BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

BIOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Chapter #5

Fossil bones and teeth are usually the only thing that remains of the ancient right of primates and humans. However, in some specific conditions of the skin, hair, muscles, and even the inner man saved thousands of years. We meet withered mummies in ancient tombs of Egypt and Peru, where the dry desert air protected from degradation and retained their skin and hair. Even more good looking almost the same as in life, strangled bodies of victims who were thrown into a swamp about 2,000 years ago in the regions such as Scandinavia and Ireland, moist acidic soil, not giving access air, helped to maintain the flexibility and softness of the skin of the dead and protect them from degradation. Almost as amazing bodies, whose age is estimated at 2400 years, from the valley of Pazyryk in the Altai (Central Asia). Here the ice formed in the tombs of ancient chiefs, protecting human skin from degradation covered tattooed images of different animals. Perfectly preserved Etsti, and frozen corpses from the battle wounds among the man that are aged about 5,300 years from the Alps (Marks, 2011).

The remains of animals or plants can sometimes remain almost intact and reach our time, but it's a rare process, and is called fossilization. Taking advantage of the exhibition "The Return of the Dinosaurs 65 million years later," we review the phenomenon. The animals and plants decompose rapidly after death. Everything dissolves, starting with the soft tissues and then the other, especially if exposed to the weather. The stronger the skeleton, particularly the most compact bone, and jaws, skull and teeth, but these parties are disintegrating slowly, over a period of time depending on the surrounding environment.

When a wild animal dies, it is usually eaten by other carnivores in the first instance and then by scavengers. The mangled and gnawed bones and are later attacked not only by bacteria but also by atmospheric agents: sun, rain, dryness, humidity, wind and temperature increases eventually pulverize. So the whole structures disintegrate, disperse into the ground and are not traces. But there are very exceptional cases that escape the rule, for example, animals that were trapped in the ice, like the famous Siberian mammoths, or certain insects that are captured in the resin, and in some cases, certain biological structures may remain intact and reach our time: that happens when checking the phenomenon (rare) of fossilization. That is, when the ground quickly envelops the animal and plant debris in a suitable environment to protect them.

The most typical case is caused by rapid burial beneath very thin sediment. This happens for example when an animal dies on the edge of a lake or a river, or is buried by a landslide or a flood. Sediment seals the body, isolating it from the agents that could degenerate. Only fail filtration waters causing achieve slow but continual replacement of the molecules, due to the mineral salts dissolved in water. When the solid parts like bones or shells, including ...