In medieval England, “handedness” determined whether a person was considered good or bad. The Latin root of “left” literally means “evil,” and those who supported its hand were sometimes accused of witchcraft.
Imaging techniques can now show how favoring one hand affected bone chemistry, according to one researcher. report in pro swan. Researchers used relatively new imaging techniques to analyze the bones of centuries-old skeletons from a famous shipwreck. mary rose. The ship was part of the Tudor navy during the reign of Henry VIII, but was sunk by a French ship on 19 July 1545 during the Battle of the Solent. The crew’s skeletal remains were well preserved, allowing extensive research into their health and appearance.
Medieval British skeletons
In order to examine the effect of handedness on aging, the researchers focused on the collarbone. Scans of both sides of the collarbones of 12 crew members, ranging in age from 13 to 40, revealed asymmetrical effects of aging. In all 12 cases, mineral content increased with age, whereas protein content decreased. Also, the effect was more pronounced on the right side.
“We also wanted to investigate chemical changes in the clavicle bone as we age, but these human bones come from people who lived in medieval England, so handedness was built in. ‘There was a negative association, so right-handedness was the norm for everyone,’ says study author Shena Shankland, who conducted the study while at Lancaster University.
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A new way to examine bones
Researchers had expected to see an increase in bone mineral density with age, but when they examined the clavicle with Raman spectroscopy, a technique that uses lasers to examine the underlying chemistry of materials, they found that other The result is a new level of detail not possible with imaging technology.
“The chemical picture provides more information than X-ray-based techniques, which do not account for variations in chemical detail,” says Shankland.
Co-author gemma kearns Lancaster University researchers who worked on this project previously used Raman spectroscopy to investigate bone disease in the lower leg bones of some of these sailors. This technique is often used for quality control. For example, ensure that the chemical components of a drug contain the molecule of interest. However, it is relatively new in archaeology.
“Using this technique to examine aging in parallel with handedness is a completely new tool using archaeological human skeletons, and has yielded very interesting results,” says Shankland.
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Health of sailors in the 16th century
For archaeology, one of the biggest advantages of Raman is that it does not destroy the objects being investigated. Researchers stress that the ship’s skeletons were treated with respect.
For the crew, part of their legacy is that learning about their past bone health conditions may help them better understand diseases such as osteoporosis in the future.
“It was a privilege to use these unique and precious human bones to learn more about the lives of 16th-century seafarers. We also learned more about age-related changes in bone composition that are relevant to health today. That was interesting to know,” Kearns said in a press release.
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Before joining Discover Magazine, Paul spent more than 20 years as a science journalist, specializing in U.S. life sciences policy and global scientist career issues. He started his career in newspapers but switched to scientific magazines. His research has appeared in publications such as Science News, Science, Nature, and Scientific American.
