Written in Bone by Sally Walker

Imagine if someone found your body 400 years from now. What would they know about you? What could they learn from your skeleton? Believe it or not, scientists and anthropologists can learn a lot from human remains and this book tells about several mysterious bodies found in Virginia and Maryland. All the bodies were from people who died in the 1600s during the time in which Europeans were colonizing the "new world." In most cases historians knew absolutely nothing about the individual people found, but scientists were able to learn how old they were, whether they were male or female, how hard they worked, what country they came from, how long they had been in the colonies, and what diseases they suffered from. In some cases they have been able to figure out exactly how they died and who they were. This book is not only brilliantly written by award-winning author Sally Walker, it's full of stunning photographs and information about how these scientists do their jobs. A great choice for social studies teachers as well as curious middle or even high school readers.