18th-Century Bone Analysis Identifies Possible Smokers

LEICESTER, ENGLAND—Phys.org reports that researchers led by Diego Badillo-Sanchez of the University of Leicester identified possible eighteenth-century English smokers through metabolites of chewed or smoked tobacco detected in their bones. In the past, smokers have been identified by the notches and marks left on their teeth by clay pipes and the discoloration of teeth caused by tobacco. The new technique, however, will allow scientists to identify the remains of tobacco users when no teeth are present. First, the researchers compared the chemical composition of the bones of known smokers with the bones of people who lived in the sixteenth century, prior to the arrival of tobacco in England. Badillo-Sanchez and his colleagues were able to identify dozens of compounds thought to have been deposited in the bones as a by-product of metabolizing tobacco smoke. The team members then looked for these compounds in more than 300 skeletons recovered from eighteenth-century cemeteries in North Lincolnshire and London. The study suggests that more than half of the individuals, including men and women, had smoked. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Science Advances. To read about a Viking Age intestinal parasite that scientists have connected to modern lung disease, go to "Vikings, Worms, and Emphysema."