What kind of image is this?

It is a drawing.

Who would have made this image?

An archaeologist

What is this?

This is a diagram of an ancient burial site.

What grid system is used?

The grave site is divided into squares to help identify the locations where artifacts are found.

The grid is labeled on the diagram with A-F on the right and 1-13 on the top. On the left side, there is a scale which shows the length of a meter and 3 feet, indicating that the width of each square is 1 foot.

What artifacts are obvious in this image?

A bowl, stirrups, a sword, an axe head

What species are represented here?

The bones on the left are horses. In addition to the shapes of the skulls, the artifacts give additional clues: there are stirrups present and one of the skulls has a bit in its mouth.

The bones on the right are human.

What bones are recognizable? What bones seem to be missing?

The human skull, vertebrae, pelvis, femurs, tibias, fibulas. If you zoom in, some hand and foot bones and some ribs are visible. Bones that are prominently missing include the left humerus and scapula. These may have been removed by the archaeologists to continue digging. The right ones may still be buried.

How is the age at death of a skeleton usually determined?

The lengths of bones and the closure of growth plates.

How is the sex of a skeleton usually determined?

The easiest way is the shape of the pelvis. Other anatomical features can also be used. DNA can also be extracted from the bones.

How is the age of a skeleton determined?

Radiocarbon dating

In what part of the world might this site have been found?

Europe or Asia or North Africa

The clues include the horses and the artifacts. Horses are not native in the Americas or Australia and were not common in sub-Saharan Africa. While Native Americans did eventually acquire horses, they usually did not use stirrups and did not fight with swords.

This is a Viking grave in Sweden. In hindsight, an additional clue is the name of the artist, Svald Hansen, in the lower left corner.

A final clue is the compass directions on the left (O + 13° S) and right (V + 13° N). The Swedish words for East and West are Öster and Väster, respectively.

Birka grave Bj 581 – Wikipedia

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