You may have seen that we’ve revised our reconstruction of the Archer Royal, previously shown as a blond, blue-eyed European, to a gentleman of African descent. This hasn’t been done for political or social reasons, but as the result of detailed scientific study.
No ship’s manifest for the Mary Rose in 1545 exists, so we’re unable to look up a list of the archers and see what their names, ages and nationalities were. This meant we had to use scientific methods to identify where our archer came from.
The food you eat and the water you drink contain clues about your life. Various foods contain different ratios of stable isotopes, the atoms of the elements of carbon and nitrogen, which end up stored within our living tissues.
Water contains varying amounts of the isotopes of oxygen and the metal strontium depending on the amount of rainfall and the rock formations in any particular area. Sulphur provides information about distance from the coast. These are stored as chemical signatures within our bones and teeth.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in mammals, like humans. It gives mechanical stability, strength and toughness to a range of tissues like tendons, ligaments, skin, cornea, bone and dentine within the teeth.
