Murder and mayhem from the annals of osteoarchaeology, with modern instances of cannibalism and like chewy topics on the side.
Continuing her ventures into the more lurid corners of history and prehistory, Hollihan opens with the discovery and excavation of King Richard III’s hacked bones from beneath a modern parking lot and closes with the still-ongoing project of piecing together and identifying the jumbled skeletons of hundreds of servicemen who died in the bowels of the Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor. In between she reports on rattling finds including the 10,000-plus 13th-century burials at London’s Spitalfields and the immense tolls of various volcanic explosions. She also tucks into Inuit accounts of the ill-fated Franklin expedition and other well-documented cases of people becoming cuisine and, with a certain relish, details how the last czar and his family were shot, stabbed, looted, splashed with acid, dismembered, burned, buried, and reburied. Providing some contrast, she also describes digs that uncovered couples holding hands or hugging each other and sensitively reports on controversies with Native American and other Indigenous groups over the custody of remains like those of Kennewick Man. Photos aplenty add to the fun with views of skulls or half-excavated skeletons in situ, archaeological sites, fleshed-out portrait reconstructions, and historical images. In the pictures, most but not all of the faces (the ones with skin still attached anyway) are White.
Solidly researched and, no bones about it, both eye- and mind-widening.
(source notes, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-13)