Ancient Nubians: Making the bones speak

In a narrow, modest laboratory in Michigan State University’s Giltner Hall, students pore over African skeletons from the Middle Ages in an effort to make the bones speak. 

A Nubian skeleton laid out on a table at Giltner Hall [Credit: G.L. Kohuth/MSU]

Little is known about these Nubians, meaning the information collected by graduate and undergraduate students in MSU’s Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Program will help shed light on this unexplored culture. 

“This is generally an unknown group of people, so what we get to do with the skeletal collection is really make the bones speak,” said Carolyn Hurst, a doctoral student in physical anthropology who is leading the lab this academic year. 

The 409 skeletons – dating from the sixth to 15th centuries – were rescued several years ago from gravesites on Mis Island, located along the Nile River in present day Sudan, before the region became a dam. The collection is on loan to MSU from the prestigious British Museum. 

Four MSU graduate students helped in the excavation. Now, another group of students – both graduate-level and undergraduates – are analyzing the bones for clues into the ancient Nubians’ diets, health histories and lifestyles. (To read more about their ongoing discoveries, click here.) 

MSU students, from left, Lindsey Jenny, Tracey Tichnell and Cate Bird excavate graves in Sudan in 2007 to save the remains from a large dam that now covers the area [Credit: Richard Watts/MSU]

Having direct access to a large, well-preserved set of ancient remains is rare for college students. The research experience provides a major advantage for MSU students looking to become professional anthropologists or forensic scientists. 

“There aren’t a lot of programs from across the world that have a collection like this,” said Todd Fenton, associate professor in the MSU Department of Anthropology and director of the Nubian bones project. “It gives our graduate students an amazing research platform and also provides exciting opportunities for our undergraduate students.” 

For years, Fenton and his students have worked with personnel from the British Museum on excavations in Albania. In the mid-2000s, when the massive Merowe Dam was being built in an area known as the Fourth Cataract of the Nile River, Derek Welsby from the museum turned to Fenton for help in excavating the medieval Nubian remains. 

Four MSU graduate students – Cate Bird, Lindsey Jenny, Tracey Tichnell and Andrea Clowes – traveled to Sudan to assist with the three-month excavation in early 2007. The work was undertaken by the Sudan Archaeological Research Society in collaboration with the British Museum.