ARCHAEOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY—EXPLORING HISTORY WITH CHEMISTRY - Chemistry: Notable Research and Discoveries - page 190

Some imaginative writers have described scenarios in which researchers
not only study the past, they recreate it. In Michael Crichton's 1990 novel
Jurassic Park, scientists establish a dinosaur park that resembles the Ju-
rassic era by recreating dinosaurs based on ancient DNA sources.
The novel, and subsequent film, offered an exciting story, but one
that is unlikely to ever become a reality. DNA degrades, even DNA de-
posited in locations with little chemical activity. For instance, although
parts of Ötzi's body were preserved for more than 5,000 years, research-
ers could not recover any nuclear DNA and found only bits and pieces
of mitochondrial DNA. Since the dinosaurs became extinct about 65
million years ago, any hope of recovering enough dinosaur DNA to du-
plicate or reproduce these animals is unrealistic.
Yet it is not impossible to gather enough clues to find out what hap-
pened long ago. Just as paleobiologists—scientists who study ancient
life—have theorized about a comet or asteroid impact causing the dino-
saur extinction, archaeological chemists have studied artifacts to learn
something about the life and death of Ötzi, as well as the rise and fall of
Roman civilization.
As research on these projects continues, other projects are getting
started. Zhichun Jing, a researcher at the University of British Colum-
bia in Canada, has an ambitious plan to study Chinese civilization to
find out why societies rise and decline. China has witnessed thousands
of years of settlements, some rising to great heights in terms of techno-
logical achievement and political stability, such as the Shang dynasty
of 1200 to 1050 b.c.e., then falling into disarray. Supported by several
funding agencies in Canada and the United States, this research could
soon yield a better understanding of the dynamics of social and political
systems.
Many of the problems facing the United States and the rest of the
world are probably similar to those encountered by the successful civi-
lizations of the past. Environmental pollution, increasing population,
scarcity of resources, as well as disruptions caused by weather and cli-
mate, pose significant obstacles to the health of the economy and the
high standards of living. Solutions to these problems may lie in the
development of new and sophisticated technology, but the dilemmas
faced by people of the past, and their successes and failures, could also
play an important role in the critical decisions that people of today and
tomorrow must make.