Page 23 - TLU magazine - The Way to The Top

The rarest human and animal bone findings are from the Stone Age. From animals such as the aurochs, the wild horse, wildcat, European pond turtle and also the harp seal and harbour porpoise, both of which were common in the Baltic Sea in previous times.
“Human bones from the Stone
Age are rare precisely because
there have only been a few
found,” Lõugas says.
Archaeologic bone find- ings form the basis for several research areas related to the environ- ment and biodiversity of the past, ancient
daily life and people’s
relationships and the
environment around them.
Over the owner’s lifetime, the
bones store various information
through biochemical cycles, which the researchers of today can analyse using different methods to better understand how people used to live.
The more interesting human bones show, among other things, the marks of traumas, fights and different diseases. These allow dif-
Different boxes include single or thousands of bones.
ferent conclusions to be made about the daily lives of people in the past. “Data stored in the bones provides information about the common diseases among our ancestors as well as their
diets and the environment in which they lived,” Lõugas confirms.
The new modern depository allows researchers work bet-
ter and easier because the bones are in one place, in a systematic order
and can be easily found from the collection.
Systematising and developing the data-
bases are among the most extensive jobs that
need completion at the bone depository in the near
future. Thorough databases would allow access to the collec-
tions without leaving your desk, and interested parties outside of the research collec- tion could then use them, too. As a result, the bone depository would function like a library.
Research communication specialist Kertu Kula
TALLINN UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE / NO. 14 / SPRING 2020
23
Photo: Piret Räni
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