School Library Journal Review
Gr 5 Up-Beginning with the startling photograph of a partially reconstructed face on the cover, this book effectively brings to life the people of North America forgotten by the history books. Beginning with the oldest existing mummified human remains-a man discovered in Spirit Cave, Nevada, dated to approximately 10,500 years ago-Deem moves forward chronologically to burials belonging to the Monacan tribe of Virginia (1000-1400), a French sailor traveling with La Salle (1686), the forgotten burial of a woman in colonial New York (1742), a rediscovered slave burial ground (1750-1790), and a Mexican soldier killed shortly after the Alamo (1836). He discusses the poor buried in an Almshouse Cemetery (1826-1926), a Buffalo Soldier (1865), and, finally, Chinese Miners in Wyoming (1881). Each chapter highlights the hardships endured by these early Americans as documented by the bones they left behind and interpreted by anthropologists. A thorough explanation of the archaeological techniques used to exhume these forgotten remains is combined with the known history of each period to create a clear picture of the difficult lives the people uncovered in these forgotten burials faced. Further humanizing these forgotten people are the careful facial reconstructions painstakingly rendered by sculptors whose careful, scientific process is outlined in fascinating detail. Deem tactfully addresses the issue of excavating and displaying human remains and gives an emotional resonance to the lives of these early Americans through the inclusion of poems exploring some of the painful aspects of American history. Clear prose, pleasing layout, and crisp photographs combined with subject matter rarely explored in history books make this book an excellent choice for most collections.-Caroline Tesauro, Radford Public Library, VA (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
The talented practitioners of historical facial reconstruction draw on their knowledge of history, art, and science to show us what the faces of long-dead humans may have looked like. Working from skulls, sometimes only partially intact, the sculptors carefully build layers of bone, muscle, fat, skin, and hair. Deem explores nine periods in American history and prehistory, recounting the lives and times of people -- from Spirit Cave Man, a resident of the American Southwest thousands of years ago, to the unnamed inhabitants of a New York almshouse from the early twentieth century -- whose remains have been located across North America. The profiles detail the careful work of modern-day archaeologists to uncover and preserve these skeletal remains, as well as the science behind the reconstructions, including the fascinating use of typical measurements of the position and thicknesses of various facial elements to make estimates for the sculptures. Copious illustrations include portraits of the sculptors at work, the facial reconstructions themselves, and the historical and modern-day sites in which these people lived. (See also books by Berger and Aronson and by Walker and Owsley in this section.) danielle j. ford (c) Copyright 2012. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
An absorbing introduction to anthropological facial reconstruction. Deem introduces five particular individuals and four other specific burial sites in North America where remains and archaeological contexts offer clues to the identities of the dead. He explores how people who were poor or enslaved or at war lost their lives in ways that left them forgotten or unknown. Seeing their faces reconstructed from the skull remains is compelling and moving in and of itself and provides a vehicle for us to understand more deeply who they might have been when alive. From the remains of Nevada's Spirit Cave Man, discovered in the 1940s (and in the 1990s realized to be 10,500 years old) to the burial grounds of poor and enslaved people in New York and immigrant Chinese miners in Wyoming, Deem's straightforward prose and consistently precise and respectful approach make this exceptionally readable as history as well as science. The photos, especially of the skulls, casts, masks and diagrams used in the work of reconstruction, are clear and sharp. Diagrams and archival photos are also provided. Sidebars offer additional information and sometimes serve as segues to historical accounts that expand on the narratives, though the book's design means that readers must occasionally jump past this supplementary material over a page turn in order to follow the narrative. Extensive, comprehensive backmatter includes detailed acknowledgments as well as footnotes and sources for further inquiry. Impressive and fascinating. (Nonfiction. 11-15) ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* People live and people die, but once in a while they get to come back to shed light on their origins and societies. Deem, author of the Sibert Honor Book Bodies from the Ice (2008), introduces some of those people, from as far back as 10,000 years ago, buried and rediscovered. Now, their bodies and burial materials are making both historical and scientific contributions, thanks to the archaeologists, anthropologists, and forensic artists examining them. Beginning with the discovery of Spirit Cave Man, who was thought to be a thousand years old and turned out to be 10 times older, and ending with an African American Civil War soldier whose body was nabbed by grave robbers, this describes how the bodies were found, the stories surrounding them, and the science that elucidated them. In fact, this is as much a book about scientific techniques especially that of facial reconstruction as it is about history. Whether he is describing how a French sailor under the command of La Salle died in a shipwreck or the way twentieth-century inmates of an almshouse were treated, Deem's writing is riveting and his research deep. Illustrated with copious photographs and historical artifacts, the design's only small bump is the way the sidebars sometimes interrupt the flow of the text. Otherwise, a top-notch effort with solid back matter, too.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist
