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kayleighlorraine's review against another edition
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
multilingual_s's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
I really enjoyed this stroll across the history of bones and the way we as humans relate to them. The part about gendering human remains really resonated with me, as I to find it weird to talk about skeletons as men and women and making according assumptions about the lives that people let a very long time ago. I found the structure of the book a bit unclear which made me lose the thread of the narrative at times. Apart from that it was a good read.
beccadamb's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
informative
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
misandrywitch's review against another edition
3.0
This was ok. There were some really fascinating moments & insights, like the conversation on gendering skeletons in modern culture & how our biases impact how we view osteological markers. However I felt like it was a really western / Americanized look at this field of research and breezed over a lot of nuanced conversations that even I - having taken one anthropology class in college nine years ago - know a little about. The author was in a little over his head imo.
ergative's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
I enjoyed this, but I would have liked more focus on the science, and less focus on the cultural practices surrounding bones. That's not so much a criticism of the execution of this book--indeed, in their acknowledgements, the author explicitly thanks their editor for telling them to look beyond the bones themselves and explore their relation with society. So it was a considered decision. I just wasn't looking for a book about the sociological practices of bone storage. The bits about the evolution of skeletons, skeletons of early humans, and bone pathologies were much more what I was looking for when I picked up the book. The bits about repatriation of remains to indigenous groups were great, if you're interested in that, but they weren't why I was reading the book.
I should mention that the author takes a firm social justice angle in their narrative. For example, they're careful to distinguish between biological sex, societal gender, and what they call osteological sex; and when they discusses repatriation they use the indigenous labels for particular sets of remains rather than western scientist labels---e.g., 'The Ancient One' instead of 'Kennewick Man'. I appreciate this very much. They seems like a good person. But I also think that their care in expressing these values in paleontology was a little too careful for the flow of the book. They could have made their point about osteological sex in two paragraphs, rather than two pages, for example. In general, there's a slightly self-conscious sense of the narration, in which it seems like they're trying to justify their whole approach to science writing explicitly to the reader.
That sort of transparency has its place--and indeed, I see from other reviews that some readers really, really valued it. But for me it slowed things down. I wanted to learn more about how the evolution of fins was responsible for vertebrates having two arms and two legs.
I should mention that the author takes a firm social justice angle in their narrative. For example, they're careful to distinguish between biological sex, societal gender, and what they call osteological sex; and when they discusses repatriation they use the indigenous labels for particular sets of remains rather than western scientist labels---e.g., 'The Ancient One' instead of 'Kennewick Man'. I appreciate this very much. They seems like a good person. But I also think that their care in expressing these values in paleontology was a little too careful for the flow of the book. They could have made their point about osteological sex in two paragraphs, rather than two pages, for example. In general, there's a slightly self-conscious sense of the narration, in which it seems like they're trying to justify their whole approach to science writing explicitly to the reader.
That sort of transparency has its place--and indeed, I see from other reviews that some readers really, really valued it. But for me it slowed things down. I wanted to learn more about how the evolution of fins was responsible for vertebrates having two arms and two legs.
aardwyrm's review against another edition
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
fast-paced
4.5
As with all of Black's work (I prefer not to refer to her by the deadname she was still using when the book was published), a thoughtful, meandering exploration of one's own curiosity. Not all the information is exactly challenging if you have a grounding in biology and paleontology, but the information is presented in a fun, accessible, ultimately sweet way. A fun adventure through museum cabinets with some sobering reflections on the sins of science where appropriate.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
Minor: Violence