Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.An undertaker turned academic, Alexandra Morton-Hayward became interested in brains — specifically how they decompose — during her former job.“I worked for years with the dead. My own experience is that the brain is pretty quick to liquefy (postmortem),” she said. “So it was a real shock when I came across a (scientific) paper referencing a 2,500-year-old brain.”Now a forensic anthropologist studying for a doctorate at the University of Oxford, Morton-Hayward has discovered that brains, while not as commonly found intact as bones, do preserve surprisingly well in the archaeological record.To understand why, the anthropologist has compiled a unique archive of information about 4,405 brains unearthed by archaeologists. Brains have surfaced from northern European peat bogs, Andean mountaintops, shipwrecks, desert tombs and Victorian poorhouses. The earliest discovered were 12,000 years old.Morton-Hayward is primarily working toward understanding how these brains survive the ravages of time, with at least four preservation mechanisms at play.However, the database also will open whole new areas of study, said Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, a senior physician and pathologist at South Denmark University Hospital, who wasn’t involved in the research. He’s also in charge of the University of Southern Denmark’s medical brain collection.“This database will enable scientists to study brain tissue from ancient times and determine whether diseases known today were also present many years ago in civilizations …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnSign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.An undertaker turned academic, Alexandra Morton-Hayward became interested in brains — specifically how they decompose — during her former job.“I worked for years with the dead. My own experience is that the brain is pretty quick to liquefy (postmortem),” she said. “So it was a real shock when I came across a (scientific) paper referencing a 2,500-year-old brain.”Now a forensic anthropologist studying for a doctorate at the University of Oxford, Morton-Hayward has discovered that brains, while not as commonly found intact as bones, do preserve surprisingly well in the archaeological record.To understand why, the anthropologist has compiled a unique archive of information about 4,405 brains unearthed by archaeologists. Brains have surfaced from northern European peat bogs, Andean mountaintops, shipwrecks, desert tombs and Victorian poorhouses. The earliest discovered were 12,000 years old.Morton-Hayward is primarily working toward understanding how these brains survive the ravages of time, with at least four preservation mechanisms at play.However, the database also will open whole new areas of study, said Martin Wirenfeldt Nielsen, a senior physician and pathologist at South Denmark University Hospital, who wasn’t involved in the research. He’s also in charge of the University of Southern Denmark’s medical brain collection.“This database will enable scientists to study brain tissue from ancient times and determine whether diseases known today were also present many years ago in civilizations …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
