The $20 bill gets picked up, body parts markets in everything

 [[{“value”:”At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t
The post The $20 bill gets picked up, body parts markets in everything appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.”}]] 

At the 1815 Battle of Waterloo, Napoleon Bonaparte’s final battle, more than 10,000 men and as many horses were killed in a single day. Yet today, archaeologists often struggle to find physical evidence of the dead from that bloody time period. Plowing and construction are usually the culprits behind missing historical remains, but they can’t explain the loss here. How did so many bones up and vanish?

In a new book, an international team of historians and archaeologists argues the bones were depleted by industrial-scale grave robbing. The introduction of phosphates for fertilizer and bone char as an ingredient in beet sugar processing at the beginning of the 19th century transformed bones into a hot commodity. Skyrocketing prices prompted raids on mass graves across Europe—and beyond.

Here is the full article, via William Meller.  And, as Alex has stressed in the past, never underestimate the elasticity of supply!

The post The $20 bill gets picked up, body parts markets in everything appeared first on Marginal REVOLUTION.

 Economics, History