Anthropology.net

In 1999, hunters looking for sheep stumbled upon the remains of a man in Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, British Columbia, Canada. The man was found at the foot of a glacier. After reporting the discovery, a team of archaeologists and forensic anthropologists worked with the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations to recover the remains. His affiliation wasn’t really well known.

Several months later, carbon dating on the hat and robe found on the man was completed. The remains of the man, named Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi, was calculated to be at least 340 years old. The closer interval of Kwaday was calculated to be 160 years old. That puts his death somewhere between 1670 and 1850 AD. Because many of these indigenous people in modern day Yukon and Alaska practice an oral tradition, this date didn’t help figure out which tribe Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi belongs too.

Since 1999, not much was heard from Kwaday. But, a symposium dedicated to Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi just wrapped up this weekend in Victoria. All sorts of research has been done on Kwaday, such as analysis of the clothing, tools associated, migratory patterns, even the contents of his stomach. People shared their studies at this symposium. The most interesting research shared was an analysis of the genealogy of Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi.

The genealogy was constructed by sampling some DNA from Kwaday’s remains. The results linked Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi to 17 living people. 15 of these people self-identify with the Wolf Clan, meaning the young man was may have been a member of the Wolf Clam as well. I don’t know which genetic loci was screened, I’m guessing a basic STR marker screen, the ones used in criminology, was done. I’d like to know what was done, because the thoroughness and robusticity of the test greatly effect the results. So does the comparison pool. Who were the outgroups? And how many people was the DNA compared too?

The news article reporting this doesn’t drop names about who did this study. A shame really, the author, Murray Langdon, discusses the ethics of working on and with Native Americans, but no mention was made to who did the genetic study. If you’re out there, mystery researcher, please comment and let us know how you analyzed and compared Kwaday Dän Ts’inchi ancestry.

Last month’s annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society hosted a talk by Amanda Henry, a graduate student at George Washington University. She analyzed the microfossils of plant material found in the dental plaque on Neandertal teeth from Shanidar, Iraq.

What is dental plaque? Much to the chargin of dentists out there, the composition and origin of dental plaque isn’t known to most. We may know it simply as something we work so diligently every morning and evening to brush away. Plaques are a type of biofilm. Bioflims are an amalgamation of microorganisms, who excrete a goo to protect themselves and allow them to stick together. Inside this gooey microecosystem, these crafty microorganisms also trap food particles to use as energy sources for themselves. If left untreated on teeth, these plagues of microorganisms grow and the amount of anaerobic respiration increases reciprocally. One of the byproducts of anaerobic respiration are acids which consequently demineralize adjacent tooth surface, and form cavities. That’s why you should brush and floss twice a day.

In September of last year, I shared news of how Neandertals may have also been aware of their dental hygiene. We saw how they may have used toothpicks. But, they didn’t have Sonicare toothbrushes and dental hygenists scraping away plaques every six months. Inevitably, some plaques persisted and in the teeth of a 35,000 year old Neandertal (Shanidar III). Amanda Henry was able to recover plant material. Henry gets into a discussion on how this showed evidence that Neandertals ate plants.

Not too novel, but definitely important to finally confirm. Much like the conclusion that Neandertals were mobile, plant consumption among them is one of those things we knew was most likely the case. How? Based upon the dental anatomy and morphology of the teeth, we knew they had very robust molars to grind down plant materials. Comparison to extant apes, like chimpanzees and humans, confers that Neandertals may have also been omnivorous. Furthermore, the results of a 2006 Science paper, an isotopic analysis of hominid teeth revealed that hominids ate a variety of foods.

I was gonna get into a discussion on how this one finding doesn’t mean all Neandertals died without brushing after a nice yummy salad meal. Nor does it elucidate how many times this Shanny-3 ate his greens. But, Henry acknowledges that and cautions that Shanidar III is only one fossil and does not provide enough evidence to make conclusive statements about the entirety of the Neandertal diet. I commend her on that. Even with this disclaimer, Matt Sponheimer, lead author of the 2006 isotopic analysis still wanted to have the last word, rehashing that,

“…[this study] does not indicate whether an individual Neandertal ate plants once or a thousand times.

It also doesn’t show the relative proportions of a food type in the individual’s diet.

“Thus it is but one flawed technique of paleodietary reconstruction among many,” he said.”

While we consider Matt’s critiques, let’s also consider one I thought of — The most simple explanation of the presence of plant material in plaques on the teeth means that this Neandertal chewed plants. Without an isotopic comparison of the recovered plant material to Shanidar 3′s teeth, we don’t know if this guy was really digesting the plant. Maybe Amanda Henry is looking into that…

One last thing, if Shanidar 3 really was eating plants, did his foot injury have anything to do with this? See, Shanidar III has a degenerative joint disorder in his foot. That woulda caused a lot of pain and limited his mobility. Would that have anything to do with why he was chewing on sedentary food sources?

Trinkaus, E. (1982). The Shanidar 3 Neandertal. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 57(1), 37-60. DOI: 10.1002/ajpa.1330570107

Sponheimer, M., Passey, B.H., de Ruiter, D.J., Guatelli-Steinberg, D., Cerling, T.E., Lee-Thorp, J.A. (2006). Isotopic Evidence for Dietary Variability in the Early Hominin Paranthropus robustus. Science, 314(5801), 980-982. DOI: 10.1126/science.1133827