Threads of Life: Uncovering Earth's Hidden Stories

Burning a human body is a huge undertaking. Modern crematoriums produce millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions every year. But has cremation always been bad for the environment? Did ancient cremation practices also affect the world around them? And how did the natural world affect cremation in return?
In this talk, I- a bioarchaeologist who specialises in burnt human bone- will explore how changes seen on the human body can help us understand the effects of nature on cremation in the past.

Over the past ~15 years, ancient DNA has revolutionised our understanding of human prehistory. Scientists can now extract and sequence DNA from skeletons thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of years old, uncovering new insights into past migrations, interbreeding, and the origins of new dietary and social practices. In this talk, Dr Jacob Gardner (University of Reading) shares his work on the latest advances for using ancient DNA to reconstruct families and social systems in long-lost societies.

In 2011, archaeologists discovered Shimao, a massive, 4,000-year-old walled settlement in northern China. Long thought to be part of the Great Wall of China, Shimao’s size and complexity were unparalleled for its time and location, featuring chiselled stone faces only seen in the northern steppes and multiple forms of ritual human sacrifice. Shimao has transformed our understanding of how complex societies emerged in China. However, key questions remain about who the Shimao people were, how they structured their society, and how their reign ended. To answer these questions, a team of archaeologists and paleogeneticists, including Dr Gardner, recovered DNA from over 140 individuals at Shimao, revealing surprising insights into their family practices and sacrificial rituals.