Following The Scent Trail

Last week we talked about the canine nose and how both its architecture and receptors make it the perfect search tool. Today we’re going to talk about some of the difficulties dogs and their handlers have to overcome while they are working.

Scent: Scent particles emanate from everything—people, animals, and objects. In still air and away from walls and upright surfaces, scent radiates evenly from the source, the scent particles being more concentrated near the person or item and then diffusing outward, the concentration slowly falling as the scent moves outward. But unless the dog is searching in an area with minimal air currents and no heating, this kind of even diffusion is rare. Both indoors and outdoors, air is always moving and this greatly affects the dispersal of scent.

Scent Cones: In the presence of air movement, scent moves along the direction of the current, diffusing outward as it progresses until it encounters an upright surface. As a result, an ever-widening cone of scent is blown away from the origin point. Search-and-rescue dogs use this scent cone to zero in on what they are searching for.

Basic search patterns: Consider the scenario of a search-and-rescue air scenting dog who is searching for a lost child. If lucky, the parents of the child will be able to provide a piece of clothing that the dog can use to identify the child. The dog will do a heads-up search of the area, looking for any trace of that particular odor. When the dog finds the scent, he will start a pattern of trying to narrow down the scent cone, working across the wide end of the cone until he runs out of scent. Then he will turn around and run back through the cone until he runs out the other side. He will then move upwind and repeat the process. With each progressive pass through the cone, the dog will move in the direction of the stronger scent, narrowing the search cone. In the end, the dog will work its way to the lost child, the origin of the scent.

Sounds straight forward, doesn’t it? Unfortunately, in the real world, it’s rarely that easy for a number of reasons:

Air currents: Air currents blow scent mainly in one direction. This can be an advantage as the current can spread the scent a long way in the direction of the prevailing wind. Unfortunately, if dogs are coming into the search area from upwind, they are essentially nose blind until they are practically on top of the subject.

Obstacles: Obstacles can play havoc with air currents, causing a nearly straight stream of scent to pool into the dead space behind or in front of the obstacle and create a turbulent cycle. Air then coming out of that cycle could be moving in any direction, taking the scent trail with it. This makes it hard for the dog to correctly identify where the scent is coming from since he may catch the edge of an eddy, try to find the scent cone, but then lose the scent entirely as it eddies away from him.

Obstacles can also cause a chimney effect, pushing the air current high over a building or forest line so the scent finally falls to the dog’s level hundreds of feet from the source and is nearly impossible to track.

Heating and cooling: Hot air rises and cool air falls. As a result, typical daytime heating causes air currents to rise, while nighttime cooling causes them to fall. If a dog is searching a valley for a victim, the handler has to be aware of the heating and cooling patterns, initiating a late afternoon search on the hilltop above the valley. During the cooler early morning, the handler would start the search at the bottom of the valley to maximize the dog’s chance of finding the edge of the scent cone.

Terrain: In a perfect world, a search would take place in a flat field with no boulders or trees to disrupt the scent cone. But that’s not how the real world works. There are multilevel hills and valleys, rocks and trees, buildings, roads and bridges. And all of those can disrupt the scent cone making what might have been a straightforward search into a significant challenge.

Search-and-rescue dogs often make these searches look easy, but it’s intuitive strategizing by the handler and hours and hours of training by the dogs that let these teams carry off their job so smoothly. We’ve talked a lot about the dog half of a search-and-rescue team, but what about the handlers? We’ll be back next week so look at the special kind of people who make up the human side of these amazing teams.

Photo credit: Ramón Peco, Daryl James, Kristina D.C. Hoeppner, Michael Lehenbauer, and Steve.

The Canine Nose Knows

Last week, we talked about different types of search-and-rescue dogs and their different skills and searching techniques. Before we start to look at the difficulties of finding a victim in the real world, it might be useful to look at the amazing capabilities of these animals. How can a bloodhound sense a few scent molecules and use that to find a lost child? Or how can a Labrador catch a single trace of a victim buried in an avalanche or from vast distances away? The answer is actually quite simple—the canine nose.

The key to a dog’s ability to smell is twofold—the number of olfactory receptors and the architecture of the nose. Dogs have approximately 220 million receptors, compared to our own 5 million. This allows them to detect odors 100,000 times less concentrated than humans. To manage this kind of sensory overload, twelve percent of the canine brain is dedicated to smell; by comparison, humans use one percent of their brain for the same purpose. A dog’s olfactory receptors even have the infrared capability to literally smell heat. The best way to sum it up is that dogs smell like humans see: individual smells, not an overall smell (conversely, humans smell like dogs see). Where a human smells chicken soup, a dog detects cooked chicken, onions, rice, herbs and spices.

Sniffing for a dog is not actually part of their normal breathing pattern; instead it is a series of short inhalations and exhalations. Air is forced upward into the olfactory recess (pictured above in khaki), separate from the main respiratory airflow path. Due to the recessed positioning and complex folds, scent molecules are not washed out upon exhalation which allows for a concentration of scent over time. Molecules are absorbed into the mucous membranes of the olfactory recess and come in contact with the receptor neurons, which, in turn, carry the signal to the brain. An additional special aspect of canine olfaction is the ability to smell in stereo. This allows them to directionally work a scent cone and to distinguish individual smells.

Next week we’re going to look at how dogs use their amazing olfactory sense to be able to follow scent through some of the hardest of terrains, all while being confounded by air currents, turbulence, daytime heating, nighttime cooling, water, and other obstacles.

Photo credit: Rusty Clark and B.A. Craven et al

Search-and Rescue Dogs

Last week, we looked at modern working dogs and all the ways they help and protect us. Today and over the upcoming weeks, we’re going to focus in on a particular type of modern dog—the search-and-rescue dog—along with its handler.

As previously mentioned, search-and-rescue dogs are especially useful in situations where a person is missing in a large or especially hazardous area. Situations involving hikers lost in the woods or on mountains, hurricane victims, or the elderly or small children who have wandered away from home would all benefit from the amazing scenting abilities of search-and-rescue dogs.

We’ve all seen them on the news: dogs wearing bright-coloured vests climbing over collapsed buildings or running through a field or forest, searching for the lost. But how are they able to find that sole person in such a large or complex area? In the end, it all comes down to skin cells. Without our knowledge, we humans shed about 40,000 skin cells each minute, and they fall around us like a cloud, either settling to the ground around us if the air is still, or they’re caught on the downstream wind to travel significant distances. And it’s not just the skin cells dogs can smell—it’s the scent of perspiration, soap and skin care products, bacteria/fungus, hormones, and—in those less fortunate—decomposition. Dogs follow these scents to find the source that produces them. Scents come off any subject or object in a cone following the prevailing wind, i.e. narrow at the source and expanding outward in a scent cone until it dissipates or is disrupted by barriers like walls or cliffs that cause the odor to swirl and eddy. A dog’s search pattern depends on finding part of the cone and using its nose and training to locate the concentrated source.

Finding the first part of the trail can sometimes take considerable time and patience. There are three main types of scenting methods and most dogs favour one technique:

Air-scenting dogs:

• A heads-up search, often off lead.
• Identify the smell of any human in the area and follow the concentrating scent as the dog gets closer to the target.
• Can cover large areas during the day or night.
• Does not need a track to follow or a specific starting point.

Tracking dogs:

• Nose-down search, usually on lead.
• The dog follows a specific track of disturbance over land.
• Follow the exact track of a specific scent, even if the target doubles back. On a mountain trail a tracking dog would follow the ascending odor trail around every switchback, even if it detected fresher odor blowing down the mountainside.

Trailing dogs:

• A combination of air-scenting and tracking.
• Follows a specific scent.
• On-lead searches, using partially head-up air scenting and head-down tracking techniques.
• Will follow the scent pool off the trail. On the mountain trail mentioned previously, the trailing dog would likely cut across switchbacks if it detected fresher odor blowing down the mountainside.

But how can they follow a scent over hills and through valleys, around rocks and through buildings? Next week we’ll look at the difficulties of tracking scent. These skilled dog and handler partnerships make it look easy, but it’s considerably harder than that!

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There’s still time to win a free copy of LONE WOLF! Our publishing house, Kensington, is very generously giving away 25 copies before LONE WOLF’s November 29th release. For your chance to enter by October 19th, follow the link here: http://bit.ly/2dZYadJ. Not a Goodreads member? Sign-up is easy and free! Good luck!

Photo credit: Cleanboot and Virginia State Parks

Modern Working Dogs

Over the past few blog posts, we’ve talked about the history of working dogs and even the career of one specific WWI hero. Today we’re going to talk about modern working dogs, briefly looking at some of the crucial jobs they do today. Then, in the future, we’ll look at these jobs in more detail.

Military K-9s: Dogs have become a day-to-day part of battalion life for many of the services. They are used for patrol/sentry duty, explosives detection, drug detection, finding fallen soldiers, and signaling enemy approach. They also fulfill an important role as therapy dogs.

Police K-9s: Most modern police dogs are trained for one task such as search-and-rescue, detection of explosives, drugs, arson, or electronics, patrol, and cadaver detection. A very few dogs cross-train; for example search-and-rescue dogs who also do tracking. Detection dogs (drug, arson, electronic, explosives, etc.) are generally trained in just a single odor category, but within this one area, they learn to recognize hundreds of related scents.

Search-and-Rescue (SAR) K-9s: Some of these dogs come from official groups (e.g., law enforcement), but many SAR teams are volunteers who are part of state or national SAR groups. SAR dogs are involved in finding anyone from lost children or hikers, to drowning victims, to victims of natural disasters or terrorist attacks. These dogs include those trained to air scent, as well as dedicated tracking dogs. More on that next week.

Therapy K-9s: Therapy dogs are selected based upon temperament, appearance, and aptitude. Some dogs are trained to be comfort animals for the elderly, the sick, victims of domestic violence, or for stressed-out university students—my own university has dogs brought in for this purpose during exams, and Ann has Kane,  a working therapy dog who visits an AIDS hospice, a domestic violence shelter, and an adult day care facility. Therapy dogs must be tolerant of other animals on-site—other therapy or service animals, pets, etc.—and be willing to endure touches or hugs from total strangers.

Service K-9s: Service dogs are trained to perform specific tasks for their owners and strangers. Cancer detection dogs in medical facilities can detect traces of cancer in patients long before diagnostic tests are accurate. Diabetes or epilepsy dogs are trained to detect low blood sugar levels or impending epileptic seizures so they can alert the owner or a caretaker to get help if the owner is unable to respond. Hearing assist service dogs are trained to alert owners to doorbells and ringing cell phones. PTSD dogs can recognize moments of stress in their owners and can often avert that reaction by their presence and “covering their 6”.

As you can see, these dogs are dedicated, incredibly smart, well-trained animals, who can make life and death decisions and real-time differences for their owners and the public on a daily basis. Next week, we’re going to start looking more at search-and-rescue teams, just like Meg Jennings and her black lab, Hawk, in our upcoming release LONE WOLF.

Speaking of LONE WOLF, our publishing house, Kensington, is very generously giving away 25 copies before LONE WOLF’s November 29th release. For your chance to enter the October 12 – 19th giveaway, follow the link here: http://bit.ly/2dZYadJ. Not a Goodreads member? Sign-up is easy and free! Good luck!

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons and Ann Vanderlaan

Canine Highlight – World War I’s Sergeant Stubby

We’re starting a new type of post this week: the canine highlight. We’d like to bring to your attention some particularly outstanding working dogs who have shown as much courage as their human counterparts, saved lives, and significantly affected those around them in the most positive of ways. This week, we bring you the amazing tale of Sergeant Stubby.

In last week’s post, we talked about working dogs through the ages.  We mentioned the working dogs of World War I, concentrating on the medical aide dogs that were sent out onto the battlefields after the cessation of fighting to bring supplies to those in need. But there were other dogs as well who joined the cause—and one of those was Sergeant Stubby.

When a young bull or Boston terrier mixed breed dog wandered onto Yale University campus and into the training grounds of the 102nd Regiment, 26th Infantry Division, Corporal John Robert Conroy took a liking to the little mutt. He started feeding the stray and even let him sleep in the barracks. Eventually, Stubby became the Division mascot, spending so much time with the men that he learned all the marching maneuvers, and even was trained by Conroy to salute with his paw.

When the 26th Infantry Division was shipped out to France aboard the SS Minnesota, Conroy smuggled Stubby aboard, and then tried to keep his presence hidden. Eventually, the dog was discovered by the commanding officer. However, Stubby won the officer’s goodwill by saluting him, and was then allowed to stay with the Division openly.

Stubby accompanied the 26th to the Western Front in France, where he proved to be an invaluable part of the unit. After nearly being killed early on by mustard gas, he became adept at stiffing it out early and running up and down the trenches barking at the men to put on their gas masks before going to hide himself. His extremely sensitive hearing was also a boon—he could hear incoming shells long before the men and warned them to take cover, and he could hear the approach of advancing German foot soldiers and warned the sentries of the imminent attack. He was also known to scour the territory of “No Man’s Land” following any fighting, looking for fallen Allied soldiers in need of rescue. Stories of the time reported that he would only respond to the English language, thus avoiding the wounded Germans altogether. His actions in the unit saved countless lives.

During the Meuse-Argonne campaign in 1918, Stubby discovered a German spy in their midst, mapping the Allied trenches to take the intelligence back to the Central Powers forces (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria). When the spy tried to make a run for it, Stubby went after him and brought him down, and then clamped his jaws around the man’s rear end until soldiers from his own unit came to take the spy into custody. The unit’s commanding officer was so impressed with his performance that the dog was battlefield promoted to the rank of sergeant. This meant that he actually outranked his owner, Corporal Conroy.

Stubby took part in seventeen battles and four major offensives on the Western Front, and was the recipient of the following medals and devices for his service in battle: 3 Service Stripes, Yankee Division YD Patch, French Medal Battle of Verdun, 1st Annual American Legion Convention Medal, New Haven WW1 Veterans Medal, Republic of France Grande War Medal, St Mihiel Campaign Medal, Purple Heart, Chateau Thierry Campaign Medal, and the 6th Annual American Legion Convention.

Following the war, Stubby went to Georgetown University with Conroy while he studied to become a lawyer. While he was there, Stubby became the mascot of the football team and was infamous for coming out during the halftime break and pushing a football around the field with his nose to the delight of the crowds. He was inducted into the American Legion, marching in all their parades, and even met Presidents Wilson, Coolidge and Harding at the White House.

You can still see Sergeant Stubby today. Following his death in 1926 at approximately ten years of age, he was taxidermied by Conroy and gifted to the Smithsonian in 1956. He is now part of one of their World War I exhibits at the National Museum of American History. His WWI uniform, complete with all his medals, is on display at the Hartford State Armory.

Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons and Smithsonian National Museum of National History

Working Dogs Through The Ages

In last week’s post, we talked about how dogs moved from hunting competitors to become an integrated part of our society. For many of us in the modern age, we look on dogs as companions and family pets, but dogs have been considered working animals for thousands of years.

Specifically, how have dogs worked with us to improve our lives and livelihood through the millennia?

• Greeks and Romans: Molossus dogs (forebears of modern mastiffs) were bred for war, protection and hunting.

• Vikings: Native Arctic wolves were interbred with domestic dogs producing a ‘spitz-type’ dog related to the modern Norwegian elkhound. Dogs were used for cattle herding, and for hunting moose and bear.

• Spanish Conquistadors: Mastiffs were carried on ships to the New World, where they were armored and used as battle dogs used to pursue, disembowel and dismember the enemy.

• American Civil War: Cuban bloodhounds (a mastiff breed used as killer pursuit dogs) were used to track escaped slaves at the Confederate Andersonville prison.

• World War I: ‘Mercy’ dogs were sent out onto the battlefields with first aid packs after battles for soldiers to self-treat their injuries. Dogs were also used for personal protection and tracking.

• World War II: For the first time, dogs were used in modern military service with a single handler to search out and signal danger, carry messages between foxholes, and patrol for the enemy.

• Vietnam War: It is estimated that approximately 5,000 dogs served in the Vietnam War as scouts, trackers, sentries, and were also used for explosives and tunnel/booby-trap detection. It is believed that military dogs saved up to 10,000 lives during the Vietnam War.

Next week we’re going to highlight a very special historical dog, Sergeant Stubby from World War I. Then later on, we’re going to look at the roles of dogs in modern life, from war, to police work, to search-and-rescue, to service and therapy dogs. Hope to see you back again.

**Last week to enter!** To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Photo credit: Victor R. Ruiz, Kristýna Žikovská, New York Public Library, The Soldier’s Story (1866), Library of Congress, World War II Database, and Wikimedia Commons.

A History of Man’s Best Friend

We’ve all heard the phrase ‘man’s best friend’ in reference to dogs. Dogs are our working partners, guides, guards, and family, but how did that connection between canines and humans come about?

Dogs, as we know them in the modern sense, branched off from the wild wolves in modern Asia, Europe, and the Middle East about 25,000 to 38,000 years ago, toward the end of the last Ice Age. This time period means that these animals co-existed with man during his hunter-gatherer stage, immediately preceding the development of agriculture. Of all domesticated animals, dogs were the first to be domesticated in approximately 13,000 BCE, a full 4,000 years before the next domesticated animal, the sheep. Notably, the dog was the first species to have a reciprocal relationship with humans.

How did this change in relationship status move dogs and humans from competing hunters to partners on a common team? No one knows for sure, since this was long before recorded histories, but genetics and early art tell a convincing tale. It is most likely that wild dogs were attracted to cooking fires of men and the smell of roasting meat. They would also be drawn by the smell of discarded animal carcases and at first were likely raiders, pillaging any unattended or discarded meat. The key to this early relationship was the type of animals attracted to human societies: these animals were generally less aggressive and were likely the non-dominant pack members with a lower flight threshold—in other words, ideal animals for domestication. Genetically, this interaction coincided with a morphological change in the canine skull, specifically the development of a shorter snout with fewer, more crowded, and smaller teeth—all physical characteristics associated with reduced aggression.

The relationship between man and dog was commensal to begin, meaning that while it was opportunistic for the dogs, it didn’t affect the humans in any way. But their interaction became mutualistic—a relationship good for both species—as humans took advantage of the dogs’ specific skills in hunting and protection, and then adapted new skills such as herding.

An alternate theory suggests that dogs exploited an earlier mutation to be able to digest starches and carbohydrates, something wolves are not able to do. This change occurred just as man was discovering the advantages of agriculture, allowing the dogs to feed off scrap heaps more efficiently. Interestingly, humans adapted to starch digestion at nearly the same time in an intriguing twist of parallel evolution.

Over the centuries and millennia, selective breeding by humans developed dogs into the modern species we know today. Much of modern breeding revolves around appearance, however early domestication selected almost exclusively for behavioural traits. In fact, scientific studies show there was a genetic selection for adrenaline and noradrenaline pathways leading to tameness and a greater emotional response in the animals. This helped to create the domesticated, loyal, connected personalities we recognize in our dogs today.

Please join us next week as we come back looking at the role of working dogs from the Romans and Vikings onwards.

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To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

Photo credit: Fugzu and Elizabeth Tersigni

Report From the Writing Trenches – September 2016

The blog is back! Sorry for the long summer hiatus, but it’s paid off for me—I finished the first draft of FBI K-9s book #2, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, this past weekend. *throws confetti* *collapses*

So what are Ann and I up to, writing-wise? Let’s go down the list:

1. LONE WOLF: FBI K-9s book #1 will release in eBook on November 29th and hardcopies will be in bookstores and beyond on that date or very shortly thereafter. I’ll be holding a launch right around that time, most likely at A Different Drummer Books in Burlington, but possibly an early release the preceding weekend. More details on that hopefully in the next few weeks. At this point, LONE WOLF hard copy ARCs are out and are being sent to our early readers, bloggers, and reviewers. For the first time, as a part of Kensington, copies of the books will be available on NetGalley, so some of our readers have arranged to get their copies digitally. And last week, we were pleased to see the blurb for the book from Leo J. Maloney, author of the Dan Morgan series, including ARCH ENEMY—“Tense and exciting, Sara Driscoll has created a new power couple, Meg and her FBI K-9, Hawk.”
2. BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE: As I stated before, the first draft of this book is now complete, coming in at just under 80,000 words. This is a great length for a thriller—it gives us room to still add a little more as we edit, and it also leave us room for chapter titles and definitions. What’s the theme this time? We’re 99% sure we know what it is, but that will get solidified within the next two weeks. We’ll edit from now until the end of the September. October 1st sees the manuscript going out to our amazing critique team (thank you Jenny, Lisa, Sharon, and Rick!). They’ll have the book for 2 weeks and then that leaves us about 4 weeks to put the final touches on it. The book is officially due on December 1st, but with LONE WOLF coming out on November 29th, it realistically needs to be done about 2 weeks early so we can keep all the balls in the air.
3. FBI K-9s (Welcome to the real world of publishing, part one): Ann and I were very sad to find out recently that our Kensington Editor, the wonderful Peter Senftleben, was leaving the company to become a mysteries, suspense and thriller editor at Crooked Lane. We’re so very grateful to Peter for buying the three-book series, and very much enjoyed working with him and will definitely miss him. Peter, of course, has left us in very capable hands for the remainder of the series, so onwards and upwards.
4. Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries (Welcome to the real world of publishing, part two): I’ve had many questions about the next book in the Abbott and Lowell series, LAMENT THE COMMON BONES. Readers knew we were writing it last year but there has yet to be an announcement about its release date. Well, we’ve got some bad news there. Our editor at Five Star definitely wanted the book, but before it was officially purchased, Five Star closed out their mystery line and is going strictly with westerns from now on. So the book has been orphaned. At this point, I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen with it. It’s extremely difficult to sell the fifth book in a series, but our agent is working on it. But never fear, dear readers, the worst case scenario is that we’ll self-publish, definitely in eBook format and most likely in print as well. The book will get out one way or another—it’s the end of the big arc that started in A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH and continued through TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, so we’d be doing a huge disservice to our readers if we didn’t release it. So stay tuned for more news to come here.

To celebrate the upcoming launch of LONE WOLF, Kensington is holding our first Goodreads giveaway starting today! You can find it below. Be sure to enter for your chance to win an early copy months before it actually releases!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Lone Wolf

by Sara Driscoll

Giveaway ends October 02, 2016.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter Giveaway

We’ll be back next week with the first of our K-9 posts, so please join us!

On Hiatus For The Summer

Hey, folks. You know, being a fiction writer with a day job is pretty challenging in and of itself. But toss in your average family day-to-day stuff, some extra day job stressors, the arrival of galley proofs for your upcoming book, and a family health emergency… and things get a little extra nuts. Posts I’ve planned haven’t made it onto the blog simply because other responsibilities had to come first. And right now, our minds have be set pretty firmly on our new book, FBI K-9s #2, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, which is now 90% planned and needs to be completely written over the summer.

As a result, I’m going to be taking a hiatus from blogging for the summer to concentrate on upcoming deadlines and on giving our readers the best possible story. But we’ll be back with our usual weekly schedule in the fall as we change gears a bit on the blog and start exploring the world of K-9s in law enforcement and search-and-rescue in anticipation of the release of LONE WOLF on November 29th.

Lots more to come with LONE WOLF as we expect ARCs and NetGalley copies to become available sometime in August, and we’ll be making early reading copies available to our street team, book bloggers, and professional reviewers. In a sign of how close this is coming, I was very pleased to receive a stack of cover flats this week and they look spectacular!

As good as the cover looked electronically, it's a real knock out in printed form. Many thanks for our editor, Peter Sentfleben, and the creative team at Kensington for an eye-catching cover that is going to look amazing on bookstore shelves. I’m looking forward to using these cover flats for signings and promo later this year.

Many wishes to you all for a safe, happy, and relaxing summer. I’ll see you on the other side, hopefully with a complete draft of BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE in hand!

LONE WOLF Now Available for Pre-Order!

Just a short blog post today as Ann and I are both insanely busy right now (among other things, planning FBI K-9 #2, BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE, so time well spent). But we recently discovered that FBI K-9s #1 is now up for pre-sale on Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million and Chapters/Indigo. The hardcover and e-book from Kensington are available on all sites, and the Brilliance Audio audiobook is available for the North American market. So for those of you who are looking forward to meeting Meg Jennings and her amazing black lab, Hawk, this is your first opportunity to get your order in early. LONE WOLF releases on November 29, 2016 so act now to avoid the crazy Christmas rush!

A New Cover Reveal for TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER

TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER, the third full-length novel in the Abbott and Lowell Forensic Mysteries, originally came out in hardcover in February, 2015. Last June, we announced our deal with Harlequin’s Worldwide Mysteries to publish the book as a mass-market paperback. This edition will publish on August 1st of this year, but we recently received the brand new cover for it, which we’re happy to show you now!

I love the feel of this cover—I’ve been to Boston many times, and it totally has that Boston brownstone/Beacon Hill feel, with decidedly darker overtones and yet just a touch of the light at the end of the tunnel.

The book will be available for sale from Harlequin here soon, so stayed tuned, TWO PARTS BLOODY MURDER will join Worldwide Mysteries editions of DEAD, WITHOUT A STONE TO TELL IT and A FLAME IN THE WIND OF DEATH this summer.

The Strange, Grim Tale of Colma, Califorinia

Colma, a tiny incorporated town of less than two square miles, is located on the San Francisco peninsula, just south of the city of San Francisco proper. It has the strange distinction of its living residents being outnumbered by the dead by over 1,110 to 1. A 2010 census placed the town’s population at 1,270, while its cemeteries hold more than 2,000,000 bodies. It's known as the City of the Silent, and has the humorous slogan 'It's great to be alive in Colma!' But how on earth did this city of the dead come to be?

Likely to no one’s surprise, it was a financial decision that drove the creation of Colma as we know it today—one all about skyrocketing land values in San Francisco. Even before the catastrophic earthquake of 1906, San Francisco had banned the construction of new cemeteries. But as the residents rebuilt following the devastation and land was in ever greater demand, the city passed a law in 1912 evicting all the dead from within the city limits. Needless to say, this decision wasn’t without controversy. The Catholic Church opposed the removed of remains from the Calvary Cemetery because the dead were interred on hallowed ground. Still others objected to the indignity of exhuming a number of the city’s pioneers and founders who were buried at the Lauren Hill Cemetery. Finally, the law was upheld. But where do you move nearly 160,000 bodies and how do you carry out this feat? The answer in the end was Colma, a tiny community just south of the city built along the El Camino Real, or the King’s Highway, and the associated railway line.

Digging up the dead at the Old Fellows Cemetery, San Francisco, Calfornia.

It was a task that took decades, from the 1920s to the 1940s. Odd Fellows Cemetery held 26,000 dead and it took more than 6 years to move them all to Greenlawn Memorial Park, as well as the 40,000 remains transferred from the Masonic Cemetery to Woodlawn Park. World War II interrupted the moving of 35,000 sets of remains from Lauren Hill Cemetery to Cypress Lawn in Colma. The remains had to be held in the Cypress Abbey Mausoleum since building the mausoleum meant as their final resting place was delayed by the war. But it was moving the remains of the 55,000 Catholic souls from Calvary Cemetery to Holy Cross that proved to be the most daunting as the Catholic Church would only support the transfer if each deceased was moved one at a time, properly screened for privacy, and with a priest in attendance. Only when this proposal was approved would the Archdiocese allow the removal of the remains starting in 1937.

Woodlawn Cemetery, Colma, California

However, due to incomplete buried records, some of the oldest interred inhabitants of San Francisco were missed when the previous cemetery grounds were utilized to build colleges, parks, businesses, and housing. The Golden Gate Cemetery, founded in 1868, was turned into the Lincoln Park Golf Course and the associated Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum. During a retrofit of the museum in 1993, over a thousand coffins and sets of remains were unearthed. None of the city’s death records survived the earthquake and the raging fire that followed, but it is estimated that potentially up to 16,000 dead are still interred on the Lincoln Park property. With time, they could be discovered, but who they are will forever be a mystery. Care was taken to bury the dead as best as could be deduced from the remains themselves: Those holding rosaries were transferred to the Catholic cemeteries, while those identified as Chinese were buried in the Green Street Mortuary.

Buena Vista Park gutter, created from an old gravestone

It’s a strange tale of the power of greed balanced by the human need to respect those who have passed on before us. Sadly, following the removal of the remains, the original tombstones and much of the cemetery art—including Neoclassical, Gothic and Egyptian statuary—were either crushed as material for gutters or a breakwater near the St. Francis Yacht Club, or were simply disposed of by dropping them into the bay. In addition, during moving of the remains, many were buried unidentified in mass graves or were buried under the wrong name, their true identities lost forever. However, many notable persons are buried in Colma, including Wyatt Earp, William Randolph Hurst, Levi Strauss, and Joe Dimaggio.

Photo credit: San Francisco Public Library (Odd Fellow Cemetery and Woodlawn Cemetery) and Chinasaur

Rewriting the History of North American Colonization

Last week, we had a story about the Kennewick Man—9,000 year old human remains dating back to approximately 7,000 B.C. that were found in Washington State. These are the oldest identified human remains in North America.

But when is the oldest dated evidence of any human life in North America? Up until recently, it was thought that humans migrated from Asia over the Bering Strait land bridge and slowly travelled down through what is now Canada and into the United States. Anthropologists dated this migration following the end of the last Ice Age, in approximately 11,000 B.C. Before that time, the land bridge was covered in ice and would impossible to navigate. Only once the glaciers melted, would this have been possible.

However, a single previous study disputed this claim. Researchers sampled 92 skeletal remains of South American origin from approximately 500 to 8600 years ago, examining mitochondrial DNA to trace backwards through the matriarchal line. Their results, surprisingly, told the tale of a group of Siberian migrants who crossed the Bering Strait 23,000 years ago, much earlier than any previous interpretations. This group of approximately 10,000 individuals (including 2,000 child-bearing women) then hunkered down on the American continent side of the strait for over 6,000 years without moving. At this point in time, the North American continent was still a gigantic 3,000 mile ice sheet, utterly impassable on foot even with today’s technology, let alone with prehistoric skills and tools. These people, dubbed the ‘Clovis’ tribe, were only able to proceed as the ice sheets melted and receded. But from that small foothold on the continent, they spread through it and then down into South America. An alternate theory avoids the Bering Strait land bridge all together and instead suggests that early explorers made their way across the strait by boat to colonize the more temperate coastlines. One thing is a genetic certainty—by 12,000 B.C., mankind had settled the land from Alaska to Chile.

Enter a mastodon tusk discovered in the 1980s in Florida found at the bottom of a river in a location that was once a pond. It showed clear marks of man-made tools, suggesting that the mastodon had been felled and butchered by humans. However, when the tusk was carbon dated, the results suggested an age of approximately 14,400 years. But the study was discounted as being inaccurate since the accepted theory of migration at that time said the date was over 1,000 years too old to be possible.

Recently, researchers (including one of the original study scientists) returned to the ‘scene of the crime’ to re-examine the site of the tusk’s discovery, armed with today’s much more accurate technology and the knowledge that migrants were now proven to have been present in other areas of North America at the time. They believed the original data was correct and aimed to confirm it.

They entered the Aucilla River, excavating stratified layers of history, silt layered over centuries of sediment. And when they got down to the layer dating back 14,400 years, they found tools that could only have come from local tribes including a double-sided flint knife that would have been one of their most advanced tools. It’s also precisely the type of instrument that would have marked the mastodon tusk confirming the theory that not-only was the area inhabited 14,400 years ago, but that tribal members were killing and butchering prey with their early tools. The original study was correct after all.

Another interesting sidebar of this recalculation of migration pathways is the timing between human population and the large-scale disappearance of regional megafauna. Originally, it was believed the disappearance of mastodons, giant sloths, giant bison and others was tied to the arrival of mankind. But with this new timeline, it appears man and beasts co-existed for at least 1,500 years before the animals disappeared, likely hunted to extinction.

Photo credit: D. Laird

Kennewick Man Goes Home

On July 28, 1996, two participants in an annual hydroplane race on the Columbia River found a skull in a local reservoir outside of Kennewick, Washington. After it was determined the remains were historical rather than a relatively fresh death, the skull was passed on to archeologist James Chatter, who instantly knew he had something interesting. In just under a dozen trips back to the reservoir, Chatters collected 350 pieces of bone—many of them fractured into several pieces—with only the sternum and several small hand and foot bones never recovered.

Chatters originally estimated the skeletal remains to have come from the 19th century based on damage and bone weathering. He also posited the remains were from a right-handed male of roughly 40–55 years of age, 5’7” to 5’9”, and of a slight build but with significant musculature—this was a man used to hard physical labour. He’d also had a hard life, having five broken ribs that had healed during his life, and two shallow depression fractures in his skull. A 3.1” cascade point—a Native American pointed projectile that was likely the piercing end of an arrow or spear—was found lodged deep in the man’s hip. The bone had partially remodeled over it, indicating it had been there for some time during his life. Radioisotope analysis of the bones revealed the man had consumed a diet of marine animals for several decades of his life. He had also consumed glacier melt water. Since at that time, the only glacier melt water to be found was in Alaska, this suggested the man was a coastal traveler. It was determined that he had been purposefully buried, lying on his back, his arms at his sides, palm down.

Most important for the unforeseen decades-long legal battle hidden just over the horizon, Chatters documented that he felt the skeleton portrayed Caucasoid traits and was lacking in Native American characteristics, marking the man as European in origin. So while interesting, the remains appeared to be that of a European explorer in the newly opened American West and beyond.

However, the story radically changed when a fragment of bone was sent for carbon-14 testing for a more accurate age determination. Shockingly, the results dated the skeletal remains to between 8,900–9,000 years old dating to nearly 7,000 B.C. This put an entirely new spin on the skull appraisal: Skulls older than 8,000 years do not have as much similarity to modern skull morphology, so a comparison to modern races using present day characteristic data points could not be made. The newly determined age of the skull, paired with the evidence of an ancient Native American weapon gave the local tribes everything they needed to declare the remains to be Native American in origin and to ask for their return. The ‘Ancient One’ deserved to be re-interred with his people as per the Native American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), rather than be displayed under lights and glass in a museum.

Because the remains were found on federal land under the jurisdiction of the United States Army Corp of Engineers, they remained in their care while the legal aspects of the case were examined. A first attempt to run DNA analysis on the remains early in this century was unsuccessful due to insufficient technology of the time. However, as DNA technology improved by leaps and bounds in the following decade to the extent that we can now sequence the 14th century bubonic plague and the 16,000 year old woolly mammoth genome, a new attempt was made to sequence the genome of Kennewick Man. This time scientists were successful and it was determined that Kennewick Man was more closely related to Native American tribes than to any European lineages. In fact, researchers determined that both Kennewick Man and modern Native Americans evolved from a common ancestor who lived approximately 9,200 years ago.

Last month these DNA results were confirmed by researchers at the University of Chicago, and the Army Corps of Engineers recently announced that they would release the remains for burial. Now all that remains to be determined is who will welcome the Ancient One. Five separate local tribes—the Colville, Yakama, Umatilla, Nez Perce, and Wanapum—have all laid claim to the remains. For the time being, the remains will remain in storage at the Burke Museum in Seattle, but there is hope that by 2017, repatriation will be determined and the bones will be released. Kennewick Man is coming home and will be finally laid to rest with the people who came from him and his people.

Photo credit: Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution

Meet Jess Danna!

We Dannas are an artistic bunch. Long-time readers of the blog may remember the Meet the Dannas! post, that introduced my parents, my two film composer brothers and my languages guru sister. Spoiler alert: that post was written a month before the 2013 Oscar awards where Mychael did indeed win an Oscar for Best Score for Life of Pi.

At the time I mentioned a skilled photographer in the family. Well, that is my oldest daughter Jess, and her time as a professional is just beginning as she is approaching graduation from Sheridan College with a four-year Bachelor of Photography degree. Today is a big day for Jess as she and her graduating class are sharing in their very first gallery showing in downtown Toronto, so I thought it was time to highlight her special skills.

My readers will know her work from the design and photography for the cover for NO ONE SEES ME ‘TIL I FALL (complete with younger daughter Jordan as model, as you will see in an upcoming shot).

She’s also responsible for both my headshot here on Skeleton Keys and my brother Mychael’s headshot over on mychaeldanna.com.

But as a photography student, she’s really been able to stretch her wings from landscapes, to portraits, to advertising mock-ups, to architecture, to compilations. So let’s take a look at some of Jess’s more recent work (the very best way to see them is to click on the first picture for a larger version and to scroll through them; alternatively, you can enlarge individual pictures by clicking on them):

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Want to see more? Then check out http://jessdannaphotography.format.com!

It's going to be an interesting few months as Jess graduates and then moves onto bigger and better things, but it will be exciting times for sure. Look out world, here she comes!

Forensics 101: First Archeological Evidence of Buckshot Injuries

Battlefield momument

This story is kind of a fun one for me. Not only is it research coming out of my university, but it’s a battlefield site that’s only about 20 minutes from home.

The Battle of Stoney Creek was one of the earlier battles of in the War of 1812 (1812 – 1815). Following the American victory in the Battle of Fort George in Niagara-on-the-Lake, 3,400 American troops camped for the night in Stoney Creek. Even through the British only had 1,600 men, reconnoitering showed them the Americans were badly organized and only thinly sentried with an elongated, broken line of encampment. This was true; in fact, when the battle started, only 1,328 American soldiers out of the total 3,400 were positioned to join the fighting.

Armed with muskets and bayonets, 700 British troops left their camp at 11:30pm, killing the few sentries on duty before moving in to start the battle proper. However, the Americans held the high ground, firing a variation of the traditional ‘buck and ball’ down onto the British, having loaded their muskets with 12 buckshot balls, essentially turning them into shotguns. The Americans held their position and were well on their way to victory when a gap formed in their line, leaving their artillery unprotected and allowing their guns to be taken and their men killed by the British. In fact, the chaos from the lack of light and the uncharacteristic close-quarters fighting led to American officers coming to investigate what they assumed was a commotion produced by their own men. Instead they were taken prisoner by the British. Without direction from their generals, the American soldiers started to wander aimlessly in the dark and many were cut down by their own countrymen. In the confusion, the Americans pulled back to end the battle, unaware they still held both the superior position and number of men. They retreated back to 40 Mile Creek in Grimsby and then finally back across the Niagara River to U.S. soil, never venturing as far into Upper Canada again. The battle only lasted 45 minutes, but by the end, 39 men were dead, 174 were wounded and 152 were captured. Many of the soldiers were quickly buried on site in a mass grave.

In 1899, farmer Allan Smith unearthed human remains and pieces of cloth bearing both the British and American insignias while plowing his land. That area, now called Smith’s Knoll, was finally excavated in 1998 and examined. The excavation revealed 2701 co-mingled skeletal components from 24 individuals. Skeletal remains showed signs of sharp force and projectile trauma, as well as perimortem (at time of death) fractures. In the past, bone injury from musket balls has been well documented, but archeological buckshot injuries had yet to be verified. Whether the dearth of information of this type of injury comes from a lack of evidence (as the British did not use this type of ammunition; it was only used by the Americans) or because there is simply less bone damage and more associated soft tissue damage from buckshot is unknown.

We’ve shown the damage modern bullets can do to bone, but 0.65 caliber musket balls and 0.31 caliber buckshot of the early 19th century were very different: Made of soft lead, projectiles would often become misshapen upon striking the body. Buckshot especially would often become so misshapen, it could penetrate the body, but could not pass through it. As opposed to modern bullets, lead balls and buckshot would only glance off bone, or penetrate enough to become embedded. High-velocity, through-and-through, jacketed ammunition would not exist for another 50 years.

Smith’s Knoll Scapula with buckshot defect.

Researchers at McMaster University experimented with cloth-encased butchered pork as a substitute for a fleshed human hip in a soldier’s uniform, test firing both the traditional-for-the-time ‘buck and ball’ (a musket ball with 3 smaller buckshot) and buckshot only (with 12 buckshot per cartridge). Their results indicate that some injuries seen in the Smith’s Knoll remains came from buckshot injuries. Instead of the sharply angled, penetrating defects we’re familiar with today, many of the defects were no more than minor depressions, indicative of a low-velocity projectile that has spent most of its energy penetrating cloth, skin and muscle before striking bone. Some bones had multiple defects, clustered close together, indicating buckshot fire from close range, not allowing the buckshot to separate as it left the musket and flew through the air. Due to the known history of the battle, it is impossible to tell if the skeletal remains are those of British soldiers cut down by American militia, or militiamen felled by friendly fire.

The War of 1812 is a curious thing. It went on for nearly three years, and is considered to this day by Britain to be a minor part of the Napoleonic Wars. The British torched the White House in 1814 and kept the Americans at bay during a number of decisive battles in Southern Ontario (does anyone but a Canadian know the name ‘Laura Secord’?) avoiding being annexed to the United States, but didn’t fare well in fighting in New Orleans or Baltimore. By 1815, when the Treaty of Ghent was signed to bring an end to hostilities, nearly 20,000 men were dead, a military stalemate was called, and the borders remained exactly where they were. However, due to the lack of clear winners or losers, no bad feelings persisted and friendly trade immediately resumed.

Photo credit: Wikimedia commons by Nhl4hamilton and L. Lockau et al

Disease Resistance: Could You Be A Mutant?

It’s a story right out of one of the X-Men movies—people who are born with genetic differences that give them an evolutionary advantage over their fellows. In this case, that advantage is over catastrophic disease.

We’re all familiar with how most disease research is accomplished: scientists study those who are afflicted with a particular disease to see how it affects them overall and how it affects their individual biological systems. But Dr. Stephen Friend of Sage Bionetworks in Seattle led a team of scientists from New York’s Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai on a different tack—to study individuals who should suffer from or should have died from disease, but never became sick in the first place. To do this, they examined the genetic profiles of nearly 600,000 subjects from 12 previous genetic studies and looked closely at 584 Mendelian diseases (diseases caused by single gene mutations that are inherited according to Gregor Mendel’s Laws).

Mendelian genetics is the type of genetics most high school students studied in biology class. Remember Punnett squares? That’s Mendelian genetics—gene traits that are dictated by the alleles of a single gene. Let’s review and look at a very simplified version of eye colour. If a parent has brown eyes, they are expressing the dominant allele of the eye colour gene, which is brown (B). But everyone has two copies of that gene, one donated from their mother and one from their father. Because of the dominant brown allele (B), the second allele could be a second dominant brown allele (B) or a recessive blue allele (b) masked by the dominant brown. In high school biology terms, this parent could be BB, or Bb; both allele pairs would result in brown eyes. Only a parent with blue eyes is guaranteed to be bb, because two recessive genes will allow the recessive colour to show instead of being masked by the dominant colour. But if you pair two brown eyed parents, both of whom come from a brown eyed and blue eyed parent themselves, you will have two parents who are Bb and the below Punnett square shows what their offspring statistically should look like.

This is my husband and I exactly. Both ours mother have brown eyes, both fathers have or had blue eyes, but we both have brown eyes, therefore, we must both be Bb. We have two daughters, one with green eyes (genetically blue in this simple example; the green colour comes from additional masking gene alleles) and one with brown eyes.

Mendelian diseases are similarly governed by a single mutation on a single gene. Some of the diseases they looked at were Cystic Fibrosis (a disorder of the exocrine glands that affects the lungs, pancreas, intestine, liver, and kidneys), Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome (a mutation in the cholesterol pathway which leads to significant developmental delays or even death), epidermolysis bullosa (a devastating blistering skin condition), familial dysautonomia (a disorder of the nervous system), and Pfeiffer syndrome (which causes the bones in the skull to fuse early, leading to a misshapen head, bulging eyes and abnormal brain development). And what researchers found both surprised and delighted them. Of the 589,306 subjects tested, looking at 874 genes that guarantee the development of disease, they found 13 individuals who genetically had one of the mutations and yet had no indications of disease. For all intents and purposes, they are resistant.

Yes, I hear you cry: 13 people out of 589,306? That’s only 0.0022%, so what’s the big deal? The big deal is the answers these people may hold. Why aren’t they sick? What is it about their genetic makeup that counteracts a devastating mutation that might have already killed them otherwise? Discovering those secrets could potentially help the 70,000 people worldwide living with Cystic Fibrosis, desperately waiting for lung transplants while fighting trying to take their next breath. It could help the more than 500,000 people worldwide who suffer from epidermolysis bullosa, whose skin blisters and peels off at the lightest touch, and who can die from cancer or from infection of the exposed derma.

It's clear that 13 subjects are not enough to power any kind of real scientific study, but they are a promising start. Scientists now hope to recruit healthy volunteers that are willing to share their genetic information. Interested? Then the Reliance Project may be for you. Stop by the site, and take a look and join me in signing up. As they say at the Reliance Project: ‘Join the search. Be a hero.’ You might just save a life along the way.

Photo credit – Wikimedia Commons

A Second Viking Settlement Discovered in North America

Newfoundland coastline

Last week, we talked about the science of space archeology, and how, with the help of high resolution satellite scans taken 400 miles above the earth, a well-trained and intuitive eye can discern archeological sites hidden on the earth’s surface. This week, we’re going to talk about Dr. Sarah Parcak’s latest amazing discovery based on this technology.

The Vikings were a group of Scandinavians, first known for their international trading, but later known universally for their violent raiding of other lands and cultures. They were groundbreaking nautical engineers for the time and their carefully crafted vessels allowed them to travel from present day Norway, Sweden, and Denmark to Britain and Scotland, Russia, Turkey, Iran, and even all the way to North America.

The Vikings used water to move between locations, be it rivers to move through Europe proper or the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea to go further. Starting in the 8th century, they set out to trade with peoples in other lands, but quickly learned that it was more successful and lucrative to simply raid those lands instead. They spread across the north Atlantic, moving from Scotland to Iceland, and then to Greenland.

But how did they so successfully set off into the unknown, and not be lost forever at sea? The Vikings were not only expert naval engineers, but were also expert navigators. They learned how to be able to detect land up to 50 or 60 miles away, simply by watching distant clouds, identifying sea birds out for a day of fishing, or by the smell of grass and other plants, carried by the strong sea breezes.

One of the great Viking explorers was Erik Thorvaldsson, better known as Erik the Red. Erik was part of an Icelandic settlement before he was exiled for three years in 982 A.D. after he murdered several members of the settlement. He and his men set sail, only to discover Greenland. It was Erik’s son, Leif Erikson, who is credited with the discovery of North America. He and his men sailed from Greenland, but were caught in a storm and driven due west, where they discovered a previously unknown coastline. Scholars studied the Viking texts of the time and believe Erikson found Baffin Island in Canada. From there he sailed south, down to Labrador, and then to Newfoundland.

In 1960, the only officially designated North American Viking settlement was discovered in northern Newfoundland. Archeologists called it L’Anse Aux Meadows, and found there the foundations of traditional Viking longhouses for approximately 90 people, and traces of metal works, a technology native Canadians did not have at the time. But archeologists also found something they could not explain—seeds from a plant that only grew hundreds of kilometers south of that site, leading them to believe that there must have been at least one other settlement south of L’Anse Aux Meadows.

Dr. Sarah Parcak, an archeologist at University of Alabama at Birmingham and the director of the Laboratory for Global Observation, took on the challenge of trying to find this new settlement. Using the Worldview satellite that resolves images down to 10”, she examined the Newfoundland coastline. To do this, she studied near infrared scans after processing them for false colour to pick up differences in the vegetation—indications of decreased health of plants visible in the near infrared frequency could indicate the presence of foundations or other man-made objects below the surface.

Dr. Parcak found a potential site at Point Rosee, Newfoundland. Located on the west-facing coast on the southern edge of Newfoundland, it lies 370 miles southwest from L’Anse Aux Meadows. Among other possible structures, she identified a rectilinear shape with the same dimensions as a longhouse found at L’Anse Aux Meadows. This was a very strong indication that Point Rosee could be a related archeological site.

The first step for Dr. Parcak’s team was to do a non-invasive survey of the area, which they accomplished using a magnetomer to detect subtle differences in magnetism of the scanned soil. The magnetomer will not only  indicate the presence of metals but it will also provide evidence of burning or soil disturbances. A number of ‘hot spots’ were discovered and compared to the satellite  scans. It was this successful comparison that earned the team a two week test excavation to see if the they could find any physical evidence of a Viking settlement.

After surveying and gridding off the area to match the terrain exactly to the satellite images, the team dug several test trenches. It was backbreaking, muddy work, but they discovered several items of interest: some seeds, possible fragments of metal work, some clumps of what the team thought might be slag (a byproduct of metal work and a significant indicator of Viking activity), and darkly striped soil seen before in other Viking sites from their use of slabs of turf to insulate buildings.

In the end, the seed was determined to be from the 17th century and archeologists had to admit it could have filtered down into the extremely moist soil hundreds of years later. But it was the suspected slag that ended up as the crucial evidence. While it wasn’t actually slag—it was fire roasted bog ore—it represents a step in preparing ore for metalwork and is indicative of the presence of a group of people with skills different from the resident aboriginals of the time.

It is this single piece of evidence that will now set the course for future excavations. It is a very strong possibility that a Viking settlement occupied Point Rosee over a millennia ago, a full 500 years before Columbus sailed west to ‘discover’ a land found and temporarily settled by other Europeans centuries before. Dr. Parcak and her team hope to shine a light on a time period that is still mostly a mystery, expanding on the history of a new land, as well as the saga of a lost people.

Photo credit: Kenny Louie

Forensics 101: Space Archeology?

A new term came to my attention last week, one that on first glance seems a bit of a misnomer. It came tied to a really neat story, so we’re going to look at the scientific field this week—what these scientists do and what their work tells them—and then we’ll explore their groundbreaking discovery next week.

The term is ‘space archeology’ or, alternatively, ‘remote sensing techniques in archaeology’ (though I think we’d all agree ‘space archeology’ is WAY cooler). At first glance, one would think this is simply archeology in space, except we’re nowhere near having the skills or technology to do that. So what is space archeology? In the end, the answer is quite clever: it’s using satellite scans of the earth taken from space to identify previously undiscovered archeological sites.

The way space archeologists do their work is quite ingenious. Visible light scans of the planet’s surface may show absolutely nothing. But when infrared scans are used after being processed using false colour, chemical changes to the landscape caused by building materials and the activities of ancient civilizations are revealed. NASA’s high resolution scans are used as the raw data for the analysis, allowing scientists to discern subtle variations in the earth’s topography. The key to this analysis is grounded in vegetation—plants that live on top of stone are simply less healthy and will have reduced levels of chlorophyll. Find the unhealthy plants, and you may be well on your way to finding the site of an ancient civilization.

Enter Dr. Sarah Parcak, an archeologist at University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is responsible for the discovery of several amazing archeological sites, many of them lost for centuries or even millennia. For instance, the picture above shows an infrared scan of what looks to the naked eye like a patch of desert. But move out of the frequency of visible light and into infrared, and suddenly a network of city streets and buildings are revealed. It’s an amazing look at what hides below the earth’s surface. Which city is this? Tanis, the historical city used in Raiders of the Lost Ark, lost for over three millennia to the sands of time. So far only a small trial area has been excavated, but mud-brick structures were discovered a foot below the modern surface.

Next week we’ll be back to talk about an amazing discovery that could rewrite the early history of North America. See you then…

Photo credit: University of Alabama at Birmingham

Forensic Case Files: The Bard’s Missing Skull

There has been controversy for years about who Shakespeare really was. History tells us he was the son of a glove maker, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in England in 1564, who grew up to be an actor, poet and playwright. But doubts were raised that someone born in a small village and living so far outside royal life would be able to write about it so eloquently, and some have proposed that Sir Francis Bacon or Christopher Marlowe were actually ‘The Bard’. But the man most recognize as the ‘greatest writer in the English language’ is known to have died four hundred years ago on April 23, 1616. He was laid to rest two days later in the chancel of Holy Trinity Church in his beloved Stratford-upon-Avon. Later, his wife, daughter and son-in-law were buried beside him.

Two stories of a strange grave robbing surfaced roughly 250 years later, in 1879 and 1884. They describe a doctor digging up Shakespeare’s head in 1769, possibly to sell to an art dealer. There is a theory from the time that a person’s genius could be discerned from their skull alone, so Shakespeare’s skull would have had significant worth.

Recently, that tale was put to the test as researchers from Staffordshire University were allowed to come into Holy Trinity Church with ground penetrating radar equipment to scan the grave under an etched stone slab. And what they found supports those stories—the results show a disturbance at the head end of the grave showing where dirt was removed and replaced, and the skull does not appear to be present. The scans also show that Shakespeare and his family were not buried in coffins, but simply wrapped in cloth shrouds and entombed in shallow graves, which would have certainly made grave robbing an easier task.

Researchers realize their results ask more questions than they answer, but they are determined to go back to the records of the time to try and solve the mystery of Shakespeare’s missing skull. Was it truly stolen, or could it reside in another church or in a family member’s tomb instead?

An interesting side note to the theft is the epitaph chiseled on Shakespeare’s tomb, one the robbers most certainly ignored:

Good friend for Jesus sake forbeare,

To dig the dust enclosed here.

Blessed be the man that spares these stones,

And cursed be he that moves my bones.

Photo credit:  Steve