Analysing the past: the chemistry of a bog body
Martina Conti and Dr Kirsty High received funding from the Royal Society of Chemistry Outreach Fund to run a project looking at the chemistry of bog bodies, including an incredible fibreglass model.
AUTHOR: Martina Conti
"Analysing the Past: the Chemistry of a Bog Body" is an outreach project designed by the analytical chemistry group at the University of York. The project, kindly supported by the Royal Society of Chemistry Outreach Fund in 2017 and 2018, encompasses a series of chemistry-based games aimed at discovering what a bog body is and what we can learn about their life through scientific analysis.
The activities include: unravelling the possible origin, status and job of the body by hands-on microscopic analysis of seeds; estimating age at death by HPLC analysis of aspartic acid in teeth; discovering what material the body was wearing by elemental analysis; and identifying the content of ceramic pots through IR spectroscopy. Participants are given a little booklet where they can write their ‘lab results’ and draw a profile of their bog body, serving as a take-home reminder of the concepts.
The RSC Outreach Fund has added longevity and impact to our project, allowing us to commission amazing puzzles created by our department’s workshop team, as well as the centrepiece of our stall: a fibreglass model of a bog body, designed and created by freelance artist Dee Dickinson. In delivering this project, we aim to show the role played by analytical chemistry in an archaeological context, through a series of games and hands-on experience with professional scientific equipment. We wish to convey the interdisciplinary, interesting and dynamic nature of chemistry, and the wider application of analytical chemistry to forensic, environmental and archaeological issues.
These activities were presented at the York Festival of Ideas in June 2017 and 2018 to target primary school children, although people of all ages and chemistry knowledge enjoyed them.
Bringing the project to classrooms
The great success of our project at science fairs later pushed us to design new activities targeted at high school children with more advanced chemistry knowledge, in order to participate at the Chemistry@Work event at the University of York in July 2018 (an initiative run in partnership with NYBEP Ltd and the Royal Society of Chemistry).
We delivered seven 40-minute workshops to Key Stage 4 classes with activities such as: discovering what peat is by pH and microscopic analyses; assessing what animal the leather shoes were made of by protein analysis; IR spectroscopy of the contents of ceramic pots; and performing simple elemental analysis calculations to find out what material the bog body was wearing.
The pupils were particularly enthusiastic about IR spectroscopy, a technique not yet studied in school, asking lots of interesting questions. The teachers were delighted with the hands-on experience on the IR spectrophotometer, not always possible at a KS4 level. In future, the classroom activity could be used for other school outreach events and we aim to expand our activities beyond York.
We would like to thank the RSC for the Outreach Fund, the Department of Chemistry workshop team for creating the puzzles, and artist Dee Dickinson for designing and creating the fibreglass model of the bog body.
For the whole team, taking part in outreach at science fairs and classroom-based workshops was an absolutely rewarding and enriching experience. It helped us practise explaining complicated chemistry concepts to a range of audiences, a skill that also helps us in our day-to-day jobs!
The project could not have happened without all the people that helped in its design and delivery always showing incredible passion, enthusiasm and sharing great ideas: Dr Kirsty High, Dr Kirsty Penkman, Dr Annie Hodgson, Martina Conti, Dr Marc Dickinson, Dr Scott Hicks, Dr Adam Pinder, Lucy Wheeler, Sam Presslee, Marina Chanidou, Natta Wiriyakun, Emma Thimbleby.
Outreach Fund
Our Outreach Fund provides financial support to members, individuals and organisations in order to enable them to run chemistry-based public and schools engagement activities. Visit our webpage to find out more and apply to the fund.
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