There's no sense quite like smell to trigger an emotional response. One whiff of a damp basement, a dusty blanket, a ripe strawberry, or a steaming bowl of pasta can instantly evoke feelings and memories that have their roots in the distant past. Yet when it comes to learning about bygone times, we barely give a thought to the vapors that once prevailed—galleries and museums are the domain of artworks that appeal to our sense of sight, rarely reminding us of how things smelled—fragrant or foul—when our forebears walked the earth.
source https://phys.org/news/2021-08-ai-europe-historical.html