This Month at Forbes - Crucifixion, Bones of Santa, Foot Prosthesis, Ice Mummy, Stonehenge, and an Ancient 3D Ham

In December, these are the things I wrote about on my Forbes blog:

• 1 December - No, the Siberian Ice Maiden Is Not a Man.  There was a bunch of confusion over which mummy's DNA revealed a different sex than expected, so I tried to clear it up with this post.

• 7 December - Welsh Stones Helped Make Stonehenge a Monument to the Deceased, Archaeologists Say.  New research out from Mike Parker Pearson and colleagues attempts to source the stones and to propose a reason for their ceremonial transport.

• 8 December - This One Bone Is the Only Skeletal Evidence for Crucifixion in the Ancient World. Longtime readers will remember this post in a longer, fully referenced form (with bonus Monty Python reference) from PbO a few years back.  I revised it for a more general audience, though, and secured permission to run the image of the bone over at Forbes.

• 11 December - Gift This, Not That: Bone Clones vs. Skulls Unlimited.  Sometimes, Forbes has contributors write a series of posts on a theme, and this month was "gift this, not that." The series was aimed more at the tech sector, which has a lot of contributors, but I wrote one on why you should buy replica bones and leave the real ones to universities and museums.

• 14 December - Archaeologists Discover Elite 6th Century AD Cavalryman with Unique Foot Prosthesis. This is a very cool article on a skeleton with a foot prosthesis. From the muscle markers and injuries, the researchers think he may have been in the cavalry. I was a bit surprised -- but glad -- by how many hits this one got. It does help that the researchers gave me permission to run several high-quality photos.

• 15 December - Archaeologist 3D Scans World's Oldest Preserved Ham and Peanut. My friend Bernard Means got some press this month for his always-awesome 3D scanning. Couldn't pass up the opportunity to learn more about the history of Smithfield hams and about why in the world he was scanning one.

• 17 December - Bones of Saint Nicholas Reveal What Santa Claus Really Looked Like.  Although this isn't exactly new research, it's another story I couldn't resist writing about this month.  I did learn that his bones are supposed to exude a sweet smelling substance, though.

• 22 December - 10 Secrets Ancient Human Bones Spilled in 2015. Everyone loves year-end listicle wrap-ups, right?  Of course, the 10 secrets in this post are all links to other posts that I wrote for Forbes this year.  Well, since May.  So it's really a list of a bunch of stories I enjoyed writing about in the last 8 months.

If you're still reading this, and especially if you click through to my Forbes stories (in spite of the crazy amounts of ads, which I can't change, sorry), I just want to say thanks!  I really appreciate return readers, and hope that you continue to follow Powered by Osteons and my Forbes writing in the new year.