- Around Halloween here at
UCF, many people get interested
in skeletons and this
is something that people
might consider to be somewhat spooky,
but at the National Center
for Forensic Science
and the Department of
Anthropology here on campus,
we're very interested in this.
It's part of our daily life.
I'm Dr. Lana Williams from the
Department of Anthropology.
- And I'm Lindsey Lefebvre.
- And we're here to
actually discuss with you
one of the very unique kinds
of collections that we have
and what we actually do with it.
This is a Maya skeletal
collection that comes from
three coastal sites in Belize.
It dates from the pre-classic
all the way up through
the historic period.
So, you're looking at dates
that go anywhere from about
800 BC all the way up to about 1200 AD.
- I am currently working
at the National Center for
Forensic Science where
this collection is housed
and I'm working on my honors
in the major looking at
dental pathology in this population.
I'm particularly looking at
juveniles to see if they've had
any health episodes or
malnutrition or certain aspects
that can affect the dentition.
- This collection is very
unique in the fact that
it's used for research here
at UCF and has been used
elsewhere as well but,
here, in our department,
what we're looking at is
ancient diet, ancient health
and many other kinds of
cultural attitudes that go
along with these kinds of human remains.
We use different kinds of
techniques like stable isotope
analysis and mass spectrometry
and there are various
disciplines that become involved in this,
everything from physics
all the way up through to
analytical chemistry
and we do quite a bit of
different kinds of work that
is very minimally destructive
on the human remains
because we wanna make sure
that we curate them as
long as we possibly can.
Many students are unaware
of the different kinds of
opportunities that we have through the
National Center for Forensic
Science but also through
the Department of
Anthropology and the broader
aspects of UCF.
We use this as a research
collection, so if any students
are interested in the research
and mentoring program,
honors in the major like
what Lindsey is working on,
we're really interested in
getting students involved
with these kinds of things.
It gives them skills above
and beyond what they learn
in the classroom, but the
other thing is it really
prepares them for research
at a graduate level
or other kinds of job skills
that they may take with them.
- I feel very fortunate to
have found out about the
honors in the major program
and I feel like I have been
prepared for grad school and
the veil has been lifted,
so to speak, about
research because I think
to a lot of people, they
wonder if they can really
get involved at an undergraduate level.
So, definitely I encourage
everyone to look into
what's available within
your own department.
