All You Ever Wanted to Know about Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron.... Almost

The latest issue of PaleoAnthropology is out, and it's a good one... it contains not one, not two but three papers about whether or not claims that there is an Aurignacian-Châtelperronian interstratification at Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron (Gravina et al. 2005, Mellars et al. 2007), the type-site of the Châtelperronian technocomplex. Since PaleoAnthropology is an open-access journal, all these papers are available as freely downloadable PDFs, along with another one and several book reviews, including one by yours truly.

The first is a long and detailed paper by Zilhão and colleagues that builds on their prior short rebuttal of Gravina et al.'s case (Zilhão et al. 2006) . In this new publication, they provide a detailed history of research at the site, an in-depth assessment of the stratigraphy documented at the site by prior researchers, as well as a review of the archaeological material recovered from both the Châtelperronian and the Mousterian deposits at the site (Zilhão et al. 2008a). This is accompanied by a reply by Mellars and Gravina (2008), in which they criticize what they consider to be Zilhão et al.'s unnecessarily complex and convoluted arguments against the presence of an interstratification. The series concludes with a reply by Zilhao et al. (2008b) entitled "Like Hobbes' Chimney Birds" in which they accuse Mellars and Gravina of not paying sufficient attention to the substance of the arguments which they raised in their refutation of the interstratification thesis at Grotte des Fées de Châtelperron.

I've been doing more thinking about this issue lately myself, so I'll probably have more to say about these papers in short order. In any case, mark my words when I say that this will not be the last exchange about this issue, especially since the wording of all three papers leaves no doubt about the unfortunately unsurprising fact that neither camp has been swayed by the other's arguments. While there are other ways of looking at the relevant data, these papers focus on the 'nitty gritty' of identifying relevant artifacts and their position within the deposits. Not that there's anything wrong with that, quite the opposite, but at this point of the debate it might also be important to start thinking a bit more about how to actually identify interstratifications 9so people can agree on the baseline criteria necessary to define them) and, if they do exist, what they might mean beyond the fact that people making different artifacts were occupying the same spots over timespans of several thousand years. I've already blogged about some of these issues before (and also here), but there definitely remains much to be done on that front.

References:

Gravina, B., Mellars, P., and Bronk Ramsey, C. 2005. Radiocarbon dating of interstratified Neanderthal and early modern human occupations at the Chatelperronian type-site. Nature 438: 51–56.

Mellars, P.A., Gravina, B., and Bronk Ramsey, C. 2007. Confirmation of Neanderthal/modern human interstratification at the Chatelperronian type-site. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 104: 3657–3662.

Mellars, Paul, and Brad Gravina. 2008. Châtelperron: Theoretical Agendas, Archaeological Facts, and Diversionary Smoke-Screens. PaleoAnthropology 2008: 43-64.

Zilhão J., d’Errico, F., Bordes, J.-G., Lenoble, A., Texier, J.-P., and Rigaud, J.-Ph. 2006. Analysis of Aurignacian interstratification at the Châtelperronian-type site and implications for the behavioral modernity of Neandertals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 103: 12643–12648.

Zilhão, João, Francesco d'Errico, Jean-Guillaume Bordes, Arnaud Lenoble, Jean-Pierre Texier, and Jean-Philippe Rigaud. 2008a. Grotte des Fées (Châtelperron): History of Research, Stratigraphy, Dating, and Archaeology of the Châtelperronean Type-Site.
PaleoAnthropology 2008: 1-42.

Zilhão, João, Francesco d'Errico, Jean-Guillaume Bordes, Arnaud Lenoble, Jean-Pierre Texier, and Jean-Philippe Rigaud. 2008b. Like Hobbes' Chimney Birds PaleoAnthropology 2008: 65-67.

Paleo Round-Up - April 25 2008

The adrenaline rush that's kept me going through the past two weeks has finally subsided after a few full nights of sleep, and I can now return to the business of talking about paleo things! So, without further ado, here's a round-up of paleo goodness on the blogs these days:

• First, let me point you belatedly to the latest edition of the Four Stone Hearth, hosted at Hominin Dental Anthropology. It's overflowing with anthropological delights, so definitely swing by and check it out. The next edition will be hosted by the one and only Tim Jones at Remote Central.
  
• Another festival of interest is the Boneyard, hosted this time around at Archaeozoology. Even more paleo-goodness to sink your teeth in (shoulda made that joke with respect to Hominin Dental Anthropology...).

• Alex at Anthrosite Blog regales us with posts on papers by Tyler Faith, ahem, J. Tyler Faith on MSA and LSA faunal exploitation patterns and by Hardy and colleagues on the use-wear of Aurignacian tools from Swabia.
  
• Hawks also discusses new images by Peter Brown that clearly show LB1 does not have a filling.

That's it for now! It's short, but there'll be more soon!

An archaeologist's astronaut's best friend?

I'm talking, of course about duct tape, also known as "American Tape" in some of the localities where I worked a few years back! Duct tape is truly wonderful for so many purposes in the field, from patching up boots that are on their last leg (eh!) to sealing sample tubes to holding together dead-ish stadia rods and trowels (all true stories!).

Well, it turns out, other scientists have been making good use of duct tape for years... in outer space!

Paleo Round-Up - April 17 2008

It's been a hectic week, with not nearly enough time to post about all sorts of neat paleo news. In the interest of time, here's a brief run-down of good stories you should absolutely check out:

• John Hawks discusses reports that the type fossil of Homo floresiensis might show evidence of dental work, which would argue strongly against it representing an 18ky fossil, let alone another species. In another post, he also addresses a recent paper that argues that the discovery that Neanderthals had a modern FOXP2 might be due to contamination.
• Alex offers some thoughts about the discovery of whale-bone tools in the Magdalenian deposits of Isturitz, located some 50-60km inland. It appears the whale bone was procured from beached carcasses, and that there were well developed exchange pathways between the Atlantic coast and the foothills of the Pyrenees.
• ArchaeoBlog presents a critical evaluation of a new paper by Braun et al. on the attrition of stone tools during carcass-processing tasks, and whether this leaves diagnostic traces on the bones themselves. The post is further informed by some of his own experimental work as a grad student (I especially enjoyed the "Hurry! The hyenas are at the top of the hill over there!" quote!).
• Martin also talks about the new FOXP2 study, as well as about new claims about the different vocal capacities of Neanderthals and modern humans, based on work by Robert McCarthy.
• Kambiz rips into the recent paper on diminutive humans from Palau published by berger and colleagues and assesses some of the claims presented by Rex Dalton on that case in a recent note in Nature.
• Finally, on a non-paleo note, if you like your rock brawny yet twangy, and if you live in the greater Montreal area, you most certainly should find yourself at Foufs next Tuesday, April 22, when the excellent Yesterday's Ring will be opening for Lucero. Good times to be had by all... punch and pie.
  

Now that's a field trip!

And now for a completely different kind of anthropological field trip...

Field trip brings college class to Nevada brothel.

Perhaps not the best venue to introduce students to the subtleties of participant observation!

Et c'est le but!!

Most of the people who know me will tell you that I'm generally not much of a sports fan. The two exceptions to this is when Italy plays in the World Cup and, as a true Montréalais, when the Canadiens are in the playoffs! So, you might have to bear with a bit of misplaced exuberance over the coming weeks, especially if last night's game is any indication. Yes, yes.

A Meat-Eating Neanderthal from Jonzac

There is a new isotopic dietary analysis of Neanderthals at the site of Jonzac (Chez Pinaud), in SW France, available in the Journal of Human Evolution (Richards et al., 2008). Here's the abstract:

We report here on the isotopic analysis (carbon and nitrogen) of collagen extracted from a Neanderthal tooth and animal bone from the late Mousterian site of Jonzac (Charente-Maritime, France). This study was undertaken to test whether the isotopic evidence indicates that animal protein was the main source of dietary protein for this relatively late Neanderthal, as suggested by previous studies. This was of particular interest here because this is the first isotopic study of a relatively late Neanderthal associated with Mousterian of Acheulian Tradition (MTA, dating to approximately 55,000 to 40,000 BP) technology. We found that the Jonzac Neanderthal had isotopic values consistent with a diet in which the main protein sources were large herbivores, particularly bovids and horses. We also found evidence of different dietary niches between the Neanderthal and a hyena at the site, with the hyena consuming mainly reindeer.

This is a good, empirically strong study with many comparative data points drawn from associated faunal remains, and the conclusions are robust. It is also original in its use of collagen extracted from tooth dentine as opposed to bone, the latter being the material on which all previous isotopic studies of diet have been done. This is important because:

"Unlike bone, tooth dentine likely does not alter
over a lifetime, and therefore it reflects a specific period of
time of formation. Therefore, the isotopic data from this Neanderthal
premolar do not reflect the lifetime average, but instead
the diet at the ages of later childhood/early adolescence.

Our isotopic results for the Jonzac Neanderthal are compared
to the those reported for other European Neanderthals
in Table 3. The isotopic values are remarkably similar for all
of the Neanderthals, and in all cases, the authors of the various
studies concluded, as we have for Jonzac, that the main source
of dietary protein was animal protein, likely from large herbivores.
In no case do we see isotopic evidence for the significant
consumption of aquatic (marine or freshwater) protein,
as has been observed from Gravettian humans in Europe (Richards
et al., 2001; Pettitt et al., 2003). The results of our isotopic
study of the Jonzac Neanderthal therefore support the
emerging picture from isotopic studies that Neanderthals
have a similar dietary adaptation over a wide range of environments
and over a relatively long period of time." (Richards et al. 2008: 6)

This is interesting because it directly implies that, at Jonzac, a Neanderthal juvenile had a diet similar to that documented in adult Neanderthals elsewhere. This has concomitant implications for how animal food might have been shared within Neanderthal groups, suggesting that even relatively young individual had access to a relatively high quality diet.

Another interesting conclusion of this study is that hyenas and hominins preferentially targeted different herbivore taxa, with humans mainly going after bovids and horses and hyenas targeting reindeer. This might represent evidence for niche partitioning, that is, the concentration on different segments of a given niche by organisms that are in competition for it. In this case, the competition would have been between carnivorous species, and the partition would be reflect by the selective exploitation of different animal species within the high-return large herbivore niche. This, however, is based on the isotopic signature of a single hyena bone from a different layer than that where the Neanderthal tooth was recovered and compared to averaged isotopic signature of herbivores from two layers, so we need to be cautious to draw firm conclusions on the basis of this evidence alone.

Overall, though, it does seem that the Neanderthal at Jonzac had a childhood protein intake heavily dominated by the meat of large herbivores. A few comments, however: the Vindija remains are more recent by several millennia than the Jonzac tooth, so the observation that some comparatively late Neanderthals hunted lots of large herbivores is not completely unprecedented (Richards et al. 2000). Also, while this study provides one more isotopic data point on Neanderthal diets, the fact remains that we still have no such studies from Neanderthals from the southern part of their range, nor from coastal settings. I suspect that such results might alter the picture we have of Neanderthal animal procurement. Even if they don't, however, it is important to remember that

"dietary contributions from fat cannot be evaluated by isotope analysis
of collagen and so carbon and nitrogen isotope
studies can only reconstruct the likely proportions of
different species that made up the protein component
of their diets, which is unlikely to have comprised
more than about 40% of their diet by energy and possibly
only 25% of the diet overall (Cordain et al 2002)."
(Pearson 2007: 6).

Thus, while the results of isotopic dietary analyses of Neanderthals are uniquely informative, it is important to remember that they only provide data pertaining to one part of their diet. Thus, to assume that Neanderthals ate only meat because they appear to have drawn most of their protein from large herbivore is 'jumping the evidential gun'. Given that Neanderthals were top-ranked hunters living at relatively low population densities, it would have made little sense for them not to target the highest-ranked animal resources in their ecosystem as their main source of meat. And this behavior is exactly what isotopic studies have been demonstrating so far. As for the rest of the the Neanderthal diet, various lines of evidence - including a wonderful paper by Henry and Piperno (2008) presented at the Paleoanthropology Society meetings two weeks ago - are beginning to clearly show that Neanderthals also appear to have made extensive use of plant resources whenever they had access to them. Unfortunately, this is effectively invisible from an isotopic standpoint.

References:

Henry, A., Piperno, D. 2008. Plants in Neandertal diet: Plant microfossil evidence from the dental calculus of Shanidar III. Paper presented on March 26, at the 2008 Annual Meetings of the Paleoanthropology Society, Vancouver, BC, Canada.

Pearson, J. A. 2007. Hunters, fishers and scavengers: a review of the isotope evidence for Neanderthal diet. Before Farming 2007/2-2.

Richards,M.P., Pettitt, P.B., Trinkaus, E., Smith, F.H., Karavanic´, I.,Paunovic´,M.,
2000. Neanderthal diet at Vindija and Neanderthal predation: the evidence
from stable isotopes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 97: 7663-7666.

RICHARDS, M., TAYLOR, G., STEELE, T., MCPHERRON, S., SORESSI, M., JAUBERT, J., ORSCHIEDT, J., MALLYE, J., RENDU, W., HUBLIN, J. (2008). Isotopic dietary analysis of a Neanderthal and associated fauna from the site of Jonzac (Charente-Maritime), France. Journal of Human Evolution DOI: 10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.02.007

Somber Anniversary

Today marks the fifth anniversary of the looting of the National Museum of Iraq, in Baghdad. It bears reflecting today on what exactly enabled this shameful excoriation of the museum's most striking collections and how far anyone has actually come to the lofty promises of cultural self-affirmation that were bandied about five years ago... some of the AVRPI readership might be able to act on these reflections in a few months. In any case, the LA Times has a perceptive, if short, piece on the topic. I especially liked this quote:

...there are as many reasons to steal antiquities as there are people -- "money, lust, a misguided sense that they are preserving Iraqi culture . . . cultural hatred, heritage used as a weapon . . . every base or self-deceptive motive you can imagine."

Four Stone Hearth, Vol. 38: The Early Bird Special Edition

It's that time again, when anthropologically-inclined bloggers congregate around the Four Stone Hearth to exchange digital perspectives about the stones they've been kicking around lately. It was a close competition between an "Early Bird Special" and a "Death of a Blogger" edition, but since I had the whole enchilada ready one day early, the EBS theme took home the cup. So, in the interest of being early birdy (and special!), let's proceed without further ado:

• At Archaeolog, invited poster Cornelius Holtorf tackles the thorny issue of whether archaeologists really want to be associated with characters such as Indiana Jones and Lara Croft in "Hero! Real archaeology and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"(and why doesn't anyone ever mention Sydney Fox in these debates!?). In related news, an April 1 post at by Thadd at Archaeoporn breaks the news that the new Indiana Jones movie will accurately depict the practice of archaeology... serious reading, that!
• Shifting the focus from what archaeologists do to what the people they study did, Archaezoo reviews a recent paper about Upper Paleolithic horse hunters at Le Solutré that suggests that horse remains accumulated at that site as the result of hunters ambushing large numbers of migrating equids. Alex Steenhuyse of Anthrosite Blog also talks about Paleolithic hunting, in this case focusing on research on shifts in reindeer body part representation at Grotte XVI across the Middle-Upper Paleolithic transition.
• In other 'humans killing critters' news, there has been a lot of blogging about the news that it appears that it was both climate and humans that jointly did the mammoths in. Various takes on the study are provided by Andrew Guerin at Artificial Habitat, Kambiz Kamrani at Anthropology.net, and Greg Laden at Greg Laden's Blog.
  
• For something completely different, check out what Jeff Medkeff the Blue Collar Scientist has to say about non-peer-reviewed claims that the Sumerians observed and accurately documented an asteroid impact event at Köfels, Austria. In other odd book news, you should most certainly have a look at what John Hawks has to say about a recent book by Lynch and Granger in which they talk at length about the "amazing" Boskops!
  
• Over at Remote Central, you can find some of Terry Toohill's thoughts on "Human Evolution on Trial - Evolution." Still at Remote Central, Tim Jones also presents a summary of new information about the ongoing excavations at Stonehenge.
  
• In other excavation news, Martin Rundkvist of Aardvarchaeology (and originator of the Four Stone Hearth carnival!) reports on the "big honking hoard" found in a humble Iron Age burial.
• At Shared Symbolic Storage, Michael Pleyer reviews some of the papers presented at the Evolang 08 conference, and talks about the importance of spatial cognition and genetic transmission in contemporary research on linguistic evolution.
  
• Paul Wren of Wanna Be An Anthropologist illustrates a contemporary case of people creating a material record of their discard behaviors as he looks for cultural universals. The one he proposes is that all humans litter.
• At Archaeoporn, Thadd Nelson explores claims that people make to link archaeology and the supernatural, based on recent work reviewing Neolithic well digging.
• Mike Smith of Publishing Archaeology provides some comments about a new open access general anthropology journal, in which authors pay to publish, as well as on sloppy editing in some edited volumes.
• Over at Testimony of the Spade, Magnus Reuterdahl offers some thoughts on the "an ear for an ear" judgment that has been served against a Finnish tourist for damaging one of the Easter Island statues.
• Martin Cagliani (Mundo Neandertal) and Kris Hirst (Archaeology Blog) shoot the... errr, well, discuss the discovery of 'human remains' (literally) on the coast of Washington State that predate the Clovis culture found later in North America.
• At The Ideophone, Mark Dingemanse discusses "Migration Stories" and presents some thoughts about current perceptions of recent transcribed oral accounts of the Cushite past of the Mawu people of present-day Ghana.
• And to conclude this installment of Four Stone Hearth, Daniel Lende of Neuroanthropology offers two related and thought-provoking posts on Human Biology and Models for Obesity and on Culture and Inequality in the Obesity Debate.

Thanks again to everybody who sent links! The next Four Stone Hearth will be held in 15 days' time at Hominin Dental Anthropology! Be sure to send Jason some links!

Dollarware Archaeology

One of the nice things about being at McGill is the generally high caliber of our undergrads and the sheer enthusiasm of many of those interested in archaeology. This is shown, among other things, by the rather sophisticated papers some of them will write for certain classes.

One of the archaeology courses taught in the Dept. of Anthropology is "Archaeological Methods" (ANTH 357). This semester, the course was taught by my colleague Stephen Chrisomalis, who involved the students in an interesting spin on archaeological classification. In lieu of employing actual or replicated artifacts to familiarize them with this facet of archaeological practice, the students selected, handled and studied a few hundred examples items that are part and parcel of daily material culture in Montreal: dollar store coffee mugs (aka "dollarware"). While surprising at first glance, this choice of material culture is actually quite appropriate for several reasons. One of those is that is drives home the point that, during their use-life, artifacts were part of a living system of technological use. Another reason is that dollarware often combine multiple dimensions of analysis that archaeologists care about beyond the physical characteristics of an object, including style, iconography, composition and even writing systems.

Well, the "dollarware phase" of ANTH 357 is done for the semester and there is now a cool little web site put up by Stephen that contains all of the reports on the "collecion" produced by the students. It's really neat to see the various angles taken by different students in their studies! Go check it out and check out the papers to see how contemporary dollarware can be a good proxy through which to understand archaeological classification.

Help Save Lascaux!

One of the neater aspects of the Paleoanthropology Society meeting (more on that soon, no worries) was a the one-hour "Lascaux Video/Special Presentation" session on Tuesday night. It was organized by the International Committee for the Preservation of Lascaux and drew a fairly sizable crowd of folks interested in hearing about the status of the cave and ongoing efforts to preserve it as best as possible. The presentation included a video montage that detailed some of the recent degradation of the paintings (which I talked about in more detail previously)... that montage was really heart-wrenching, if you care about the site and rock art more generally. It really showed unambiguously the degree to which some paintings have deteriorated and/or been affected by fungus. A petition was circulated during the meeting to encourage the French government to take more serious steps to ensure that Lascaux's art is adequately protected. You can find an online version of the petition here, which doesn't (yet?) include the signatures collected at the meetings. Also, if you're interested in learning more about the committee and ongoing efforts to preserve the paintings, you should definitely visit their "Save Lascaux" web site.

Call for contributions - Four Stone Hearth #38

Back from the meetings in Vancouver, so back to teaching, back to writing, and back to posting. If you haven't already, you should most definitely check out the 37th installment of the Four Stone Hearth (Pulp SciFi Edition!) at Hot Cup of Joe. If this kinda stuff gets your gollies going, you should also most definitely consider submitting one of your own posts to me (julienrs at hotmail dot com), so they can be included in the 38th installment which will be hosted by yours truly here at A Very Remote Period Indeed. I've already gotten a few submissions, but in blogging as in experiencing new foods, more is always better!

New Online Parietal Art Exhibits

It's been a hectic couple of weeks for so many different reasons, so my apologies to my trusty readers for the dip in post production.

A few things: first, I'm glad to report that Alex Steenhuyse is back at it on his Anthrosite Blog, with some nice posts on a variety of prehistoric topics. So join me in saying "welcome back Alex" and check out some of his recent posts.

One of these is about the development of a new exhibit at the Musée regional de préhistoire d’Orgnac on the representation of animal movement in Upper Paleolithic rock art, based on some recent work by Marc Azéma.

If you enjoy this, then you might also want to check out the new online exhibit that they've put together for the Magdalenian petroglyph site of Roc-aux-Sorciers, also in France, and which had been dubbed the "Lascaux of engravings." It's really some pretty spectacular stuff, with several apparent human representations (very rare in European Upper Paleoltihic art), and the multimedia component of the site is very, very well-done. See for yourself!

Mad Neanderthal Disease?

The impact of Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies (TSE) on Neanderthals is the topic of a short paper by Simon Underdown (2008), in press in Medical Hypotheses. You might be familiar with TSEs already: a few years back, the so-called “Mad Cow Disease” scare was caused by Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy.

Getting back to the study at hand, the gist of the paper is this:

1) Neanderthals are known to have practiced cannibalism.

2) Cannibalism is known to result in TSEs in certain cases.

3) In at least one Homo sapiens hunter-gatherer group (in this case the Fore of New Guinea), the relationship between cannibalism and some kind of fatal degenerative neurological disease has been credibly established (the 'Kuru' epidemic'; Farquhar and Gadjusek 1981).

4) Therefore, it is possible that TSEs transmitted through cannibalism and handling dead Neanderthal tissue contributed to the ‘extinction’ Neanderthals, to wit: “… a silent killer in the form of TSEs could have massively weakened the Neanderthal’s ability to compete both within a highly changeable environment and latterly against a highly adaptable new arrival in the form of Homo sapiens” (Underdown in press: p.3).

The paper itself does a much better job of contextualizing this conclusion than headlines related to the diffusion of this study such as “Cannibalism wiped out Neanderthals” which is overly sensationalistic on top of fostering the curious image of Neanderthals eating one another into oblivion (which would certainly put a new spin on the old ‘competition with moderns over animal resources’!).

And, while it is nearly impossible to conclusively disprove many paleoanthropological hypotheses, it is certainly possible to evaluate their plausibility, and the case for TSEs as a, errr, vector in Neanderthal extinction is improbable. First, the use of the Fore as the single analog is problematic on several levels: they are horticulturalists, a poor analog for highly mobile hunter-gatherers; the kuru epidemic on which Underdown’s scenario depends unfolded over a span of only decades whereas he postulates that TSEs would’ve plagued Neanderthals for millennia; and, importantly, the Fore live at population densities (about 21/km²), orders of magnitude greater than those likely to have characterized, and certainly those proposed for them by Underdown (ca. 0.06-0.1/km²).

Second, the ‘Kuru Model’ is based on one case of a TSE decimating a single population. That is to say, not all cannibalism needs to result (or have resulted) in the development and rapid transmission of TSEs among its practitioners. This is a problem of extrapolating from one documented case among modern humans (ironically enough) to the entirety of Neanderthal groups. This is a common logical flaw whereby Neanderthals are not considered as comprising a multitude of groups of hunter-gatherers spread over a vast range and likely relatively well adapted to their local conditions. Neanderthals (or any fossil human species, for that matter) are not just a species of extinct hominins; that label refers to biologically similar hominins spread far and wide across Eurasia and whose primary adaptations to their environment were behavioral in nature. Think of it this way: do all Homo sapiens behave exactly the same across the world today? No, and neither did they in the past. This is why there is so much debate over how to satisfactorily define “behavioral modernity” and why we can’t just talk about modern humans acting in one way. The same was very likely true for Neanderthals.

Third, the two best-publicized cases of Neanderthal cannibalism (i.e., Krapina, and Moula-Guercy) go back to 100-80 kya at the most recent. There is, as far as I know, little in the way of strong evidence for widespread Neanderthal cannibalism after that; although clear anthropic modifications of Neanderthal remains have been documented at later sites, such as El Sidrón (Rosas et al. 2006), the case for cannibalism there has not been demonstrated since these have not been shown to be similar to those found on other animal remains at the site. Thus, there is little evidence that cannibalism was a widespread Neanderthal behavior around for the 50 ky that led up to their disappearance from the Eurasian fossil record. Interestingly, there is also some very suggestive evidence that Mousterian sites increased in density over the course of that time period (e.g., van Andel et al. 2003), as opposed to steadily decreasing in numbers as implied by the Underdown’s TSE model.

Fourth, there is clear evidence of perimortem processing of Homo sapiens remains with stone tools is also reported from the Aurignacian deposits of Brassempouy, Isturitz, Tarté and La Combe, where human teeth were forcefully removed from their gums and pierced to be transformed into ornaments (White et al. 2003), and in the Middle Stone Age deposits of Herto, where human skulls bear unambiguous traces of defleshing (Clark et al. 2003). Given that Underdown (in press: p. 3) states that TSEs can well have been transmitted “through cuts caused by stone tools used by infected and non-infected individuals,” shouldn’t we therefore also assume that TSEs would have been a major concern for modern humans as well?

Overall, then, while TSEs might well have been a problem for some groups of Neanderthals and some groups of Homo sapiens, there is no reason to assume that it was an especially important factor leading to the disappearance of Neanderthals as a distinct fossil hominin in the paleoanthropological record. I will say this, however: theoretically at least, Underdown’s scenario has the merit of having the potential to be tested empirically and independently through genetic studies. In that sense, it is a move forward in paleoanthropology.

References:

Clark, J.D., Y. Beyene, G. WoldeGabriel, W.K. Hart, P.R. Renne, H. Gilbert, A. Defleur, G. Suwa, S. Katoh, K.R. Ludwig, J.-R. Boisserie, B. Asfaw and T.D. White, 2003. Stratigraphic, chronological and behavioural contexts of Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423:747–752.

Farquhar, J., and D. Carleton Gajdusek. 1981. Kuru. Early Letters and Field-Notes from the Collection of D. Carleton Gajdusek. New York, Raven Press.

Rosas A, Martínez-Maza C, Bastir M, García-Tabernero A, Lalueza-Fox C, Huguet R, Ortiz JE, Julià R, Soler V, de Torres T, Martínez E, Cañaveras JC, Sánchez-Moral S, Cuezva S, Lario J, Santamaría D, de la Rasilla M, and Fortea J.2006. Paleobiology and comparative morphology of a late Neandertal sample from El Sidron, Asturias, Spain. PNAS 103:19266-19271.

UNDERDOWN, S. (2008). A potential role for Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies in Neanderthal extinction. Medical Hypotheses DOI: 10.1016/j.mehy.2007.12.014

van Andel, T. H., W. Davies, and B. Wenninger. 2003. The human presence in Europe during the last Glacial Period I: Human migrations and the changing climate. In Neanderthals and Modern Humans in the European Landscape during the Last Glaciation, pp. 31-56. McDonald Institute of Archaeology, Cambridge, UK.

White, R. W., D. Henry-Gambier and C. Normand. 2003. Human-tooth ornaments from the French early Aurignacian: implications for early Upper Paleolithic treatment of the dead. Paper presented at the 2003 Annual Meetings of the Paleoanthropology Society, Tempe, Arizona.

Archaeology and the Public: A Complicated Relationship?

A. Rossi and E. Webb have a brief report in the March 2008 issue of Antiquity detailing sediment loss apparently caused by dramatic increases in the number of tourist visits at Mulka's Cave, a major rock art site in southwestern Australia. To sum up, they reconstructed changes in floor level based on dated photographs which result in the following chilling (archaeologically, at least) composite profile of the ground level at the cave's entrance:

Courtesy of Antiquity (Rossi and Webb 2008).

Here's what the authors make of this observation that the level of the cave floor has dropped roughly one meter in just over half a century!

"Comparison of photographs we took in 2004 and 2006 showed that the shape of the entrance had changed; prompting us to research datable pictures of Mulka’s Cave on file at DIA. The resulting figure (Figure 3) shows that between 1952 and 1988, 0.5m of sediment was lost. By 2004, another 0.5m of deposit had disappeared. That erosion was accelerating is shown by the amount of sediment lost between 2004 and 2006. Had the walkway not been installed, erosion would have continued unabated because the deposits outside the cave were probed to a depth of -1m, without reaching bedrock."

"We attribute this erosion to trampling (Rossi & Webb n.d.). There are few places within Mulka’s Cave where visitors can stand comfortably to view the artwork because it is full of boulders (Figure 4); while the floor at the base of the rock pile measures 2 x 7m. These limitations became a problem with increased tourism, particularly visits by commercial tours. These groups often comprise 30 people, two of whom are crowded into each square metre of floor space. We believe the resultant trampling has eroded 1m of the cave deposits in 50 years. That sediment is now spread over the slope outside, but the stone artefacts it contains lack stratigraphic context." (Rossi and Webb 2008)

These are sobering observations about the potential impact of uncontrolled tourist visits at archaelogical sites. First, there's the clear conclusion of a one-meter drop in floor level over 50 years. More alarmingly, the most recent 50cm drop took place between 1988 and 2004, or 16 years. This means that the rate of tourism-mediated erosion has tripled relative to what it was between 1952 and 1988, in tandem with increasing peaks in the numbers of visitors at the site (Rossi and Webb 2008: Figure 2).

This raises the age-old question of what the interface should be between archaeology and the public. Much archaeological research is financed by public funds of one sort or another, and archaeologists can thus be argued to have some kind of obligation to make the fruit of their work available to the public. The problem, of course, is how to do this.

There is a lot to be said for doing for science in the interest of furthering science, in the sense of refining of our understanding of various phenomena even if this understanding cannot be immediately be translated for the public at large. On the other hand, we also have a duty to make the public appreciate the importance of publicly-funded research, in this case archaeology. This is made especially salient for archaeology due to the public appeal of archaeological research and the fact that it takes place 'in the real world', that is in space most people can access and occasionally even see as part of their lived landscape. In other words, archaeology can take place, quite literally, in your backyard, making this kind of research immediately engaging to contemporary people, at least on occasion. This is a far cry from most laboratory research where unquestionably important discoveries are made in contexts far removed from people's everyday reality.

While I think public education in archaeology and history is very important, I'm still open about whether this is best achieved through access to data, access to material, or access to sites. Access to data is a great thing, and potentially the easiest of the three to effect. However, archaeological data can take a very long time to analyze fully, resulting in delays in publication and therefore in public dissemination. Additionally, archaeological data are unlikely to be the easiest to digest for the untrained public, even a comparatively educated one.

Access to materials is perhaps the best way to make archaeology accessible and "tangible" to the public at large. The conservation and display of artifacts in museums is a tried, tested and true method of doing this, provided this is done well. Badly organized displays do very little to effectively carry across the importance/relevance of given archaeological collections.

Access to sites is much more tricky - visiting a site is unique manner of experiencing what 'doing archaeology' might be like, albeit very superficially. Visiting Paleolithic sites was certainly a formative experience for me, on at least one level. Visiting ruined cities, etc, also can give a sense that "people in the past" were a lot more like you and me than one might otherwise think, which is a good realization for anyone to have in an age of growing intolerance. However, while a one-off site visit may well convey the excitement of 'doing' archaeology, it transmits little to none of the tediousness that can characterize actual fieldwork, where you might be stuck working in the same square meter unit for days on end (see this post for more on this and another one by Kris Hirst). Personally, this was something I only learned when I finally got to do fieldwork, and that's coming from someone who loves being in the field – imagine what it must be like for people who don’t enjoy digging that much!

On top of that, as Rossi and Webb’s study demonstrates, unchecked tourist access can have serious impacts on the integrity of the archaeological deposits remaining at a site. This can be true of even extremely modest and highly controlled visit regimens, as the ongoing Lascaux crisis demonstrates. I’d surmise that even very large, very resilient sites (e.g., cities, temples, and the like) deal with very similar issues albeit perhaps at a different scale. Allowing the public to visit sites is thus fraught with conservation issues, but also a unique way of making people "experience archaeology" first-hand, resulting in a sort of tug-of-war over the value of making sites accessible to visitors. That said, I’m still not sure either is necessarily the best way to get across why archeology is important as opposed to simply being a cool thing to research.

References:

Rossi, Alana M., and R. Esmée Webb. 2008. The erosive effect of tourism at an Aboriginal rock art site on the western edge of the arid zone in south-western Australia. Antiquity 82 (315): http://www.antiquity.ac.uk/ProjGall/rossi/index.html.

AVRPI Coffee News: Starbucks to close... for three hours!

We care deeply about all things coffee here at A Very Remote Period Indeed. So this comes as very good news indeed:

Starbucks to close all stores for three hours.

In related news, yours truly to be seen dancing in the streets for those three hours! By all means, take that time to get to know your local coffee shop(s), if you don't already!

Spoken too soon? More Dmanisi news

I'm finally back from various unexpectedly lengthy pursuits south of the border, and now enjoying the light snow lightly caking everything in MTL, like so much powdered sugar on a delicious sfogliatella...

Two weeks ago I posted about a new study on the potential impact of volcanism on the accumulation of hominin remains at the Lower Pleistocene site of Dmanisi, Georgia. One of the appealing aspects of the conclusions of that study by de Lumley et al. (in press) is that it accounted for the presence of fully five distinct individuals at the site, since large accumulations of hominin remains at single localities tend to be rare.

The situation at Dmanisi may, however, be slightly more complex than this, suggest M. Calvo-Rathert and his colleagues, in a paper in Quaternary Research. They claim that, in fact, the individuals recovered at Dmanisi come from two distinct geological units. How distinct, you ask? Distinct enough that one (Unit A, the volcanogenic one) has normal magnetic polarity, while the other (Unit B, ) evidences reversed polarity. This, they infer, means that Unit B could be as young as 1.07 mya, while Unit A dates to 2.0-1.8 mya, which they interpret as meaning that the various hominins found at the site oculd have been deposited over a very span of time.

If the results from the present study are compared with the
geomagnetic polarity scale, and available radiometric data (1.8
to 2.0 Ma for the underlying lavas and the volcanic ash level)
are considered, the lower part of the section shows a clear
correlation with the Olduvai subchron (Fig. 1). If considered
reversed, the upper levels cannot be correlated with any specific
point and could be as young as 1.07 Ma (age of Jaramillo)
because the whole section is not continuous and so the smaller
events might not be recorded, even though the data set from this
study is composed of continuous subsections. If directions of
the upper-lying Unit B samples are considered intermediate,
those data might correspond to a polarity change between
Olduvai and any of the normal polarity subchrons shown,
although because of the reasons outlined before we do not favor
that interpretation.

Despite the morphologic differences observed between mandible
D2600 found in layer A1 and the remaining hominin
findings (Rightmire et al., 2006), different data sources (i.e.,
stratigraphic and sedimentological) suggest that the time frame
spanning the Dmanisi lithostratigraphic section is not long (e.g.,
Gabunia et al., 2001). On the other hand, human remains and
artifacts have been found in volcanic ashes (Unit A, normal
polarity), pipe features (reversed polarity) and Unit B (reversed
polarity), and the Olduvai/Matuyama reversal is not recorded in
the discontinuous sequence presented in this study. A conservative
analysis of these observations suggests that the age of the
Dmanisi site could at least span several ten thousands of years,
although a much wider period of hundreds of thousands of years
cannot be excluded. All this might point to more than one
human population occupying the studied area. (Calvo-Rathert et al. 2008: 96)

It therefore seems that the Dmanisi hominin sample might have accumulated under much less 'catastrophic' conditions that implied by de Lumley et al. (in press), and that some of the morphological variability in said sample might be due to the fact that it contains individuals belonging to distinct populations potentially separated in time by hundreds of thousand years.

References:

CALVORATHERT, M., GOGUITCHAICHVILI, A., SOLOGASHVILI, D., VILLALAIN, J., BOGALO, M., CARRANCHO, A., MAISSURADZE, G. (2008). New paleomagnetic data from the hominin bearing Dmanisi paleo-anthropologic site (southern Georgia, Caucasus). Quaternary Research, 69(1), 91-96. DOI: 10.1016/j.yqres.2007.09.001

DELUMLEY, M. (2008). Impact probable du volcanisme sur le décès des Hominidés de Dmanissi. Comptes Rendus Palevol DOI: 10.1016/j.crpv.2007.09.002

2008 Paleoanthropology Society Meeting preliminary program is available

The preliminary program of this year's Paleoanthropology Society meetings (March 25-26, 2008) is now available as a pdf. It looks like it will be another exceedingly interesting year to attend!

Can you feel the magic in the air?

Oooooh yeah - it's that day of the year again, and people are playful all over their blogs, living today to a slo-funk paleo soundtrack. You've got John Hawks talking about monkey (actually ape) love, Greg Laden talking about cookin' and matin', and Laelaps sending out cute Valendinos.

So, I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and post this archaeoromantic pic, for all you lovers (of the past) to enjoy... it's from a Neolithic site near Mantua, in Italy (where else!). I know, I know, the story's a year old, but it's just such a fine find, I can't help it!

Four Stone Heart #34...

... is up at Our Cultural World. You might just want to check out that pit-stop along the information superhighway if you dig your bloggin' anthropological.

Ups and downs in experimental archaeology

Have you ever wondered about just how glamorous the lifestyle associated with experimental archaeology can be? If so (and even if not!), you should head on over to The Real Eolith to find out a bit more about the (literally) gut-wrenching details of a recent experimental project on cut marks on decomposing fish remains conducted by L. Willis and M. Eren. Hold on to your stomachs!

Volcanism at Dmanisi

A paper in press by M.-A. de Lumley and colleagues suggests that the five Lower Pleistocene hominins recovered at Dmanisi, Georgia, entered the paleoanthropological record as the result of a volcanic eruption. Here's the abstract:

"The human remains unearthed at the Lower Pleistocene site of Dmanisi (Georgia), are numerous, well preserved and show no evidence of transportation or predation. They were discovered over a small surface and correspond to at least five Homo georgicus individuals, whose age at death is regularly distributed from the teenager to the elder over 40 years old. These characteristics evoke a family group who died suddenly. Granulometry and chemical analyses of ca. 30 volcanic tephra samples prove its unicity and its primary position. Since this tephra cannot correspond to a nuée ardente, it is probable that the Dmanisi Hominids were surprised and asphyxiated, 1 810 000 years ago, by volcanic ashfalls." (de Lumley et al., in press: 1)

Not impossible, I suppose, and it has the advantage of explaining why you find five relatively well-preserved hominins in direct association with volcanic ash. As far as where the eruption itself took place, the authors state, in the abridged English version of the article, that

"The volcanic ashes were sorted during aerial transportation from the emissive point, presumably located ca. 20 km west of Dmanisi (Emliki heights in the Džavacheti Mountains). From such a distance, the ashfall does not burn, but when inhaled, it mixes with naso-bucco-pharyngeal secretions and forms a mixture that provokes suffocation by obstruction of respiratory and digestive tubes...

"In Dmanisi, the concentration of Hominids in a depression may represent a search for shelter. The ashfall, cold hence non-mortal, could have allowed the Hominids to gather in a natural depression. Tephra inhalation, mixed with natural secretions, may have led to animal and human death by obstruction of respiratory
and digestive tubes." (de Lumley et al., in press: 4)

It'd be interesting to see whether the faunal assemblages at the site reflect a similar pattern, and whether the lithic assemblages differ from most contemporary ones by their more or less 'systemic' character (sensu Schiffer 1972). That is to say, whether the stone tools differ from archaeological assemblages comprising purposefully discarded items as opposed to representing an assemblage 'frozen in use' by a volcanic eruption.

References:

de Lumley, M.-A., J.-M. Bardintzeff, P. Bienvenu, J.-B. Bilcot, G. Flamenbaum, C. Guy, M. Jullien, H. de Lumley, J.-P. Nabot, C. Perrenoud, O. Provitina, and M. Tourasse. 2008. Impact probable du volcanisme sur le décès des Hominidés de Dmanissi/Probable volcanic impact on the death of the Dmanisi Hominids. Comptes Rendus Palevol: in press; doi:10.1016/j.crpv.2007.09.002

Schiffer, M. B. 1972. Archaeological context and systemic context. American Antiquity 37:156-165.

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Rock Art Radio!

Over at Archaeozoology, there's mention of a program on BBC radio entitled "The Drawings on the Wall" about rock art that will unfold in five episodes between February 3rd and March 2nd, 2008 (check out also Tim's take at Remote Central). You can listen to the broadcast after they've played live. I'm especially excited about the first episode which is all about the rock art at Creswell Crags (which I posted about a long while ago), a site in the UK where they found some Paleolithic incisions and near which they're planning to build a museum/interpretive center.

Quote of the day

"Moreover, because the academic payoff to finding exceptions to any rule is quite high, we can be confident that cases to the contrary have been reported." (S. Kuhn and M. Stiner. 2006. What's a Mother to Do? Current Anthropology 47: 955).

Updates and clean-ups

At long last, I've added a few new links to my blogroll, and cleaned up some links that were either defunct or that hadn't been updated in over three months. And if you have an archaeology/ancient stuff-related blog that you'd like to be featured on A Very Remote Period Indeed please feel free to contact me and I'll try to include it in there if it's pertinent. Check out all the blogs I'm now linking to, but if you want to catch a glimpse of the soul of archaeology as a vocation (and some very nice photos related to this endeavor), then by all mean check out Metin Eren's new blog, The Real Eolith (love that name!).

Update (Jan. 31, 22:11): Now with updated links!

"What's the other thing that scares you"?

"Carnies." (bonus points to anyone who id's the reference here).

Anyhoo, the latest Four Stone Hearth anthropology blog carnival extravaganza is up at Greg Laden's Blog. Make sure you visit and comment abundantly on the latest in anthropological blogging!

Neanderthals, Now in Color!

Debates over the symbolic behavior of Neanderthals have always been hampered by the unreliability of much of the evidence invoked in support of it. That is to say two things: 1) there are not very many artifacts that are suggestive of symbolic behavior; and 2) those that do exist are often plagued by ambiguity as to whether they are the result of purposeful Neanderthal action or the result of non-human factors.

Over the past few years, pigment use has been claimed to differentiate the symbolic capacity of Homo sapiens from those of Neanderthals, and as one of the defining elements of ‘modern behavior.’ This is partly why the discovery of pigment use – presumably by early Homo sapiens – dating back to 167 kya in South Africa was such big news this past fall (Marean et al. 2007). The basic idea here is that the purposeful collecting and shaping of blocks of coloring material is indicative of behavior in which colors were used to transmit socially-mediated information.

There is some convincing evidence that Neanderthals demonstrated symbolic behavior, especially in the latter moments of their evolutionary history (e.g., d’Errico 2003, d’Errico et al. 2003), but so far there has been little in the way of published work about their use of pigments prior to the Châtelperronian. A paper by Marie Soressi and Francesco d’Errico (2007 – available as a freely accessible pdf), however, presents very convincing evidence for that behavior at least by 60 kya (see also d’Errico and Soressi 2006). That study reviews the evidence for Neanderthal symbolic behavior as a whole, but it contains one section specifically dedicated to the question of identifying pigment use in European Middle Paleolithic assemblages, at least 70 of which have yielded blocks of coloring materials (mainly black-colored manganese dioxide) and/or tools involved in the processing of pigments such as grindstones and mortars (Soressi and d’Errico 2007:303).

The reason why this ongoing study is so convincing is that the authors used replicative referents that objectively establish the microscopic and rugosimetric features of blocks of coloring materials worked in different manners and with different tools. This provides an objective baseline against which to compare the characteristics of objects found in assemblages attributed to Neanderthals and to determine whether they bear evidence of having been purposefully manufactured by human action.

In the case of the specific study conducted by the authors – on the French Mousterian sites of Pech de l’Azé I and Pech de l’Azé IV, located about 80 meters apart – they created a series of experimental referents obtained through 13 kinds of modifications/uses, including scraping for powder with a flint object, abrading against various kinds of stone, coloring leather, and drawing body paintings (Soressi and d’Errico 2007:304). The preliminary results of their analysis show that 250+ blocks from Pech I and 20+ blocks from Pech IV appear to have been modified by Neanderthals:

“… of the Pech de l’Azé I blocks, over half were abraded on sandstone before being used on soft materials such as dried skin, or human skin. Neanderthals seem to have abraded the pigments on sandstone slabs that were also recovered during excavation so as to create elongated facets with strong coloring properties that could be used in the manner of a charcoal pencil to mark various materials, including human skin in the case of body painting. The blocks from Pech IV appear to have been used in largely similar manners. However, some pieces bear grooves resulting from scraping their surface with flakes or retouched tools. This indicates that, beyond using [manganese dioxide] in pencil form, Neanderthals also manufactured coloring powder used either as is, or more likely mixed to some binding agent. (Soressi and d’Errico 2007:306; my translation)

Since environmental condition and local manganese abundance appear to be comparable for the two sites, the authors interpret the disparity in the number of manganese pieces between Pech I and IV as resulting from contextual factors, suggesting that coloring was not equally important in all contexts or site-occupation modalities. Also, I especially like this section about what the use of coloring material might mean in terms of Neanderthal symbolic capacity:

“It would be hard to confirm a purely functional use [of coloring materials]; in fact, such a use would be nearly impossible to demonstrate if we consider the omnipresent nature of symbols in human societies. If the model provided by known foragers is extended to Neanderthals, the systematic use of pigments in a strong argument in favor of their capacity to develop symbolic cultural practices.” (Soressi and d’Errico 2007:306; my translation)

References:

d’Errico, F . 2003. The invisible frontier: A multiple-species model for the origin of behavioral modernity. Evolutionary Anthropology 12:188–202.

d’Errico, F., C. Henshilwood, G. Lawson, M. Vanhaeren, A.-M. Tillier, M. Soressi, F . Bresson, B. Maureille, A. Nowell, J. Lakarra, L. Backwell, and M. Julien. 2003. Archaeological evidence for the emergence of language, symbolism, and music: an alternative multidisciplinary perspective. Journal of World Prehistory 17:1–70.

d’Errico F., and M. Soressi, 2006 Des hommes en couleurs. Les Dossiers de la Recherche 24: 84-87.

Marean, C. W., M. Bar-Matthews, J. Bernatchez, E. Fisher, P. Goldberg, A. I. R. Herries, Z. Jacobs, A. Jerardino, P. Karkanas, T. Minichillo, P. J. Nilssen, E. Thompson, I. Watts, and H. M. Williams. 2007. Early human use of marine resources and pigment in South Africa during the Middle Pleistocene. Nature 449:905-908.

Soressi, M., and F. d’Errico. 2007. Pigments, gravures, parures: Les comportements symboliques controversées des Néandertaliens. In Les Néandertaliens. Biologie et cultures (B. Vandermeersch and B. Maureille, eds.), pp. 297-309. Editions du CTHS, Paris.

The Vasts

I had the very pleasant experience of attending a short concert by Montréal band The Vasts at l'Esco last night. The band, who describe themselves as Johnny Cash meets Portishead (!), have grown by leaps and bounds since I first saw them last fall, which bodes well indeed for them. They have a little EP out, if you like what you hear on their page, and this one too...

Ed Wilmsen lecture

The Dept. of Anthropology and the Center for Society, Technology and Development at McGill University are sponsoring a talk by Ed Wilmsen (UT - Austin), famous for his 198 book Land full of Flies: A Political Economy of the Kalahari, and for his spearheading in part the 'revisionist' side of the 'Kalahari Debate' over the past 25 years. This is an especially timely talk, since this very debate was discussed in my seminar last week (as discussed here).

Wilmsen will be talking about “Globalization before the globe: Regulation of intercontinental trade in southern Africa, ca. CE 700-1800.” Here's the abstract

In this paper, I engage a social geography in order to map the processes by which intercontinental trade was regulated in interior southern Africa during the 8th-15th centuries. This region was at that time part of an early form of "globalization" encompassing the entire Indo-Pacific province as well as the Islamic caliphates of the eastern Mediterranean. There are no written records for or from this interior region until the beginning of the 16th century when Portuguese captured the Swahili trading entrepôts on the east coast and began to penetrate into the interior. Other forms of evidence must be adduced to illuminate the social processes active in the interior in the centuries I am considering. Material artifacts are a prime source of evidence for this task, for, I contend, they have the same ontological status as words. Drawing on the works of Locke, Marx and Engels, Simmel, and Veblen I argue that, marked by distinct intentions of their makers and users, material artefacts are potentially as comprehensible as verbal documents. With these premises set forth, I turn to the scope of early Indo-Pacific commodity exchange, then to an overview of the southern African landscape, and finally to episodes of origin mythology widespread in the region. From this I specify certain minimum components of a structure of rights to possession of things, rules governing who may inherit specific things, rules governing movement of these things, rules governing who may handle them, and rules governing processes of their valuation.

It's open to everyone, so if you're in the Montreal area next week and are interested in those issues, you should definitely try to attend! The whole thing takes place Monday, January 28, 2008, (12:30-2:00PM), in Room 738 of the Leacock Building, McGill University.

NESPOS vid

NESPOS is one of the collaborating organizations on the Paleoanth Portal site, which I mentioned in a recent post. NESPOS stands for the Neanderthal Studies Professional Online System and is described thusly on the Paleoanth Portal:

NESPOS grew out of the TNT (The Neanderthal Tools) project, which ran from 2004-2005 and developed a database of information about Neanderthal-related sites, fossils and archaeological assemblages. Currently more than 500 CT-Scans and data from 50 Neanderthal sites are accessible; the data base is extended constantly. Members of NESPOS (an international professional society) receive access to CT & 3D surface scans of fossils and artifacts visualized in ArteCore and 3D terrain models and virtual excavation sites accessible with GeoCore, a GIS and exploration tool.

The NESPOS site is pretty slick - well done, and the demo files give a good impression of the versatility of some of the 3D models of bones they have available. It certainly look like a worthwhile organization to join if you're interested in Neanderthal studies.

Also on the site is this promotional video, just to whet your appetite until you get yourself there.

I like the vid quite a bit, and it gives a fly-thru (literally!) of some of the data and models they've got available. Though, with The Who providing the soundtrack and the flying in and out of things, I couldn't help but to think.... CSI: Neanderthal!! I was almost expecting the inimitable David Caruso to pop up at the end and deliver a gag-inducing one-liner about "dead-ends"!

Science on TV: Shubin @ Pharyngula

You just might enjoy this little interview on the Colbert Report earlier this week, with Neil Shubin talking about his new book Your Inner Fish.

If you did, you also just might enjoy reading this guest post by Neil Shubin on Pharyngula. He talks about how he prepped for the interview experience, and I think that he has some really thoughtful suggestions on how to present scientific research in ways that are likely to engage non-scientist audiences.

Time for a carnival!

Four Stone Hearth XXXII is up at Testimony of the Spade. Magnus did a bang-up job putting together a diverse set of entries - check 'em all out, but I especially enjoyed Kambiz's (Anthropology.net) take on what some recent functions of Google and Facebook might have to contribute to the development of paleoanthropology, in so far as the sharing and dissemination of data are concerned. While the link is not immediately obvious, when you realize that Delson et al. (2007) published a short paper summarizing the highlights of a recent conference held in Washington, D.C. about access to data in paleoanthropology as a discipline, it all starts making sense! If this interests you, you should also definitely check out the Paleoanth Portal website that resulted from that meeting.

Reference:
Delson, E., W. E. H. Harcourt-Smith, S. R. Frost, and C. A. Norris. 2007. Databases, Data Access, and Data Sharing in Paleoanthropology: First Steps. Evolutionary Anthropology 16;161-163.

Recent research pertaining to the 'Kalahari Debate'

We were talking about the 'Kalahari Debate' and its unfolding over the past 20-25 years, yesterday in my hunter-gatherer seminar. Basically, it boils down to whether one considers some Kalahari Bushmen (I'm aware of the debate over the name here, just using this one for convenience) to be 'true' hunter-gatherers or to have been forced into a hunting-gathering subsistence by the geopolitics of the region as they unfolded over the past centuries.

There's an interesting paper by Alan Barnard (available as a freely downloadable pdf on the Social Anthropology journal web site) that summarizes the debate up to now, and inserts it in the broader debate over the notion of 'indigenous peoples,' as recently rekindled by Kuper (2003). The paper's pretty comprehensive in its historical coverage and does a nice job of situating the various debates in their intellectual contexts. Here's the abstract:

The debate on the notion of ‘indigenous peoples’ is one of the newest facing anthropology. Yet its theoretical foundation is not new. It is implicit in both Kalahari revisionism and its opposite, the ecological approach that treats hunter-gatherers as exemplars of primal culture. It is also reminiscent of the earlier views of Wilhelm Schmidt, whose vision of the earliest culture circle was represented by living hunter-gatherers. That said, the notion of ‘indigenous peoples’ is more complex than earlier models; and its opponents, such as Adam Kuper, must struggle against both philosophical premises (which are relatively easy to challenge) and practical arguments in favour of keeping the notion (which are more resilient). This paper focuses on the ‘indigenous peoples’ debate in Africanist anthropology, but its wider aspects include the interconnections of theoretical premises within diverse schools in the discipline and the general relation between anthropological theory and practical politics. (Barnard 2006)

Focusing more narrowly on recent research dealing specifically with the 'Kalahari Debate', there's also a paper by Victor Grauer in the latest issue of the online journal Before Farming. Therein, he argues that genetics and musicology, two lines of evidence that haven't been used much if at all so far in this debate, independently seem to favor the 'traditionalist' perspective. Here's the abstract of that paper:

While the ‘Great Kalahari Debate’ hinged almost exclusively on the interpretation of sparse and confusing archaeological and historical data, abundant and convincing genetic evidence from the realm of biological anthropology has been largely ignored, while equally compelling cultural evidence drawn from the musical traditions of the populations in question has been overlooked entirely. In this paper, I attempt to demonstrate how genetic and musicological research can be combined to provide a compelling case for the ‘traditionalist’ position in this ongoing controversy. To this end, I draw upon an important but little known musical ‘genome’, the Cantometric database, compiled under the direction of the late Alan Lomax, at the Columbia University Bureau of Applied Social Research. (Grauer 2007)

I'm all for multiple lines of evidence informing anthropological research, so this paper certainly seems to be an innovative contribution to this ongoing, long-standing debate.

References:

Barnard, A. 2006. Kalahari revisionism, Vienna , and the “indigenous peoples” debate'. Social Anthropology / Anthropologie sociale 14: 1-16.

Grauer, V. A. 2007. New perspectives on the Kalahari debate: a tale of two 'genomes.' Before Farming 2007/2-4.

Kruper, A. The return of the native. Current Anthropology 44: 389–402.

Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology Back-Links, Set 4

From August 2007:

"Some sort of proto-human": comments on a paper on archaeological research at Misliya Cave, Israel, which indicates that early Middle Paleolithic foragers were fully competent large-game hunters.

Stone Age Atlantis!: a few thoughts on reports about the discovery of an underwater Mesolithic site.

Long distance raw material procurement in the Mousterian: summary and comments on a paper that reports on the transfer of stone over several hundred kms in the Mousterian of southeastern France.

Reporting archaeology in Harper's

Kris Hirst discusses a long essay by Gregory Jaynes in the latest issue of Harper's which focuses in part on the politics of an archaeological project, and she argues that the worst curse an archaeologist might have to endure is the presence of a journalist on site. While some might expect field archaeology to be similar to what's described in some dispatches from The Onion Hirst points that out that

"...most principal investigators (PI is what they call us) are frustrated, angry, worried people all the time during an excavation.

But for the rest of the people on the crew, and any tourists or journalists who happen by, archaeology is incredibly dull. The work is painfully slow, the climate and dirt inescapable, the people tired and cranky. Any real exciting finds these days are very rare indeed and can take place under a microscope months or even years after the excavation is done.

It's clear what happened to Jaynes. He came into an important excavation and hung around, bored out of his skull. He eavesdropped on the only exciting thing going on: the frustration of a PI being expressed to his superior."

I haven't read Jaynes' piece yet, though I'm now planning to stop by the newsstand on my way home and picking it up to see for myself. I'm of mixed mind after having read Hirst's post, though... While I agree with her that journalists will seize on the most dramatic aspects of archaeology to write about (in this case, field frustration), one has to wonder about whether it is ever a good idea to have a journalist on site for more than the time of a site tour and interview, and why? I assume that most archaeologists obviously want their project and research to gain as much public exposure as possible, and that often requires having journalists come visit a field site. However, it seems intuitive to me that having someone doing 'participant observation' on your project for a prolonged period of time will result in all aspects of your project getting more attention than they would have otherwise. On the other hand, many people say that any publicity is good publicity... mixed blessings, I guess.

Kids did the darndest things

Over at Afarensis, we find a brief discussion of a recent paper about the contribution of children to the Lower and Middle Paleolithic archaeological record (i.e., Stapert 2007 – available as a free pdf). Afarensis seems to agree with Stapert that there has been a generalized tendency to not think of children as important accumulators of artifacts – in this case stone implements – in periods prior to the Upper Paleolithic, which is a euphemism for “prior to the dominance of Homo sapiens in the fossil record.” Stapert’s paper is really quite thought-provoking and casts a new and in my view fairly convincing interpretive light on a wide range of published anecdotal remarks about ‘failed flints’ in Lower and Middle Paleolithic (as well as two Châtelperronian) assemblages.

I think that people are starting to come to grips with the idea of pre-Late Pleistocene kids contributing to the archaeological record (e.g., Shea 2006), even if this growing awareness has yet to translate into a systematic incorporation of children’s activities and learning in paleoanthropological interpretation. In spite of this, it’s worth wondering why archaeologists who have studied hominins that were the quintessential hunter-gatherers have taken so long to come to grips with the idea that their social structure and technological transmission mechanisms might parallel those of ethnographically-documented foragers. To take an example based on a prior post, if Neanderthals had life-histories comparable to those of modern humans, there is every reason to believe that the acquisition of essential skills for Upper and Middle Paleolithic foragers would have stretched over a significant period of time. The starting assumption should therefore be that children were important accumulators of likely often ‘odd looking’ archaeological remains.

Stapert highlights that researchers seem to have little problem invoking the activities of children to account for roughshod lithics in Upper Paleolithic assemblages but do not appear inclined to do so for Lower and Middle Paleolithic assemblages. As argued by Shea (2006:214):

“One possible reason for this is that for relatively simple knapping techniques there may be few differences between the byproducts of experienced adults and those of novice knappers. This argument is plausible for pebble-core components of Paleolithic industries, but seems less plausible for the prepared- core components (Acheulean bifaces, Levallois cores, prismatic blade cores, and foliate bifaces) that populate Paleolithic industries from 1.7 Myr onward.”

This being the case, Staper asks bluntly but rightly “is it harder to imagine children and their activities when one is dealing with species other than modern humans?” (2007:35).

I would argue that this is almost certainly one of the principal reasons since, to follow up on my earlier example, by not considering the role of Neanderthal children in interpretations of the Middle Paleolithic record, it becomes easier to cast those hominins as different. To a degree, this perspective is reflected by the following kind of circular reasoning: “Well, Neanderthal children surely didn’t play a significant role in the accumulation of that sub/species’ archaeological record. Therefore what we document archaeologically reflects adult, fully competent Neanderthal behavior. But that behavior departs in significant ways from how we expect fully competent, adult Homo sapiens knappers to structure their lithic production and lithotype management. Ergo, we have yet more evidence that Neanderthals were behaviorally distinct from Homo sapiens.”

And here, I think we get to at least some of the heart of the matter – paleoanthropologists as a whole have invested a great deal of time and energy in trying to show how pre-Homo sapiens hominins were distinct from Upper Paleolithic humans rather than attempting to understand them primarily as foraging hominins who were very successful at eking out a living in the Pleistocene Old World. While there are obviously good reasons to do so in certain regards, approaching Neanderthals and earlier hominins first and foremost as foragers independent of preconceptions of how different they must have been is often a very rewarding way of doing archaeology that opens up fruitful interpretive avenues. Of course, one must be careful to not swing the pendulum too far in that direction and become oblivious to the differences that do exist. However, at this stage of the game, I think that the advantages of a self-aware approach to Neanderthals that views them first and foremost as hunter-gatherers outweigh its disadvantages as far as reaching a thorough understanding of the lifeways of non-sapiens hominins – both adult and juvenile – is concerned.

References:

Shea, J. J. 2006. Child’s play: Reflections on the invisibility of children in the Paleolithic record. Evolutionary Anthropology 15: 212-216.

Stapert, D. 2007. Neanderthal children and their flints. Palarch’s Journal of Archaeology of Northwestern Europe 1(2): 16-39.

Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology Back-Links, Set 3

How modern are the hobbit's tools?: A discussion of how refined the technology reportedly associated with H. floresiensis truly is.

Shell-working and behavioral modernity: A critical assessment on whether working different raw materials in different ways necessarily implies 'behavioral modernity'.

Clean-toothed Neanderthals: on some of the implications of new evidence for dental hygiene in the Middle Paleolithic of Europe and the linguistic capacities of Neanderthals.

Of cave bear carnivory and istope studies

John Hawks offers some thoughtful remarks on the conclusions of a new isotope study that claims to establish that at least some cave bears (in this case, those found at Pestera cu Oase) were quite carnivorous. He cautions that there is at least one alternative explanation - fish consumption - that could equally account for the high ratios of nitrogen-15 in those cave bear remains, so that the case for substantial predation on land mammals might not be fully warranted. This is an interesting take on the issue, especially considering the conclusions of recent isotopic studies of Neanderthals and Gravettian Homo sapiens.

Update (Jan. 8, 07; 17:34): Read more about the discovery on Science Daily and in the press release from the University of Bristol.

Northern nuts

As Martin reports at Aardvarchaeology, it would appear that some Canadian creationists are not satisfied with advocating their nonsense within the bounds of their country alone. Sigh.

Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology Back-Links, Set 2

From October 2007:

The size of one's package: discussion about a report on the identification of 'modern human behavior' 160-170 kya in coastal South Africa.

Newsflash! Neanderrthals could build stuff!: some comments on new evidence for the construction of elaborate windbreak structures by Neanderthals in France.

New insights on raw material use: an overview of two recent papers (Eerkens et al. [2007], Wilson [2007]) on the procurement and management of lithic raw material by different groups of hunter-gatherers.

Another update on Lascaux Cave

Last month, I posted on some of the preservation problems at Lascaux that surfaced in some newspapers. Here's a new report that suggests that the intervention against the fungus is now in full swing:

The French government is taking emergency action to rescue the celebrated cave paintings of the Lascaux caverns from a fungus.

Archeological experts have begun applying a fungicide to halt the spread of grey and black mould in the caverns, dubbed the Sistine Chapel of prehistory.

There's still no agreement on what caused the 'outbreak' but the report suggests that the ventilation system may be the most likely culprit.

It's great action has been take so promptly. Unfortunately, there's also a scientific cost:

One of the projects to be halted by the emergency treatment is a survey that was to make a three-dimensional digital record of every painting in the caverns.

Hunter-Gatherer Archaeology Back-Links, Set 1

From November 2007:

Fighting the tyranny of the ethnographic record!: Some comments on a paper by R. L. Lyman.

Mammoth hunters of the Russian Far-East: Report of the discovery of a mammoth hunting camp in Russia.

The modern Stone Age family: Neanderthals and the sexual division of labor among H. sapiens hunter-gatherers.

2008

Well, I've dug myself from under 20+ cms of snow and managed to get to a working internet connection (booooooooh Cooptel!) and here's to starting off this new year on the good foot!

During the next few months, the contents of this blog will shift ever so slightly to include a broader range of hunter-gatherer archaeology than usual , since it'll be used (I hope) as a resource for the student in my ANTH 419B class, aptly named "Archaeology of Hunter-Gatherers". I'll gradually link back to prior posts dealing with H/G archaeology, and list new and relatively recent sources dealing with that topic. So, if you're a student, welcome and feel free to roam around the archives; if you're a regular reader, welcome back; and if you're just stumbling here by chance, look around and see if you like anything. However you got here, feel free to comment on the posts or contact me with questions. I'll be more diligent about getting to the comments this year (here's a resolution worth keeping).

Happy New Year to all!