Mar 21, 2024 06:21 PM
Archaeologists Keep Finding Preserved Human Brains. But How Do the Organs Remain Intact?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180983995/
EXCERPTS: More than 4,400 preserved human brains—some that are 12,000 years old—have been discovered across much of the world, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. And in more than 1,300 cases, the brain was the only soft tissue to survive—often, without an obvious explanation.
Study co-author Alexandra Morton-Hayward, now a paleobiologist at the University of Oxford in England, first became intrigued by brains while working as an undertaker. She noticed that brains typically decomposed faster than other organs, turning to liquid and leaving behind only an empty skull. But sometimes, the “brain was still perfect, like a jelly,” she tells Science’s Andrew Curry.
[...] Preserved brains look like “normal, perfect, fresh” human brains, except they’re usually about a fifth of the usual size, Morton-Hayward tells Science. They typically have a “tofu-like consistency,” she adds. They’ve been found with bog bodies and Incan human sacrifices on top of South American volcanoes, as well as in medieval cemeteries, in Egyptian necropolises and in mass graves from the Spanish Civil War.
In many cases, the brain’s preservation could easily be explained by known forces, such as dehydration or freeze-drying. Nearly 38 percent were dehydrated, and 30 percent were saponified, a chemical process that produces a preservative substance known as grave wax from fats in the body. Less than 2 percent were frozen, and less than 1 percent were tanned.
But a little more than 30 percent of the brains were preserved by some mysterious, yet-to-be-discovered process.
“This unknown mechanism is completely different,” Morton-Hayward tells New Scientist’s Michael Le Page. “The key feature of it is that we only have the brain and the bones left. There’s no skin, no muscle, no gut.” (MORE - missing details)
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-new...180983995/
EXCERPTS: More than 4,400 preserved human brains—some that are 12,000 years old—have been discovered across much of the world, according to a new paper published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. And in more than 1,300 cases, the brain was the only soft tissue to survive—often, without an obvious explanation.
Study co-author Alexandra Morton-Hayward, now a paleobiologist at the University of Oxford in England, first became intrigued by brains while working as an undertaker. She noticed that brains typically decomposed faster than other organs, turning to liquid and leaving behind only an empty skull. But sometimes, the “brain was still perfect, like a jelly,” she tells Science’s Andrew Curry.
[...] Preserved brains look like “normal, perfect, fresh” human brains, except they’re usually about a fifth of the usual size, Morton-Hayward tells Science. They typically have a “tofu-like consistency,” she adds. They’ve been found with bog bodies and Incan human sacrifices on top of South American volcanoes, as well as in medieval cemeteries, in Egyptian necropolises and in mass graves from the Spanish Civil War.
In many cases, the brain’s preservation could easily be explained by known forces, such as dehydration or freeze-drying. Nearly 38 percent were dehydrated, and 30 percent were saponified, a chemical process that produces a preservative substance known as grave wax from fats in the body. Less than 2 percent were frozen, and less than 1 percent were tanned.
But a little more than 30 percent of the brains were preserved by some mysterious, yet-to-be-discovered process.
“This unknown mechanism is completely different,” Morton-Hayward tells New Scientist’s Michael Le Page. “The key feature of it is that we only have the brain and the bones left. There’s no skin, no muscle, no gut.” (MORE - missing details)