Behind the Scenes of Our Newest Exhibits

Here at the Smithsonian Institution, discoveries of bones aren't unusual. Sometimes they turn up where expected, at old cemeteries or burial sites. Other times they pop up in unusual places, as many graves end up unmarked after the passage of time. In 2005, Smithsonian forensic anthropologists recovered the bones of several early colonists from Jamestown, the first settlement in early 17th century Chesapeake. What they found at James Fort shed new light on the difficult lives of the earliest European settlers. Today, their findings are on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in our Written in Bone exhibit.

See the exhibit for yourselves on our Celebrate Smithsonian tour, September 9-12. Enjoy unparalleled behind-the-scenes access to our collections and talk with the curators of Written in Bone.