Excavation records include a scale map of all the features, the stratification of each excavated square, a description of the exact location and depth of every artifact or bone unearthed, and photographs and scale drawings of the objects. This is the only way archaeological evidence can later be pieced together so as to arrive at a plausible reconstruction of a culture. Although the archaeologist or paleoanthro-pologist may be interested only in certain kinds of remains, every aspect of the site must be recorded, whether it is relevant to the particular investigation or not, because such evidence may be useful to others and would otherwise be lost forever. In sum, archaeological sites are nonrenewable resources. The disturbance of the arrangement of artifacts, even by proper excavation, is permanent.
Sometimes sites are illegally looted, which can result in loss not only of the artifacts themselves but of the site. Although looting has long been a threat to the archaeological record, it has become a high-tech endeavor today. Avid collectors and fans of archaeological sites unwittingly
In September 2006, researchers announced the discovery of a spectacular new fossil—the skeleton of a young child dated to 3.3 million years ago. The fossil was actually discovered in the Dikika area of northern Ethiopia in 2000. Since then, researchers worked on careful recovery and analysis of the fossilized remains so that when the announcement was made, a great deal was already known about the specimen. Their analyses have determined that this child, a little girl about 3 years old who likely died in a flash flood, was a member of Australopithecus afarensis, the same species as the famous Lucy specimen (see Chapter 7). Due to the importance of this find, some scientists have referred to this child as “Lucy's baby” though the child lived about
150,000 years before Lucy.
Aid looting through sharing site and artifact location information on the Internet, which has also provided a market for artifacts.
Once the artifact or fossil has been freed from the surrounding matrix, a variety of other laboratory methods come into play. Generally, archaeologists and paleoanthro-pologists plan on at least three hours of laboratory work for each hour of fieldwork. In the lab, artifacts that have been recovered must first be cleaned and catalogued—often a tedious and time-consuming job—before they are ready for analysis. From the shapes of the artifacts as well as from the traces of manufacture and wear, archaeologists can usually determine their function. For example, the Russian archaeologist S. A. Semenov devoted many years to the study of prehistoric technology. In the case of a flint tool used as a scraper, he was able to determine, by examining the wear patterns of the tool under a microscope, that the prehistoric individuals who used it began to scrape from right to left and then scraped from left to right, and in so doing avoided straining the muscles of the hand.68 From the work of Semenov and others, we now know that righthanded individuals made most stone tools preserved in the archaeological record, a fact that has implications for brain structure. The relationships among populations can also be traced through material remains (Figure 5.4).
Dental specimens are frequently analyzed under the microscope to examine markings on teeth that might provide clues about diet in the past. Specimens are now regularly scanned using computed tomography (CT) to analyze structural details of the bone. Imprints or endocasts of the insides of skulls are taken to determine the size and shape of ancient brains.
Advances in genetic technology are now applied to ancient human remains. Anthropologists extract genetic material from skeletal remains in order to perform DNA comparisons among the specimen, other fossils, and living people. Small fragments of DNA are amplified or copied repeatedly using polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
Figure 5.4 In northern New England, prehistoric pottery was often decorated by impressing the damp clay with a cord-wrapped stick. Examination of cord impressions reveals that coastal people twisted fibers used to make cordage to the left (Z-twist), while those living inland did the opposite (S-twist). The nonfunctional differences reflect motor habits so deeply ingrained as to seem completely natural to the cordage makers. From this, we may infer two distinctively different populations.
Technology to provide a sufficient amount of material to perform these analyses. However, unless DNA is preserved in a stable material such as amber, it will decay over time. Therefore, analyses of DNA extracted from specimens older than about 50,000 years become increasingly unreliable due to the decay of DNA.
As defined in Chapter 1, bioarchaeology, which seeks to understand past cultures through analysis of skeletal remains, is a growing area within anthropology. It combines the biological anthropologists’ expertise in skeletal biology with the archaeological reconstruction of human cultures. Examination of human skeletal material provides important insights into ancient peoples’ diets, gender roles, social status, and patterns of activity. For example, analysis of human skeletons shows that elite members of society had access to more nutritious foods, allowing them to reach their full growth potential.5
Gender roles in a given society can be assessed through skeletons as well. In fully preserved adult skeletons, the sex of the deceased individual can be determined with a high degree of accuracy, allowing for comparisons of male and female life expectancy, mortality, and health status (Figure 5.5). These analyses can help establish the social roles of men and women in past societies.
Forensics, bioarchaeology’s cousin discipline, also examines skeletal remains to determine characteristics of a deceased or injured individual. As with archaeological research, this information is integrated with material remains. New biomedical technology also plays a role in the investigation of remains from both the past and the present. For example, CT scans have added new information
Figure 5.5 The complete male and female skeletons differ on average in some consistent ways that allow skeletal biologists to identify the sex of the deceased individual. In addition to noting some of these features labeled above, learning the basic skeleton will be useful in the chapters ahead as we trace the history of human evolution.
5 Haviland, W. (1967). Stature at Tikal, Guatemala: Implications for ancient Maya, demography, and social organization. American Antiquity 32, 316-325.
Skulls from peoples of the Tlwanaku empire, who tightly bound the heads of their children. The shape of the skull distinguished people from various parts of the empire that flourished in the Andes mountains of South America between ad 550 and 950.
In forensic, bioarchaeological, and paleoanthropological contexts. While a CT scan cannot substitute for an autopsy in forensic contexts, it is useful for identification after mass disasters. It can provide evidence of past trauma that might not be revealed from an investigation aimed at determining the immediate cause of death.69
In archaeological contexts, CT technology has been particularly useful for determining whether damage to remains took place during excavation or whether it preceded death. For example, after the remains of Egyptian King Tut were scanned, scientists uniformly agreed that the young king did not die of a head injury as previously thought; some suggested that a broken femur may have been the cause of his death.70 To minimize handling, these rare fossil specimens are scanned one at a time so that researchers can study the digital images.
Recently, skeletal analyses have become more difficult to carry out, especially in the United States, where American Indian communities now often request the return of skeletons from archaeological excavations for reburial, as required by federal law. Anthropologists find themselves in a quandary over this requirement. As scientists, anthropologists know the importance of the information that can be gleaned from studies of human skeletons, but as scholars subject to ethical principles, they are bound to respect the feelings of those for whom the skeletons possess cultural and spiritual significance.
New techniques, such as 3D digital images of Native American skeletons, help to resolve this conflict as they allow for both rapid repatriation and continued study of skeletal remains. But globally, aboriginal groups are questioning the practice of digitizing remains of their people without permission. For example, the University of Vienna in Austria has been challenged by representatives of the Ju/’hoansi people of southern Africa because the remains that its ethnological museum has in its possession were not donated; rather, they were taken early in the century by Rudolf Poch, a Viennese anthropologist whose writings about racial hierarchies were used as part of Nazi Germany’s eugenics movement. According to Roger Chennells, the South African legal advisor for the Ju/’hoansi, their position is: “We have not been consulted, and we do not support any photographic archiving of our people’s remains—we are opposed to it.”71
By the standards of the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the Ju/’hoansi would have legal decision-making authority over the fate of these remains; but the equivalent of NAGPRA has not yet been codified as international law. Even with NAGPRA in place, the handling of remains is still often controversial. Scientists and American Indians sometimes have been unable to move beyond their conflicting views as seen with Kennewick Man, a 9,300-year-old skeleton that was dislodged by the Columbia River in Washington State in 1996. This chapter’s Biocultural Connection focuses on how this controversy has been playing out in the federal courts.
World History
