Archaeologists find evidence of neurons in glassy brain of Vesuvius victim

Enlarge / Using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), forensic archaeologists have found evidence of human neurons in the remains of one of the victims of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in AD 79. (credit: Pier Paolo Patrone)

Remember when we told you that the extreme heat produced during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD may have been sufficient to vaporize body fluids and explode skulls-possibly even turning one victim's brain into glass? We now have fresh evidence that this might, indeed, have been the case, according to a new paper in PLOS ONE, reporting the discovery of preserved human neurons in the victim with the "glassified" brain.

"The discovery of brain tissue in ancient human remains is an unusual event," said co-author Pier Paulo Petrone of the University Federico II of Naples. "But what is extremely rare is the integral preservation of neuronal structures of a 2,000-years-ago central nervous system, in our case at an unprecedented resolution. These and other results of the bioanthropological and volcanological investigations underway at Herculaneum are gradually bringing to light details never before highlighted, which enrich the complex picture of events of the most famous of the Vesuvius eruptions."

According to Tim Thompson, a forensic anthropologist at Teesside University in the UK, brains don't typically survive for long after death. "It's one of the earliest things to decompose in a standard decompositional context," he told Ars. But it is not unprecedented.

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