The Science of Discovering the Past: The Smell of the Past III
Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/how-scent-emotion-and-memory-are-intertwined-and-exploited/
The olfactory bulb, where smells are processed in the brain, has direct connections to the limbic system, the amygdala and hippocampus specifically, where emotions and memory are regulated. Taste is also largely scent, which connects them to the limbic system as well. Because these are such strong and powerful connections, there have been many commercial attempts to cash in on this connection, from Smell-O-Vision in the 1950s to Disney's carefully controlled scent environments to create particular emotional bonds to time or manipulate emotions of those visiting their parks.
Source: https://www.dreamstime.com/olfactory-sense-smell-detailed-illustration-region-labeled-medically-detects-airborne-molecules-via-receptors-nasal-image361244544
Scent can also be used in less mercenary ways to bring comfort at a whiff of favorite foods or scents to help calm a person, or the scent of grass, sunscreen, and water to bring back a summer day from childhood. Scent can even help connect us to places we haven't been, such as the salt and water scents of candles meant to evoke the broad sense of the ocean on a calm day, or the smell of smoke and wood meant to bring to mind a wood fire.
Source: https://www.popsci.com/science/anthropologists-create-library-ancient-scents/
Researchers are seeking to reconstruct scents from history, either from descriptions of what materials went into creating scents that were used in the past as well as seeking to recreate those based on organic residues on various artifacts. Researchers are creating a scent archive, a library of molecules that have been identified via chemical analysis. Objects that have been sampled include incense burners, dental calculus, vessels, and other containers.
Source: https://www.popsci.com/science/anthropologists-create-library-ancient-scents/
By understanding the scents used and what type of scents and how they were used, we can learn a lot about how our ancestors took care of themselves, what they ate, what they used as medication, how they traded with each other and how vast those trade networks were. It also helps us understand the environment our ancestors lived within as scent is a deeply important and often overlooked part of our environment.
