Forensic Science Section Essay

1. Where is Herculaneum located? What happened to the city? It was an ancient Roman island, near Pompeii. It stood in the shadow of an active volcano, which destroyed the island’s life form. 2. Why is Herculaneum important to archeology today?  It is important because unlike other ancient cities, it was better preserved so they can really study the habitants that live in Herculaneum. 3. What are some of the challenges that archeologists face when examining the city of Herculaneum? Some of the challenges would be that the architecture is very fragile, so it is falling apart very quickly. This causes them to have to be very carefully. Another challenge is that they can’t explore more into the tunnels because there are modern houses built on top. 4. How do you think the archeological investigation of Herculaneum relates to forensic anthropology? In what ways are similar techniques and processes used in both of these situations? I think that it relates because the archeologist are look and dealing with the remains of ancient people. The two still seek to find the remains and causes of death; just really tried to piece together what occurred. 5. What is surprising about the ruins in Herculaneum? How is this different than Pompeii? They never found a lot of remains of the inhabitants. This differ from Pompeii where was hundreds of human remains. 6. How do archeologists know that other people have been to the ruins in Herculaneum before them? What were the people searching for? What dangers did they face? They know others where there because they dug tunnels. The people were raiding Herculaneum for beautiful art. They people faced the danger of being crushed by rocks falling down on them in this fragile building. 7. How did the bodies in Herculaneum differ from those in Pompeii? The Herculaneum bodies were found by the sea, whereas the remains in Pompeii were found there. 8. Do you think it would be interesting to work on a site like Herculaneum to discover what happened? Why or why not? How would this work differ from a traditional crime scene? Yes! It would be so fun to excavate this area out, as well as see how they lived back â€Å"in those days†. It preserved the island well enough that minor details are preserved. Herculaneum would be different from a traditional crime scene because you already know what killed all the people.