,840 a thick lock of her hair. 632 00:33:30,840 --> 00:33:33,680 And there she is. Say welcome to Isla. 633 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,800 And I think the best bit is, Isla, 634 00:33:39,800 --> 00:33:43,040 quickly tell us what happened, how it happened, when it happened. 635 00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:47,120 Oh, as you said, it was definitely, I volunteered for this, 636 00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:52,000 to have quite a substantial chunk of my hair taken from my head 637 00:33:52,000 --> 00:33:55,040 and sent to one of your colleagues, I believe, up in Scotland. 638 00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:59,400 And this is the really decent lock of hair that Isla donated. 639 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:04,080 So it was cut and sectioned by cutting segments of this hair, 640 00:34:04,080 --> 00:34:06,440 to represent a fortnight of growth. 641 00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,720 Because hair grows at a defined rate, 642 00:34:08,720 --> 00:34:11,640 it typically grows at ten millimetres a month. 643 00:34:11,640 --> 00:34:14,040 Before analysis, the hair has to be washed 644 00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:15,320 and rinsed and dried. 645 00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:18,160 And I know it sounds funny, but it has to be done. 646 00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:19,480 And this is the result. 647 00:34:19,480 --> 00:34:23,360 On the hydrogen, you have basically a kind of a plateau line 648 00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:25,320 here and the plateau line here, 649 00:34:25,320 --> 00:34:27,520 and the same is repeated throughout 650 00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:30,000 all the other isotopes that make up the hair. 651 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:32,760 This drop in between those lines happens between 652 00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,160 months eight and six, relative to the point when the hair was cut. 653 00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:38,600 So what we can definitely say from this, 654 00:34:38,600 --> 00:34:42,880 this person lived at two different locations, along those 20 months 655 00:34:42,880 --> 00:34:44,960 that her hair length represented. 656 00:34:44,960 --> 00:34:48,200 First she lived here, then she did something we don't know exactly, 657 00:34:48,200 --> 00:34:49,640 but she definitely moved away. 658 00:34:49,640 --> 00:34:52,720 And then she arrived here, and for the last six months lived 659 00:34:52,720 --> 00:34:53,960 in this area. 660 00:34:53,960 --> 00:34:56,160 And if you would ask me where all this happened, 661 00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,000 I would have to be honest and say, "No, I don't know exactly, 662 00:34:59,000 --> 00:35:01,640 "but I can give you a scientific guess." 663 00:35:01,640 --> 00:35:04,880 We can basically say, "Right, my guess would be somewhere 664 00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,720 "on the other side of the globe, Australia." 665 00:35:07,720 --> 00:35:10,160 And if you pressed me very hard, 666 00:35:10,160 --> 00:35:14,240 the southeastern coast, coastal area 667 00:35:14,240 --> 00:35:17,560 of Australia would be this part, 668 00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,840 from -20 to -8, and from -6 to 0, 669 00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:23,360 that could be Central Europe, that could be Belgium, 670 00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:26,920 that could be Netherlands, it could also be England, especially 671 00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:28,680 the South of England, Greater London. 672 00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:32,080 The only person who can actually now say if I was talking 673 00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:33,480 through the back of my head, 674 00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:37,000 or if I actually said something sensible, is Isla, please. 675 00:35:37,000 --> 00:35:39,960 I was living in the southeastern corner of Australia 676 00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:42,440 up until about eight months ago and then I moved 677 00:35:42,440 --> 00:35:45,200 to the United Kingdom about six months ago. 678 00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:47,520 And what did happen in between here? 679 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:51,160 I was travelling around Central Europe and the Middle East. 680 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:54,280 Wonderful. So that's great. Thanks very much, Isla. 681 00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:57,840 And that is basically as much as I can... Oh! 682 00:36:01,160 --> 00:36:04,440 Thank you. And thank you, Wolfram, for explaining that. 683 00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:07,160 Amazing. Did you manage to have a look at the 684 00:36:07,160 --> 00:36:10,040 isotopic signature associated with our skeletons? 685 00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:13,320 I saw the reports of the analysis that was basically taken 686 00:36:13,320 --> 00:36:14,800 from samples of the femur, 687 00:36:14,800 --> 00:36:17,240 because even bones retain information. 688 00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:20,280 And there were two sets of data. One was from radiocarbon, 689 00:36:20,280 --> 00:36:24,520 which gives you an indication when the person passed away, that came 690 00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:26,760 up with roughly 1,000 years before now. 691 00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:30,600 So this skeleton is a thousand years old? 692 00:36:30,600 --> 00:36:33,120 Yes. And from the stable isotope data, 693 00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:36,440 oxygen data and carbon and nitrogen data, 694 00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,840 they point to an individual that had quite a large element 695 00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:43,160 of marine-derived protein, you know, 696 00:36:43,160 --> 00:36:45,800 fish or maybe seaweed, I don't know, sushi. 697 00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:47,080 They were found in Oxford. 698 00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:49,960 There's not a lot of marine fish in Oxford. Not really, no. No. 699 00:36:49,960 --> 00:36:53,760 So it's not likely this individual grew up there? 700 00:36:53,760 --> 00:36:55,600 Not even that. Somewhere else? Yes. 701 00:36:55,600 --> 00:36:57,440 Where? I would say Scandinavia. 702 00:36:57,440 --> 00:37:00,000 So, Denmark, Sweden, maybe. 703 00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:04,680 So, Wolfram, could our skeleton be Viking? 704 00:37:04,680 --> 00:37:06,960 It could be a Scandinavian warrior. Yes! 705 00:37:06,960 --> 00:37:08,520 That's what we want, isn't it? 706 00:37:08,520 --> 00:37:11,920 What we've got is we've got a Viking loose in Oxford. 707 00:37:11,920 --> 00:37:16,360 Good. That would be great. So, a thousand years old, 708 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,960 Danish background, eating fish, 709 00:37:18,960 --> 00:37:21,400 could have come from Denmark. 710 00:37:21,400 --> 00:37:23,840 Yes. I like it. I like it very much. I'm so glad you like it. 711 00:37:23,840 --> 00:37:26,800 Wolfram, thank you very much indeed. Thank you. My pleasure. 712 00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:28,280 Thank you. Thank you. 713 00:37:32,640 --> 00:37:35,160 We've got a Viking! Thank goodness for that! 714 00:37:35,160 --> 00:37:37,920 Doesn't that make it twice as interesting as it was? 715 00:37:37,920 --> 00:37:40,920 Now, listen, what we now want to do is we want to know something 716 00:37:40,920 --> 00:37:43,640 about, how did this individual die? 717 00:37:43,640 --> 00:37:45,920 So we need to look at trauma and 718 00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:49,320 anything that might suggest a cause of death. 719 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:53,880 Now, there's three important things that we find around about injury, 720 00:37:53,880 --> 00:37:55,920 and that's when they occurred. 721 00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:57,760 So we like groups of threes. 722 00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:01,360 Injuries are antemortem, which means they happened 723 00:38:01,360 --> 00:38:03,640 before the person died. 724 00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:08,320 And we know that that happens because we see healing in bones. 725 00:38:08,320 --> 00:38:10,960 The injury could have happened around the time of death, 726 00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,000 and we'd call that peritrauma. 727 00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:15,840 And that's going to be really important to talk about the manner 728 00:38:15,840 --> 00:38:18,280 of death, which is the way in which the death occurred, 729 00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:19,880 and the cause of death. 730 00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:23,480 And the third one is going to be, if they're postmortem injuries, 731 00:38:23,480 --> 00:38:26,080 that means it happened after death, maybe when the body 732 00:38:26,080 --> 00:38:28,600 was being excavated or being buried. 733 00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:31,480 And we're going to look again - I told you we like groups of threes - 734 00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:34,960 for the three types of injuries that we might see. 735 00:38:34,960 --> 00:38:40,120 We can have injuries that result from ballistic or projectile trauma, 736 00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:44,200 we can look at injuries that result from blunt force trauma, 737 00:38:44,200 --> 00:38:48,560 and we can look at injuries that result from sharp force trauma. 738 00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,640 So, first of all, we're going to look at ballistics 739 00:38:51,640 --> 00:38:54,000 and we're going to look at projectile trauma 740 00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:55,880 and we're going to see whether we can find 741 00:38:55,880 --> 00:38:58,080 any of those on our skeleton. 742 00:38:58,080 --> 00:39:02,840 Please welcome Dan from our demo team, who's carrying an air rifle. 743 00:39:12,840 --> 00:39:14,400 It's an ostrich egg. OK. 744 00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:16,600 Can I have the safety marshals in position, please? 745 00:39:16,600 --> 00:39:22,400 Safety is off, firing in 3, 2, 1. 746 00:39:23,720 --> 00:39:25,080 Gun is safe. 747 00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:35,200 I have to ask, do you want to see it in slow motion? ALL: Yes! 748 00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:36,800 Of course we do. 749 00:39:36,800 --> 00:39:39,440 Let's have a look at what happens in slow motion. 750 00:39:39,440 --> 00:39:40,920 You can see the laser. 751 00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:42,800 So that's where we're going to hit the egg. 752 00:39:42,800 --> 00:39:44,680 That's where the shots happened. 753 00:39:44,680 --> 00:39:46,880 You can see that fracture hid up there, 754 00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:50,240 and can you see that there's debris coming out the back? 755 00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:52,000 A good shot. 756 00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:55,320 And when we have ballistic trauma, or we have projectile trauma, 757 00:39:55,320 --> 00:39:58,800 what we want to be able to determine is, what's the entry wound and 758 00:39:58,800 --> 00:40:00,480 what's the exit wound? 759 00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,840 Because that tells us something about where the gun 760 00:40:02,840 --> 00:40:04,640 was and the position of the gun. 761 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:09,360 So if you have a look at the front here, this is the entry wound. 762 00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:11,960 And the entry wound is when the bullet is travelling 763 00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:15,240 at its highest velocity, and it punctures cleanly 764 00:40:15,240 --> 00:40:18,560 through the bone, and it's punctured just as cleanly 765 00:40:18,560 --> 00:40:20,640 here through the egg. 766 00:40:20,640 --> 00:40:25,160 When it goes through the content of the egg, then it slows down, 767 00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:27,840 and it loses some of its velocity. 768 00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:31,440 So when it comes out the other end, it's a bit more messy. 769 00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:35,280 So when we turn round and we look at the exit wounds, look at the nice, 770 00:40:35,280 --> 00:40:39,440 neat entry wound. The exit wound is much bigger. 771 00:40:40,760 --> 00:40:46,400 And so that, we know, is the exit wound because it's sprayed out 772 00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:51,040 and it's not expected that in our body we're going to find ballistics, 773 00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:54,480 because we didn't have guns at that time, but we can find 774 00:40:54,480 --> 00:40:58,800 projectiles, and we'll come back to that in a little bit of a moment. 775 00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:02,040 But what we want to be able to do first is we want to now introduce 776 00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:04,400 the next type of trauma that we might see, 777 00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:06,560 which is blunt force trauma. 778 00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:08,200 So, for blunt force trauma, 779 00:41:08,200 --> 00:41:11,320 we're going to cause some fracturing in the bone. 780 00:41:11,320 --> 00:41:15,040 And I can show you quite easily what that looks like. 781 00:41:15,040 --> 00:41:18,920 But what I do need is a volunteer - red jumper. 782 00:41:20,560 --> 00:41:21,760 Please come down. 783 00:41:27,240 --> 00:41:29,680 And as if by magic, we have another ostrich egg. 784 00:41:29,680 --> 00:41:32,120 Your name is? Noah. 785 00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:35,480 So, Noah, what I'm going to ask you to do is I'm going to ask 786 00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:39,760 you to inflict some blunt force trauma on the egg. 787 00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,320 And, of course, the only way you're going to do it with an egg 788 00:41:42,320 --> 00:41:43,600 is with a spoon, isn't it? 789 00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:45,240 Now, are you right or left-handed? 790 00:41:45,240 --> 00:41:47,960 Right. Right-handed. So pick up the spoon for me. 791 00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,840 If you come round that side for me, what I'm going to ask you to do 792 00:41:51,840 --> 00:41:56,560 is I'm going to ask you to hit the egg just once, about there. 793 00:41:56,560 --> 00:41:58,960 So you're going to have to hit it hard enough to break it. 794 00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:00,720 So we're going to go in... 795 00:42:00,720 --> 00:42:02,720 ALL: 3, 2, 1. 796 00:42:04,080 --> 00:42:06,160 Yes! Well done! 797 00:42:11,360 --> 00:42:12,480 Can I just say this? 798 00:42:12,480 --> 00:42:15,920 A lovely smell of ostrich egg down here, which is not very nice. 799 00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:17,680 Now, that's the impact. 800 00:42:17,680 --> 00:42:20,200 And so when you hit it with a spoon, 801 00:42:20,200 --> 00:42:23,520 then that pushed it in, and it hit the egg behind. 802 00:42:23,520 --> 00:42:27,640 And as it bounces out, you get what are called concentric fractures. 803 00:42:27,640 --> 00:42:30,840 You can see it going around the impact zone, 804 00:42:30,840 --> 00:42:33,920 and that's because they've bounced back. 805 00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:37,160 But there's other fractures that radiate out from it, 806 00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,560 and those are called radiating fractures. 807 00:42:39,560 --> 00:42:42,960 So this is classic blunt force trauma that says 808 00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,200 there is the impact, there is the concentric fractures 809 00:42:46,200 --> 00:42:49,040 around it and there's the radiating fractures around it. 810 00:42:49,040 --> 00:42:51,480 Now, that's really useful, but there's something else 811 00:42:51,480 --> 00:42:54,640 that we can do, is that we can sequence events. 812 00:42:54,640 --> 00:42:56,720 So if you were to hit it again, 813 00:42:56,720 --> 00:43:00,600 I should be able to tell you which was the first hit 814 00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:03,000 and which was the second hit. 815 00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,240 So I'm going to turn it around to here, 816 00:43:05,240 --> 00:43:08,960 and I'm going to ask you if you can aim for about there. 817 00:43:11,280 --> 00:43:13,200 Perfect. Thank you very much. 818 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:17,680 Oh, and you couldn't have done that better, so we had an impact. 819 00:43:17,680 --> 00:43:21,120 But can you see this radiating fracture coming up there? 820 00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:22,760 What happens to it? 821 00:43:22,760 --> 00:43:25,360 It looks like it kind of, like, joined with the other one. 822 00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:26,440 It stops, doesn't it? 823 00:43:26,440 --> 00:43:29,320 And so what's happened is this radiating fracture, 824 00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,720 with all the force that's coming out of it, suddenly falls 825 00:43:32,720 --> 00:43:35,360 off a cliff because there's a hole in the egg. 826 00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:38,800 And so it can't jump over that line. 827 00:43:38,800 --> 00:43:42,440 And that tells us when a line of a fracture intersects with another 828 00:43:42,440 --> 00:43:45,080 one, this was the first impact, 829 00:43:45,080 --> 00:43:46,920 this was the second impact. 830 00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:50,280 And the more impact you have, the more difficult it becomes, 831 00:43:50,280 --> 00:43:51,800 and the more complex. 832 00:43:51,800 --> 00:43:55,160 Good job. Thank you for blunt force trauma on an ostrich egg. 833 00:43:55,160 --> 00:43:56,520 Well done. 834 00:44:02,640 --> 00:44:06,000 What I want to do is I want to say, do we have any evidence 835 00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:09,360 in here of blunt force trauma? 836 00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:11,880 And the answer is, no, I don't. 837 00:44:11,880 --> 00:44:15,360 So I might have projectile, but I don't have blunt force. 838 00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:16,920 So, what's left to us? 839 00:44:18,000 --> 00:44:20,240 Yeah? Go on, shout it. 840 00:44:20,240 --> 00:44:21,440 Shout it out for me. 841 00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,200 Sharp force trauma. 842 00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:27,400 So we need to be able to see whether, using a weapon, 843 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:30,320 we can leave cut marks on bone. 844 00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:36,360 So, to do that, I'm going to need a volunteer, please. 845 00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:38,240 Would you come forward for me? 846 00:44:38,240 --> 00:44:39,360 Thank you very much. 847 00:44:41,560 --> 00:44:44,840 And your name is? Tilly. 848 00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,680 So this is Tilly. Tilly, what we're going to do is 849 00:44:47,680 --> 00:44:50,720 we're going to try and leave a cut mark on a bone. 850 00:44:50,720 --> 00:44:51,960 Are you ready for this? 851 00:44:51,960 --> 00:44:53,680 So here comes the bone. 852 00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,760 And the bone is surrounded by some soft tissue. 853 00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,000 Are you feeling as confident now as you were a few minutes ago? 854 00:45:01,000 --> 00:45:03,720 We're going to have to cut through the soft tissue to get 855 00:45:03,720 --> 00:45:06,920 to the bone, and it's a really big bone. 856 00:45:06,920 --> 00:45:10,160 So we're going to really need a very big blade. 857 00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:11,600 Bring on the dagger. 858 00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:20,440 OK. I think you probably need some help. 859 00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:23,040 Shall we get another volunteer? 860 00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:24,680 Gentleman with sheep on the front. 861 00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:26,040 Come down and help. 862 00:45:29,080 --> 00:45:30,840 Your name is? Isaac. 863 00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,320 So, Isaac, you're going to have to help Tilly if you would. 864 00:45:33,320 --> 00:45:34,840 So we're going to have to lift 865 00:45:34,840 --> 00:45:36,800 the blade at the front, please, Tilly. 866 00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:41,880 Now, I want you to be able to get through the soft tissue to get 867 00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:44,360 all the way to the bone so that we leave a mark. 868 00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,560 So, moving forward gently, and you're going to push and aim 869 00:45:47,560 --> 00:45:50,840 for the bone. Can you get there? Push. Can you get in there? 870 00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:52,680 Almost, yes! 871 00:45:52,680 --> 00:45:55,040 There we go. We've hit the bone. Thank you very much. 872 00:45:55,040 --> 00:45:56,440 You must be exhausted now. 873 00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,400 Thank you very much indeed to Isaac and to Tilly. 874 00:46:02,400 --> 00:46:05,520 So what we're going to try and do is we're going to take off 875 00:46:05,520 --> 00:46:08,720 the soft tissue into a bucket. 876 00:46:08,720 --> 00:46:12,560 Can you see, on the side of the bone, just that mark 877 00:46:12,560 --> 00:46:14,840 that sits there? 878 00:46:14,840 --> 00:46:19,160 That was the little nick on the end of the knife. 879 00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:23,440 So that when you have a stab wound into bone, then what will happen 880 00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:29,360 is you will just see a little bit of that end of the blade. 881 00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:32,480 And what we're going to do now is we're going to look at weapons 882 00:46:32,480 --> 00:46:35,480 that were around at the time of our body, 883 00:46:35,480 --> 00:46:38,680 and we're going to see what we can tell from them. 884 00:46:38,680 --> 00:46:41,520 So I'd like you, please, to welcome Emma Mawdsley 885 00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:43,360 from the Royal Armouries. 886 00:46:49,720 --> 00:46:53,080 Thank you. A dangerous weapon. Indeed. 887 00:46:53,080 --> 00:46:55,640 So, would this have been around at the time of our...? 888 00:46:55,640 --> 00:46:57,040 I'm calling him a Viking. 889 00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,520 I don't care whether he is or not, but our Viking. 890 00:46:59,520 --> 00:47:01,800 This is a reproduction of an axe. But very similar. 891 00:47:01,800 --> 00:47:04,040 Might have had a longer haft, but similar. 892 00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:06,320 And you've brought on some other weapons for us. 893 00:47:06,320 --> 00:47:09,800 So, first of all, anything that can stab 894 00:47:09,800 --> 00:47:11,480 or can cut or can chop 895 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,720 will leave us with sharp force trauma. 896 00:47:13,720 --> 00:47:17,080 So would you like to show us what happens if you put an axe, 897 00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:19,600 maybe not too hard, into the foam? 898 00:47:21,440 --> 00:47:25,160 There you go. Look how easily it went through. So that, with an axe, 899 00:47:25,160 --> 00:47:29,120 we're going to get just a straight cut and we're going to have, 900 00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,480 if you could imagine, going deep into that cut, we're going to get 901 00:47:32,480 --> 00:47:36,360 a V shape, because we're going to have the very narrow blade 902 00:47:36,360 --> 00:47:38,480 and widening towards the back. 903 00:47:38,480 --> 00:47:42,440 But with an axe, often you don't just cut once, do you? You chop. 904 00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,720 And so, often with axes or something along those lines, we'd find 905 00:47:45,720 --> 00:47:47,440 multiple chop marks. 906 00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:49,000 So that's what we'd have with that. 907 00:47:49,000 --> 00:47:52,760 This looks like something a little bit dangerous, 908 00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:53,960 inside the scabbard. 909 00:47:53,960 --> 00:47:55,240 And what is this? 910 00:47:55,240 --> 00:47:59,440 So this is a sea axe. A sea axe? Yeah. 911 00:47:59,440 --> 00:48:03,200 And so what I'd ask you to do with that is just cut the foam, 912 00:48:03,200 --> 00:48:08,000 and then... And what happens when you do that, if you turn 913 00:48:08,000 --> 00:48:11,200 it around, and you can see it very clearly in these, 914 00:48:11,200 --> 00:48:13,760 is that where you were cutting down, 915 00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:17,000 you've got a very, very smooth surface. 916 00:48:17,000 --> 00:48:20,440 But once you got down to the point that you are breaking through it, 917 00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:25,200 you can see that it becomes much more rugged and a bit more messy. 918 00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:28,280 You've got something else, and I know this is a ridiculous thing 919 00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:31,120 to say, but that's a very long arrow. 920 00:48:31,120 --> 00:48:33,520 And presumably, is this a normal sort of length? 921 00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:35,240 Yes, this is quite a standard. 922 00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:38,040 So this one, does it have a name, this type? 923 00:48:38,040 --> 00:48:40,120 Well, this one here is a bodkin. 924 00:48:40,120 --> 00:48:42,080 So it's a similar but a different shape. 925 00:48:42,080 --> 00:48:44,680 So you have a different-shaped head, this one is full-size. 926 00:48:44,680 --> 00:48:47,920 So could we look at the shape... Bodkin, did you call it? Yes. 927 00:48:47,920 --> 00:48:51,240 Because if we want to get the tip of it in and see what kind 928 00:48:51,240 --> 00:48:54,840 of a pattern we're left with, what you get is a square shape, 929 00:48:54,840 --> 00:48:56,680 don't you? And I wonder if I could keep 930 00:48:56,680 --> 00:48:58,880 that one for just a moment. You may. Thank you. 931 00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:01,560 Could I ask you, though, when you leave, to take your axe 932 00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,400 with you, if you don't mind? Of course. 933 00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,840 Emma, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. 934 00:49:09,560 --> 00:49:13,000 Now, if we come back to our skeleton, if we come to the skull, 935 00:49:13,000 --> 00:49:15,640 first of all, and I'm going to turn it around, 936 00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,200 so we go to the back of the skull, 937 00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:20,720 and we go to the left-hand side. 938 00:49:20,720 --> 00:49:22,760 When I do that, can you see... 939 00:49:24,320 --> 00:49:26,800 ..this area around here? 940 00:49:26,800 --> 00:49:31,240 That's an antemortem trauma. 941 00:49:31,240 --> 00:49:33,520 So this is a sharp force trauma, 942 00:49:33,520 --> 00:49:35,880 probably as a result of a blade. 943 00:49:37,120 --> 00:49:38,600 But he lived through it. 944 00:49:38,600 --> 00:49:42,840 He survived, because we know that because we've got healing 945 00:49:42,840 --> 00:49:46,760 of the bone, because it's very smooth around the edges. 946 00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:50,040 So, whatever caused that, maybe it was a blade, we don't know, 947 00:49:50,040 --> 00:49:52,320 but it's a sharp force of some kind. 948 00:49:52,320 --> 00:49:57,160 It happened maybe even years before he died, but he was only 17, 949 00:49:57,160 --> 00:49:59,880 18, 19 years of age when he did die, 950 00:49:59,880 --> 00:50:02,360 so it happened to him very young. 951 00:50:02,360 --> 00:50:05,760 And I want you to come right to the end here. 952 00:50:07,120 --> 00:50:09,320 Can you see a squared outline? 953 00:50:11,360 --> 00:50:14,880 Where did we last see a squared outline? 954 00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:16,920 We saw it on a bodkin arrow. 955 00:50:18,120 --> 00:50:22,800 I'm hoping you can see how it would have fitted in there. 956 00:50:24,240 --> 00:50:27,640 Going literally into the skull there. 957 00:50:27,640 --> 00:50:31,280 I mean, for goodness' sake, how unlucky is it that not only 958 00:50:31,280 --> 00:50:33,960 do you have a previous injury to your skull, 959 00:50:33,960 --> 00:50:36,240 but around the time of your death, 960 00:50:36,240 --> 00:50:39,680 what you also have is an arrowhead injury? 961 00:50:39,680 --> 00:50:43,200 So, in your neck, you have seven cervical vertebrae. 962 00:50:44,200 --> 00:50:46,200 And if we count down to the fifth, 963 00:50:46,200 --> 00:50:48,600 which is one, two, three, four, five... 964 00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:54,080 I'm hoping that when I pull out the fifth cervical vertebrae, 965 00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:57,360 can you see another squared hole? 966 00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,240 And so that's another arrow. 967 00:51:01,240 --> 00:51:05,480 If that arrow has gone in to the left side of his neck, 968 00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,720 roundabout here, if you put your fingers there, 969 00:51:08,720 --> 00:51:11,120 can't you feel your blood vessels under there? 970 00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:13,960 Can you feel your arteries pumping? 971 00:51:13,960 --> 00:51:16,640 Huge arteries and veins in there? 972 00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:18,680 If the arrow has gone in there, 973 00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,160 the chances are that he's bled out, 974 00:51:21,160 --> 00:51:25,480 and the cause of death was an arrow injury to the neck. 975 00:51:25,480 --> 00:51:27,120 We can't say it killed him. 976 00:51:27,120 --> 00:51:29,000 It might be the manner of death, 977 00:51:29,000 --> 00:51:30,560 which we say it's a trauma, 978 00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:33,600 but it's likely that the one at the neck is more likely 979 00:51:33,600 --> 00:51:36,320 to have caused his death than it is the one at the back 980 00:51:36,320 --> 00:51:39,200 of the head. Because, although it's pierced through the bone, 981 00:51:39,200 --> 00:51:43,280 it hasn't gone all the way through to brain tissue underneath. 982 00:51:43,280 --> 00:51:47,040 Now, if you remember, what we talked about was that there was a third 983 00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,200 thing that the anthropologist looks for. 984 00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:53,040 And what the anthropologist looks for is how many people are present. 985 00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,480 And I should warn you that it's connected to the grim reality 986 00:51:56,480 --> 00:52:00,120 of war, because he was found in a mass grave containing 987 00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:02,360 over 30 other bodies. 988 00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:06,400 And mass graves are particularly difficult to excavate as the bodies 989 00:52:06,400 --> 00:52:09,760 can frequently become co-mingled or mixed. 990 00:52:09,760 --> 00:52:14,320 And I worked on the recovery of bodies from mass graves 991 00:52:14,320 --> 00:52:16,160 following the Balkan wars. 992 00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:19,120 And in those graves we might have an excess of, 993 00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:23,680 sometimes, 50 bodies in a single grave to excavate. 994 00:52:23,680 --> 00:52:26,520 But this mass grave associated with our body was found 995 00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:31,080 in the grounds of St John's College in Oxford, and it was just simply 996 00:52:31,080 --> 00:52:34,840 as we were excavating to do some building. 997 00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:38,360 Now, if we go back in time, what we know is that there's 998 00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:41,160 an important source of English history, which is called 999 00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,080 the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1000 00:52:44,200 --> 00:52:49,480 And in the year 1002, very precise, King Ethelred the Unready, 1001 00:52:49,480 --> 00:52:52,000 he was informed. 1002 00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:55,720 So he had an informant that said that Danish mercenaries - 1003 00:52:55,720 --> 00:52:58,920 and we can read that for meaning Viking - 1004 00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:02,760 were intending to beguile him out of his life. 1005 00:53:02,760 --> 00:53:06,840 So he'd been told that these Danish people were coming after him, 1006 00:53:06,840 --> 00:53:08,560 and he was scared. 1007 00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:13,160 So, being afraid of this Danish threat, he sent out a mandate 1008 00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:16,400 to kill all the Danes in England, 1009 00:53:16,400 --> 00:53:21,160 and this became known as the St Brice massacre. 1010 00:53:21,160 --> 00:53:24,600 And we actually know which date it happened. 1011 00:53:24,600 --> 00:53:31,400 His date of death was the 13th of November in the year 1002. 1012 00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:35,360 He was buried with over 30 other Danish men, 1013 00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:38,760 very few of them elderly, all quite young. 1014 00:53:38,760 --> 00:53:42,200 And the youngest was even younger than him. 1015 00:53:42,200 --> 00:53:45,640 And when they were killed, presumably by the arrows, 1016 00:53:45,640 --> 00:53:49,640 as we saw, their bodies went into a mass grave, and they lay 1017 00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:56,560 there undisturbed for a thousand years until the builders came. 1018 00:53:56,560 --> 00:53:59,360 And once the builders came in, we found them. 1019 00:53:59,360 --> 00:54:01,800 Now, we know that he was a male. 1020 00:54:01,800 --> 00:54:05,240 We know that he was a young man at the end of his teens. 1021 00:54:05,240 --> 00:54:07,880 We know he was about 5'10'' in height. 1022 00:54:07,880 --> 00:54:09,600 We know he was Scandinavian. 1023 00:54:09,600 --> 00:54:12,520 He was eating marine food, he was eating fish. 1024 00:54:12,520 --> 00:54:15,240 And we've even got a date of his death. 1025 00:54:15,240 --> 00:54:19,720 And we know that he was in good health when he was killed. 1026 00:54:19,720 --> 00:54:23,040 We know that he'd had a previous fracture to his skull 1027 00:54:23,040 --> 00:54:26,440 that he'd survived, probably caused by a blade. 1028 00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:30,320 But we suspect from the two projectiles that we found, 1029 00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:34,760 he had an arrowhead into the back of his skull, and he had another one 1030 00:54:34,760 --> 00:54:37,560 into the front left-hand side of his neck, 1031 00:54:37,560 --> 00:54:40,680 and that's probably the one that will have killed him. 1032 00:54:40,680 --> 00:54:43,800 So, coming in as he was, as a pile of bones, 1033 00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:46,680 we now know so much more about him. 1034 00:54:46,680 --> 00:54:50,320 But there is one thing that we still need to know. 1035 00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:54,640 Do we want to know what he looked like? 1036 00:54:54,640 --> 00:54:57,640 ALL: Yes! 1037 00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:02,120 Can I ask Professor Wilkinson, please, to come back in? 1038 00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:09,600 Can I just say, she always gets the best lines, 1039 00:55:09,600 --> 00:55:12,760 right towards the end of any work that we've ever done together? 1040 00:55:12,760 --> 00:55:15,800 What Caroline does is she recreates that face, 1041 00:55:15,800 --> 00:55:17,760 and I have not yet seen the face, 1042 00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:20,840 so I'm seeing this at exactly the same time as you. 1043 00:55:20,840 --> 00:55:25,880 So I apologise unreservedly if I get ridiculously excited 1044 00:55:25,880 --> 00:55:30,000 about it, because I'm looking to see the Viking for the very first time. 1045 00:55:30,000 --> 00:55:33,520 Caroline, will you take us through what you find, please? Yes. 1046 00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:35,880 So we can see here, there's the skull from the two views, 1047 00:55:35,880 --> 00:55:40,040 so that we can see this healed wound on the back side of the head. 1048 00:55:40,040 --> 00:55:43,200 The blue areas are the missing parts that we've remodelled. 1049 00:55:43,200 --> 00:55:46,760 Then you can see the muscle structure and the skin layer 1050 00:55:46,760 --> 00:55:49,840 in place. And you can see the injury at the back there. 1051 00:55:49,840 --> 00:55:51,600 You can see the injury. Wow. 1052 00:55:51,600 --> 00:55:55,560 If this was a forensic case, we would probably stop here. 1053 00:55:55,560 --> 00:55:58,320 It probably would be black and white rather than colour, 1054 00:55:58,320 --> 00:56:01,240 because we don't have the information about eye colour 1055 00:56:01,240 --> 00:56:02,760 and hair colour and skin colour. 1056 00:56:02,760 --> 00:56:06,800 But you can do something a little bit more? Yes. Go on. 1057 00:56:06,800 --> 00:56:09,880 So, because we've got information from yourself 1058 00:56:09,880 --> 00:56:13,760 and from the archaeologists, we can add hairstyle, we can add 1059 00:56:13,760 --> 00:56:15,800 facial hair that was suggested, 1060 00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:19,320 and we can add clothing appropriate to this period of time, 1061 00:56:19,320 --> 00:56:21,080 from this part of the world. 1062 00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:22,960 Isn't that just amazing? 1063 00:56:24,120 --> 00:56:27,000 He's darn good-looking, isn't he, 1064 00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:29,240 our Viking from Oxford? 1065 00:56:29,240 --> 00:56:34,320 So a young man at the end of his teens, a really young man, 1066 00:56:34,320 --> 00:56:38,400 and suddenly, doesn't he look like a person? 1067 00:56:38,400 --> 00:56:40,840 He started out as a pile of bones. 1068 00:56:40,840 --> 00:56:42,880 I just think that is absolutely astounding. 1069 00:56:42,880 --> 00:56:45,680 And I told you, she always gets the best lines. 1070 00:56:45,680 --> 00:56:47,840 She always ends everything, so incredible. 1071 00:56:47,840 --> 00:56:50,600 Caroline, thank you for your talent. Pleasure. 1072 00:56:54,080 --> 00:56:57,360 So, in normal circumstances, if this was a forensic case, 1073 00:56:57,360 --> 00:57:01,160 we would never assign a name to an individual, 1074 00:57:01,160 --> 00:57:05,160 because the name that you have is the name that you were given. 1075 00:57:05,160 --> 00:57:07,440 But we thought that in this case, 1076 00:57:07,440 --> 00:57:09,800 it might be appropriate to think 1077 00:57:09,800 --> 00:57:12,640 about a name that we could give for this individual. 1078 00:57:12,640 --> 00:57:17,920 Now, he came and was found in St John's College in Oxford, 1079 00:57:17,920 --> 00:57:21,760 and we thought if we turned John into something that is a little bit 1080 00:57:21,760 --> 00:57:27,280 Danish, maybe he might be content if we were to call him Johannes. 1081 00:57:27,280 --> 00:57:30,640 So I'd like to introduce you to Johannes, 1082 00:57:30,640 --> 00:57:34,760 who is the very attractive Viking from Oxford. 1083 00:57:34,760 --> 00:57:36,680 Thank you very much indeed. 1084 00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:43,000 So, in this first lecture, what I've shown you is how I use my 1085 00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:45,400 forensic anthropology training 1086 00:57:45,400 --> 00:57:48,160 to restore identities to dead bodies. 1087 00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:50,880 And in the next lecture, what we're going to look at is 1088 00:57:50,880 --> 00:57:53,600 what happens when there isn't a body. 1089 00:57:53,600 --> 00:57:58,120 How do we actually progress that story when the body is missing 1090 00:57:58,120 --> 00:58:02,480 and we have to rely on other types of evidence and different forms 1091 00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:06,640 of forensic science as we start to look to a crime scene? 1092 00:58:07,760 --> 00:58:11,520 And the one thing that you will understand in forensic anthropology, 1093 00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:15,880 more than anything, is that when we have remains in front of us, 1094 00:58:15,880 --> 00:58:21,800 we have nothing but total respect, dignity and decency 1095 00:58:21,800 --> 00:58:23,840 for those that have passed before us. 1096 00:58:23,840 --> 00:58:27,680 So I think the last thanks that I would ask you all to give 1097 00:58:27,680 --> 00:58:29,920 is to Johannes. Thank you.