Dr. Carolyn Freiwald,
Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
University of Mississippi

You might be surprised to learn that a single tooth contains a record of your life... from the types of food that you ate, to where you lived, to how healthy you were as a child. Vegetarians and BBQ lovers have different chemical markers, and so do people with jobs such as blacksmiths. It is "you are what you eat" at the molecular level. Archaeologists use chemistry to reconstruct the past, learning what ancient people ate and drank, and discovering just how mobile they were. Migrants made up part of cities such as Cahokia across North America 1000 years ago, and formed part of the social fabric in cities throughout Mexico, Latin America, ancient Rome and across the world. Immigration is not a new phenomenon and likely not a new debate. Bone chemistry also has important applications in forensic cases, including identifying missing persons. We'll look at how science works to help us solve both ancient and modern mysteries.