“I think we can more easily relate to people living in early cities with buildings and monuments, with government and class hierarchies, than we can to hunter-gatherers. “There is a sense of awe that people feel about ancient people that lived in complex societies,” says Trella (Grad ’00, ’10). Turning a bone over in his hands, he can identify the species, age at death, sometimes sex, whether it was domesticated and how it may have been butchered and cooked. A specialist in zooarchaeology, Trella can recognize a goat tibia with a glance. After several millennia, the cities have been reduced to mounds, the detritus of human habitation piling up year after year so that the sites are elevated above the plains.
Phillip Trella studies bones from the ruins of the ancient cities of Upper Mesopotamia.
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