Skeleton Keys
The Secret Life of Bone
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $5.99
Publisher Description
“A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal
Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen.
Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a potent symbol of death.
In this delightful natural and cultural history of bone, Brian Switek explains where our skeletons came from, what they do inside us, and what others can learn about us when these artifacts of mineral and protein are all we've left behind.
Bone is as embedded in our culture as it is in our bodies. Our species has made instruments and jewelry from bone, treated the dead like collectors' items, put our faith in skull bumps as guides to human behavior, and arranged skeletons into macabre tributes to the afterlife. Switek makes a compelling case for getting better acquainted with our skeletons, in all their surprising roles. Bridging the worlds of paleontology, anthropology, medicine, and forensics, Skeleton Keys illuminates the complex life of bones inside our bodies and out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This wonderful study by paleontologist Switek (My Beloved Brontosaurus) examines the human body's collection of 206 (or so) bones from a myriad of perspectives. As befits his profession, Switek begins by tracing the origins of various structures in the skeleton back to the distant past, beginning with the protovertebrate Pikaia gracilens. For him, "the very arrangement of our skeletons is a mosaic woven through evolutionary time" that he traces through the development of bone, jaws (with a nod to Peter Benchley), limbs, ears, and more, noting "there is no single moment when our bodies became distinctly human." In this discussion, he covers those skeletal features which humans have lost, such as eye bones. He also devotes an entire chapter to the identification of Richard III's skeleton and even describes the modern trade in human remains. Taking care to acknowledge the negative side of science, Switek considers how anthropology has resulted in the disrespectful handling of human remains, such as during the decades-long legal battle over the ownership of the prehistoric skeleton known as Kennewick Man, and how the pseudoscience of phrenology fed racism. Fittingly, Switek concludes by musing on how he might himself be fossilized. This mix of fact and ethical considerations offers much for science enthusiasts to ponder.
