Making Predictions

Ancient Brain

GRAHAM POULTER

BEFORE YOU READ: Think about why certain body parts of ancient organisms are more likely to be preserved than others.

Alexandra Morton-Hayward has about 600 human brains in containers—and she’s always adding more specimens to her gruesome collection. “I have to keep buying fridges for them!” she says. Morton-Hayward is a forensic anthropologist at the University of Oxford in England. She studies human remains to learn how people lived and died. Some of the brains she studies are thousands of years old.

ALEXANDRA L. MORTON-HAYWARD

ANCIENT ASSORTMENT: These are some of Morton-Hayward’s preserved brain specimens.

Most forensic anthropologists have to focus their research on human bones. That’s because a body’s soft tissues tend to decompose quickly. The brain is usually one of the first soft-tissue organs to break down after death, says Morton-Hayward. It liquefies and seeps out of the skull. It’s rare to find a preserved brain. The old organs feel “almost rubbery and a bit squishy, kind of like tofu,” says Morton-Hayward. Bizarrely, when one is found, it’s often the only soft part of the body remaining. Morton-Hayward has devoted her career to finding out why this is the case.

England has many ancient archaeological sites. If an excavation turns up a body with a preserved brain, Morton-Hayward jumps into her car and races to the scene to collect it—placing it in whatever container she has on hand, such as a jam jar or takeout box. Then she transports the brain back to her lab to study its structure and composition. Morton-Hayward thinks that brains may be preserved under special conditions that cause molecules in the organ’s tissues to link up, forming a spongy texture. This could be why some brains stay intact while other organs decay.

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