Anthropology.net

Although only the abstract to this paper is free to access, this story has received extensive coverage elsewhere over the past few days, and is of particular interest because there is apparently a strong case for suggesting that Neanderthals  may have been consigned to extinction from around 40,000 bp when their numbers dwindled at first before speeding fast into terminal decline.  (AMH had arrived in Europe some time after 50,000 bp and by 40,000 bp were presumably around in sufficient numbers to possibly cause what has been described elsewhere as ‘extinction by competitive exclusion‘.) This is because recent research suggests that Neanderthals never attained the population density necessary to ensure their survival over the long term in the face of competition for resources, in part mitigated by climate swings evidenced by the waxing and waning of glacial events during the Neanderthals’ 200,000 – 300,000 year long sojourn in Palaeolithic Eurasia.

Here’s the abstract:

Analysis of Neandertal DNA holds great potential for investigating the population history of this group of hominins, but progress has been limited due to the rarity of samples and damaged state of the DNA. We present a method of targeted ancient DNA sequence retrieval that greatly reduces sample destruction and sequencing demands and use this method to reconstruct the complete mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) genomes of five Neandertals from across their geographic range. We find that mtDNA genetic diversity in Neandertals that lived 38,000 to 70,000 years ago was approximately one-third of that in contemporary modern humans. Together with analyses of mtDNA protein evolution, these data suggest that the long-term effective population size of Neandertals was smaller than that of modern humans and extant great apes.

This paper is commented upon extensively at the Spittoon, where AnneH notes that a more efficient and accurate method of sampling ancient DNA (aDNA), using a method by the name of Primer Extension Capture (PEC) was deployed. This allowed the authors of this study to analyse 5 Neanderthals, as described here:

This new study, also led by Max Planck Institute scientists, centers around a novel method for finding and extracting that elusive aDNA from Neanderthal remains. The study took advantage of a new kind of aDNA extraction process, called Primer Extension Capture (PEC). This technique has many advantages over the others, primarily because it allows the aDNA to be completely isolated from all the other molecular junk  that can accumulate over time.

This yields highly accurate results with much less effort. So instead of simply using this technique on one Neanderthal individual, they analyzed five.  The remains they chose had been excavated from a variety of locations, from Croatia to Germany to Spain and Russia.  Most of the remains were between 35,000 and 40,000 years old, which is very close to when Neanderthals were believed to have disappeared from most of their range.  They also examined Neanderthal remains from Russia that dated to between 60,000 and 70,000 years old.

After successfully extracting and analyzing the DNA of these remains, the researchers came to a few startling conclusions.  First, the level of genetic diversity among the samples was exceedingly low.  In fact, the amount of genetic diversity of the Neanderthal samples was less than one-third the diversity we see in modern humans today. For example, two of the samples — one from Croatia and the other from Germany — had identical mtDNA genomes. For two individuals living nearly 1,000 miles apart, this is quite unusual; unless there wasn’t much variation in mtDNA in the first place.

The authors of this report think this genetic homogeneity means that there were far fewer Neanderthals living in Europe and western Asia than they’d previously thought. Based on their analysis of the five individuals, the they estimated that the total population size of Neanderthals in Europe 35,000 years ago may have had as few as 3,500 females (because mtDNA is passed down maternally, it cannot be used to estimate male population size).

I’m not sure what the figure of 3,500 female Neanderthals at 35,000 bp implies for the total population, but assuming a roughly equal number of males, and say around 3,000 juveniles, a population numbering around 10,000 might not be too far off the mark.

Of course, the question of population density throughout the various eras of the Upper Palaeolithic, from the Aurignacian to the Magdalenian, is currently open, and on that note I’d like to point readers towards Leherensuge, where Luis has compiled a lengthy and detailed post, ‘How Many People Lived in Paleolithic Europe?, addressing this very problem.

image from National Geographic article : DNA-Based Neanderthal Face Unveiled

References:

1. Targeted Retrieval and Analysis of Five Neandertal mtDNA Genomes by Adrian W. Briggs, Jeffrey M. Good, Richard E. Green, Johannes Krause, Tomislav Maricic, Udo Stenzel, Carles Lalueza-Fox, Pavao Rudan, Dejana Brajkovic, Zeljko Kucan, Ivan Gusic, Ralf Schmitz, Vladimir B. Doronichev, Liubov V. Golovanova, Marco de la Rasilla, Javier Fortea, Antonio Rosas, Svante Pääbo

Science 17 July 2009: Vol. 325. no. 5938, pp. 318 – 321 DOI: 10.1126/science.1174462

2. Neanderthal Extinction by Competitive Exclusion by William E. Banks, Francesco d’Errico, A. Townsend Peterson, Masa Kageyama, Adriana Sima, Maria-Fernanda Sánchez-Goñi

PLoS ONE 3(12): e3972. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003972

There has been a revelation this week concerning the tattoos that were found on the preserved flesh of Ötzi, whose mummified body was found lying high in an Alpine pass back in 1991. Although these 57 tattoos caught the attention of researchers  many years ago, with suggestions that many of the chosen locations on his body indicated they may have had a similar purpose to modern-day acupuncture, it is only through recent analysis that the actual components of the tattoo material have been determined.

The research is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, by Maria Anna Pabst et al, for which this is the abstract:

The Tyrolean iceman, a 5300-year-old mummy, presents tattoos on different parts of his body. Skin samples of several line tattoos and a cross tattoo were investigated by optical microscopy and various electron microscopy techniques (TEM, EFETEM, EELS, EDXS, electron diffraction). The epidermis of the investigated skin areas was mostly lacking. The tattooing particles are distributed in the connective tissue and could be identified as soot. In some areas between the soot particles, different silicate crystals are present such as almandine and quartz, along with some not exactly definable crystals. The crystals possibly derived from stones of the fireplace from which the soot was taken for tattooing.

Additionally, in the medial part of the right leg, putative ash particles were seen in the tattooed area. Furthermore, in non-tattooed skin areas, a vivianite crystal and small grains of CaPO4 and nearby Fe, P and O could be detected, these having formed most probably after the death of the Tyrolean Iceman during his long period in the mountains. On the surface of two leg specimens, a small layer with brown granules was visible by means of optical microscopy, and these were identified as melanin granules in the stratum basale of the epidermis.

Although soot was the main component, the presence of almandine and quartz crystals may have been intentional, as they added a glittering effect to the soot, although it’s also possible that these silicate crystals were accidental inclusions, coming from stones used in the hearth from where the soot was sourced.

According to Professor Pabst, the tattoos may well have been administered using a thorn – although presumably a bone needle would equally have sufficed, maybe one that was incised or engraved, if there was an element of ritual in the application involved. The designs of the tattoos appear largely to have been in the guise of series of parallel lines, in combinations of single, double and up to  a maximum of seven – and on one knee, a cross was also found. Moreover, the fact that the majority of these tattoos would have been hidden by clothing suggests that they were not primarily for display purposes, thus strengthening the theory that a pragmatic motive was at work.

But although there is evidence that Ötzi was in his early 40s and suffering from a variety of illnesses including arthritis and an aching stomach, for which acupuncture treatments are common, there is nothing to indicate exactly how old he was when the tattoos were etched into his flesh – or whether they were associated with a rite of passage, as can be observed in modern tribes (see Discovery video on linked page), or deeds he had accomplished. For example, some modern-day urban gang members in places like Compton, Los Angeles, bear striking ink designs specifically because they have achieved some task deemed worthy of marking, during the course of a career that is by necessity, violent, fractious and confrontational.

But despite the fact that Ötzi died a violent death under mysterious circumstances, and it’s not inconceivable that he had upset someone in a position of power to the extent that they felt it necessary to eliminate him, ostensibly there is nothing about his tattoos to suggest they may have identified him as a member of a specific group or clan of people. Instead, a consensus of opinion holds that his tattoos were therapeutic, such was their strategic placement on disparate areas of his body and limbs. And unlike a gang member from our world, Ötzi’s chief ailments during his later years appear to have been self-inflicted pathologies like arthritis, rather than stab wounds, broken bones or scars.

Back in 2007, the Smithsonian ran a piece, ‘Tattoos – The Ancient and Mysterious History’, which begins by saying that prior to the discovery of Ötzi, the oldest known tattoos on bodies came from the mummies of Egyptian women who had lived around 4,000 years ago, a good 1,300 years later than the Tyrolean man discussed here. Again, there is no conclusive evidence to suggest exactly why only women from this era bore tattoos, but it has been suggested that these too may have been therapeutic, perhaps as an aid to the travails of giving birth.

Early evidence we have of humans wearing tattoos that may have been mainly intended for display purposes comes from the Tarim Basin, located in modern day China, and which dates to about 3,000 years ago, the best example being that of Cherchen Man, whose face was adorned with striking yellow and purple patterns. Although upon their first discovery it was thought that he and many of the mummies found in the region were European, more recent genetic analysis indicates that the Tarim Basin was populated by people who had travelled in from many directions, as we see from this brief video clip.

As is noted, this area may have been a type of cultural cross-roads, where people from distant lands with different technologies and ideas would not only have exchanged their knowledge, but their genes as well. The question as to how it was that acupuncture appears in Europe long before it does in China might not have an immediate solution, but it can be no coincidence that with places like the Tarim Basin, ideas such as tattoos and therapeutic medical treatment could certainly have passed through such cultural hubs. Of course the question with Ötzi is whether acupuncture originated in Europe and was transported East to China, where the first acupuncture is known from around 3,000 years ago, or whether it originated (unseen in the archaeological record)  in China before 5,300 years ago, and was transmitted to Europe, via somewhere like the Tarim Basin. (for a fuller account of the general story, this PBS documentary is probably worth watching, (though I haven’t yet had the time.) For all we know acupuncture may have had an unknown centre of origin, spreading independently to Europe and China at different times, although how far back into prehistory that may have been can only be speculated upon.

There are some quite good online visual resources for anyone wishing to study Ötzi further; for example the Südtiroler Archäologiemuseum in Bolzano, northern Italy, has a series of excellent high resolution images which can be examined in detail, and New Scientist carries a selection of these – some are shown as captured in white light and ultraviolet.

There’s a photoscan of the entire body from the same museum, whilst down in Madrid, an exhibition is just getting under way, whereby the public can view not only a replica of the mummy, but replicas of the entire assemblage of items and possessions that were found nearby. You’ll need to visit the Museo Arqueológico Regional in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid between now and November 22nd, 2009 to catch the exhibition, ‘Ötzi, el Hombre que Vino del Hielo’, and if I get time it’s possible I’ll be tempted to drop by, not least because the rest of the museum is supposed to be pretty good in its own right.

image: copyright South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology / Eurac / Marco Samadelli / Gregor Staschitz)

Reference: The Tattoos of the Tyrolean Iceman: a Light Microscopical, Ultrastructural and Element Analytical Study by M.A. Pabst, I. Letofsky-Papst, E. Bock, M. Moser L. Dorfer, E. Egarter-Viglf and F. Hofer

Journal of Archaeological Science Article in Press, Corrected Proof

doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.06.016

Over the past three years, a book comprising what are considered the best science posts of the year is published, and the selection process for this year’s edition is already in progress, with 210 entries already submitted, as we see from Coturnix at A Blog Around the Clock:

Here are the submissions for OpenLab 2009 to date. As we have surpassed 210 entries, all of them, as well as the “submit” buttons and codes and the bookmarklet, are under the fold. You can buy the 2006, 2007 and 2008 editions at Lulu.com. Please use the submission form to add more of your and other people’s posts (remember that we are looking for original poems, art, cartoons and comics, as well as essays).

As is clear from the assembled list of posts, there’s a wide ranging mix of content from science bloggers hailing from a multitude of disciplines, all of whose posts were published between 12-01-08 and 12-01-09. The purpose of this most recent post is to remind bloggers to check their own archives for material they consider appropriate for this year’s edition, and having done that to read other bloggers’ work from the same year, and submit suggestions accordingly…

Then, spread the word around the Web about this – point people to the submission form from wherever you think is appropriate: your blog, twitter, Facebook, various forums, etc. Let other science bloggers know about this -the more the merrier.

And to make submitting even easier, there’s a even a handy bookmarklet you can drag to your toolbar, allowing you to simply click open the submission form which opens in a separate window; moreover, it’s permissible to submit multiple entries from different sites and blogs, which makes the bookmarklet a very useful tool if you happen to come across something, rather than having to navigate directly to the submissions web-page.

Thus far I haven’t been able to establish the deadline date, but suffice it to say, the sooner submissions are sent the better. It’s also worth bearing in mind that because these entries will be published in print, posts which contain loads of links, images multimedia like videos etc, might not be as suitable as a more conventional essay, for example.

Potential contributors are reminded that it’s only possible to have entries considered by using the dedicated submission form.

Here’s a post from Neuroanthropology, from where Greg Downey recently hosted the outstanding Australiana edition of Four Stone Hearth, and today I want to point readers to another post from the same site, where Daniel Lende is the other main contributor.

He has compiled a list of 10 ways in which anthropologists can interact with and contribute to the real world that exists beyond the classroom and associated halls of academia. As is apparent from the video posted below, which describes the work that Lende and his students have undertaken to communicate with various groups of the public, including HIV/AIDS patients and Viet Nam veterans suffering from post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), there are practicable and achievable ways of bringing together disparate groups of people by organising and motivating interested individuals and institutions, that can be of great benefit to all concerned. Here’s the video, made by the Center For Social Concerns, via the related media section at OAC:

I’ve mentioned the Open Anthropology Cooperative before, but in case you hadn’t got round to checking out the vast range of people, fields of interest and opportunities to contribute content, here’s the link to their main page.

Center For Social Concerns

Open Anthropology Cooperative

News from Gough’s Cave in Cheddar Gorge, where Britain’s earliest inhabitants following the Last Glacial Maximum are rumoured to have holed up; the paper is in press, (behind a paywall) via Quaternary Science Reviews.

Abstract:

Gough’s Cave is still Britain’s most significant Later Upper Palaeolithic site. New ultrafiltered radiocarbon determinations on bone change our understanding of its occupation, by demonstrating that this lasted for only a very short span of time, at the beginning of the Lateglacial Interstadial (Greenland Interstadial 1 (GI-1: Bølling and Allerød)).

The application of Bayesian modelling to the radiocarbon dates from this, and other sites from the period in southwest England, suggests that re-colonization after the Last Glacial Maximum took place only after 14,700 cal BP, and is, therefore, more recent than that of the Paris Basin and the Belgian Ardennes.

On their own, the radiocarbon determinations cannot tell us whether re-colonization was synchronous with, just prior to, or after, Lateglacial warming. Isotopic studies of humanly-modified mammalian tooth enamel may be one way forward.

Paul Rincon for BBC News adds the following, in his article ‘Cave Record of Britain’s Pioneers’:

Interest in the site was stimulated by the discovery in 1903 of “Cheddar Man”, the complete skeleton of a male individual dating to about 9,000 years ago (after calibration this comes to about 10,000 calendar years).  In the 1980s, excavations uncovered accumulations of human and animal bones and artefacts that appeared to be much older even than Cheddar Man. The discoveries caused a sensation when it was realised many human remains bore a pattern of cut marks compatible with cannibalism.

However, researchers were perplexed by the radiocarbon dating results. Although the remains seemed to represent a single occupation level in the sediments, the remains appeared to be a thousand years different in age.

“We had these apparently cannibalised human bones and artefacts and animal remains with signs of butchery. They all looked like they should be part of a consistent population pattern,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London’s Natural History Museum.

“Even some re-fits of bones which seemed to be from the same individual were giving different ages.”  Since those tests were carried out, there have been significant advances in radiocarbon dating technology, particularly to reduce contamination in the samples. This allows more accurate dating of archaeological materials.  When the bones were sent to be re-tested at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, the remains fell into a much narrower age range, converging on 14,700 years ago.  The latest results were a much better fit with the archaeological findings. Members of the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain (AHOB) project now think the bones from Gough’s Cave could have accumulated over just two or three human generations.

I’m not sure whether the other faunal remains found were in sufficient quantity to suggest that either there was plenty of food for these post-glacial humans to hunt, or whether like Atapuerca, any implied cannibalism was motivated by gastronomic considerations.

In other related news, the CBA announces the start of the 2009 Festival of British Archaeology this weekend, and to coincide there is a presentation from BBC Radio 4′s Open Country programme, namely ‘Doggerland’:

Helen Mark explores a land lost beneath the waves off the Northumbrian coast.  ‘Doggerland’ is the name for a huge area that, ten thousand years ago, before the end of the last Ice Age, linked the British Isles with Denmark and Northern Germany, a time when the Thames was a tributary of the Rhine. Besides speaking to archaeologists who are investigating Doggerland, she is joined by the storyteller Hugh Lupton who imagines the myths of those long-lost hunter-gatherers.

1. Sat 18 Jul 2009 : 06:07  (BST)

2. Thu 23 Jul 2009   15:02 (BST)

I reported recently on the Neanderthal fossil remains dredged from the North Sea, so this offering from BBC Radio 4 should be well worth the listen.

image ‘Inside Gough’s Cave’ via Britain’s Past

Reference: The early Lateglacial re-colonization of Britain: new radiocarbon evidence from Gough’s Cave, southwest England by R.M. Jacobi and T.F.G. Higham, doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2009.03.006

Here are a couple of stories that concern endangered wildlife in North America, with one detailing the extermination of wolves, which is due to begin in earnest, and the other about the round-up of thousands of wild mustang, a situation that seems to be threatening their continued existence, or at the very least, their well-being  and right to a normal life.

The first story is an appeal posted on behalf of Frances Beinecke, President Natural Resources Defense Council over at Blogosophia, which opens with this:

The hunting and mass killing of wolves will begin soon in Idaho and Montana — and not even wolf pups and their mothers will be spared.  We cannot stand by while this slaughter unfolds. On May 4, the Interior Department stripped wolves of their federal protection, and government agents are now free to open fire.

Even worse: Idaho and Montana will soon launch public hunts targeting wolves. Hundreds of wolves could be gunned down.  When wolves lost their federal protection in 2008, 110 of them were killed in just 120 days!  NRDC is fighting in federal court to save the wolves, but it’s critically important the Obama Administration hear directly from outraged Americans like you.

I don’t really know the background to this story, or why the Interior Department has decided on this course of action – is this a much debated issue in the US ? – perhaps readers of this blog will be able to offer further insight. But I can’t imagine that wolves pose much of a serious threat to humans, unless there’s a risk of widespread rabies infection, but I do know that it has been reported from the US and elsewhere over hundreds of years at least, that there have often been hysterical and unfounded fears and purges of wolves, who for the most part, almost never attack humans. And unless they’re posing a serious threat to other mammal or faunal species, there doesn’t seem to be a logical reason for inviting a trigger-happy, gun-toting public to go on a wild shooting spree in the wilds.

The linked article goes on to add:

NRDC is fighting in federal court to save the wolves, but it’s critically important the Obama Administration hear directly from outraged Americans like you.

That’s why NRDC is expanding “The Big Howl” campaign to mobilize Americans everywhere to save wolves in the Northern Rockies from the crossfire.

Please tell the Obama Administration to call off the guns.

Call on Interior Secretary Salazar to reverse his decision to kick wolves off the endangered species list.

This is absolutely the wrong time to rip away federal protections from these struggling wolves. Over the past year, the wolf population in Yellowstone National Park has declined by 27 percent, with more than 70 percent of wolf pups succumbing to disease.

One pack alone lost all 24 of its pups!

With federal protections lifted, wolf pups and their mothers traveling outside national parks will be in the line of fire.

Because you have always stood up for wildlife, I’m contacting you now to take part in “The Big Howl” campaign.

On now to the equally mysterious news that has gradually filtered through to me over recent months, whereby tens of thousands of wild mustangs in the US have been rounded up by government officials and held in makeshift reservations, with somewhat darker revelations that many are losing their lives as a direct result.

Back in 2006, the Boston Globe ran a story, ‘Last Roundup for Wild Horses’, which begins thus:

PEOPLE KEEP comparing George W. Bush to Richard Nixon. But that’s wrong.

In 2005, President Bush signed legislation that will destroy our greatest icon — the wild horse. In 1971, President Nixon signed legislation protecting it. This was the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burro Act, a hard-fought bill brought to lawmakers by ”Wild Horse Annie,” a Nevada character who saw blood spilling from a truck hauling mustangs to the slaughterhouse, then dropped everything and spent the rest of her life trying to save them.

Now those trucks are revving their engines again. Starting on March 10, 7,200 wild horses in government pipelines will begin to make their way to the three horse slaughterhouses in this country — which are owned by France and Belgium.

In 1900, about 2 million wild horses roamed the West. By 1950, there were 50,000. Today, there are about 25,000 — perhaps spelling doom for the mustang. What happened? World War I, the pet food industry, and cattle ranchers, who contend that the remaining wild horses steal food from 3 million cows on the range. In the old days, they hired contractors to gun down mustangs and bring them the ears. Today, Big Beef still hires guns — politicians who set policy for the Bureau of Land Management, the agency that presided over a recent fixed grazing study yet is supposed to protect the wild horse. Now, the animal America rode in on is facing its meanest battle…

…”Wild horses and burros merit man’s protection historically,” Nixon said, ”for they are a living link with the days of the conquistadors, through the heroic times of the western Indians and pioneers, to our own day when the tonic of wilderness seems all too scarce. More than that, they merit it as a matter of ecological right — as anyone knows who has ever stood awed at the indomitable spirit and sheer energy of a mustang running free.”

Two fairly obvious thoughts occur; the first is that although larger mammals might need a broad landscape on which to survive, it’s not as if the US is short of open space, and there should be ample room for wildlife and agriculture to exist together. Furthermore, I wonder exactly how it has come to be that federal government has the final say as to which wild animal species should be exterminated at their behest, and worse, that there is apparently no organisation at a national or international level that can effectively contest or veto such excesses.

As far as I can tell, there is no prospect of an improvement for the harassed wild mustang population, and as with the wolves, I can’t imagine what possible harm they could be causing to human or beast that would warrant this bizarre persecution. It could be thought of as ironic that the horse is a creature that unwittingly played a key role in the extermination of countless thousands of indigenous Americans at the hands of invading Europeans, only to find itself under threat from the very descendants of those who overran the entire continent.

On a slightly/greatly less relevant note, I’d even suggest that in a situation where nations are guzzling untold amounts of fossil fuels that will inevitably run out, and motorised transport might one day be a thing of the past, keeping aside a plentiful supply of horses might be a prudent way of ensuring that humans won’t have to walk everywhere in a future world when no other means of transport are available. A similar thought crossed my mind when watching a recent Archaeology Channel video, in which the demise of the sailing ship as an instrument of trade was detailed – it might have disappeared for now, in the face of competition from iron ships running errands on fossil fuels – but give it a hundred, maybe two hundred years, and who knows, people might then be riding their horses down to the docks to greet the sailing ships ferrying in goods from afar – with not a remaining drop of oil, puff of gas or lump of coal to be had for love nor money.

These linked stories of wolves and wild mustangs might not have an immediately anthropological perspective, but where humankind embarks on the wanton destruction of any aspect of the environment, that once gone, can never be replaced, it’s worth asking what, if anything, the field of anthropology can do to draw on its knowledge of extinction events in the past to persuade modern-day policy makers and corporations that it’s actually in our own interests to ensure that where possible, our wildlife is allowed to thrive rather than merely survive piecemeal in parcels of land lacking adequate resources or protection.

Although this current and 71st edition of Four Stone Hearth looks a fine and mighty beast to behold, I’m not going to have time tonight to read through it, and thus it is with apologies to readers here and Greg Downey at Neuroanthropology.net who put this massive Australiana edition together, that I’ll leave commenting on any of the specific posts until I’ve read them all. Plan A* is to post this quick advisory here and now, and remark further over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, please feel free to head on over to Neuroanthropology.net and immerse yourself in the shimmering array of anthro blogging  that is 4SH #71.  Should you feel inclined to add a link from your own site or blog, leave a comment or even just casually mention 4SH to a complete stranger, go right ahead.

(*There is no Plan B as yet, nor do I have any plans for making one.)

In something of a break from recent video tradition, The Archaeology Channel have produced an audio interview, Desert Days with Dr. Fred Wendorf,  Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory Emeritus, Southern Methodist University (SMU), hosted by Rick Pettigrew, founder and President of Archaeological Legacy Institute. Here’s the show description:

Dr. Fred Wendorf came of age and began his career during a formative period in American archaeology. But after leaving his permanent mark on the development of archaeology in the American Southwest and the United States, he essentially founded the study of the prehistoric eastern Sahara, beginning with the Aswan Dam Project in the Nile River Valley. His life, nearly ended by a bullet on a WWII battlefield in Italy, has included an archaeological research career spanning six decades and an unsurpassed record of seminal contributions. His recently published book, Desert Days: My Life as a Field Archaeologist, is a record not only of a life, but of an epoch in the history of archaeology on two continents. This is history he not just witnessed, but to a significant degree he created it through his innovative approaches and endless energy, which should serve as an inspiration to subsequent generations of archaeologists.

Dr. Richard Pettigrew of ALI interviewed Dr. Wendorf for The Archaeology Channel on two separate occasions, first in person at the Society for American Archaeology Conference in Atlanta on April 24, 2009, and then over the telephone on June 9, 2009. Guided by Dr. Wendorf’s book, this interview covers a wide array of topics, including his role in the creation of the first truly large contract archaeology projects in the United States, his momentous and very fruitful decision to launch a field expedition in the Nile River Valley against the wishes and advice of others, and the contributions of his research toward the understanding of human cultural development. Personal anecdotes combine with long considered assessments to paint a genuine picture of his life and career and the era they have spanned.

As will be apparent from this link, it was Dr. Wendorf and his colleague Romuald Schild who were the first to discover Nabta Playa, back in 1994, a site  familiar to many, especially because of the Neolithic stone circle, a great surprise given its geographical location in the southern reaches of modern-day Egypt. The site is interesting because it is said to span from 8,500 BP when it’s thought the inhabitants were pastoralists tending sheep and goats, whose Middle Neolithic descendants went on to practice agriculture and the building of megalithic structures. Indeed it was sites such as this that reinforced the idea that ritual activities became more complex over thousands of years as agricultural people began to settle into sedentary lives, and found themselves with ample time to engage in erecting monumental structures related to their spiritual beliefs – until the discovery at Göbekli Tepe, where it emerged that stone monuments and circles erected around 12,000 years ago, actually preceded full-scale or or widespread agriculture.

There aren’t many archaeologists around today who can claim 60 years service in the field, much of which has been spent in the desert regions of the Sahara, and yet who can still find the time to write 30 books and numerous journal articles – I’m still listening as I write this, so on this occasion I’ll refrain from commenting further for now, other than to recommend setting aside an hour or so to sit back and listen to Dr. Wendorf’s interview in its entirety, as he recounts some of the many fascinating anecdotes of his field experiences.

Podcasts from the University of Oxford

Over the past few days I’ve been listening to  a few new podcasts, and this series of eight lectures from Linacre College, Oxford, was one of the best I found, so here’s a quick round up – for the sake of brevity, I won’t write up each episode in detail, but I would recommend listening to every lecture. Each one is good as a single topic, but there are themes and threads which bind the whole together, all of which should be of relevance or interest to readers here. To locate these on the linked page, you need to scroll about 90% down – it’s also easy to subscribe to the podcast via iTunes U.

This Anthropology: Societies in Transition series, comprising 8 podcasts, each lasting on average between 50 and 60 minutes, discusses specific points or eras from prehistory to the present, as well as looking towards the future, in which each lecturer examines past societies undergoing transitory phases. Although it could be argued that all societies are in a constant state of flux, with technological or cultural stasis being almost impossible to achieve, it is clear that some transitory eras are much more influential than others, whether that society is in a phase of expansion or contraction. Beginning with the Neanderthals at the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic boundary, and ending with a look at how the future is nearly always portrayed from a utopian or catastrophic perspective, this series of lectures both describes the processes and causes of social transition, as well as offering some very surprising and occasional alternative insights that dispute c0mmonly held conceptions of the past.

I’ve listed the lectures in order of chronology, whereby the most distant era in prehistory is discussed first, leading us on through the times of our archaic ancestors, the Classical world including that of the Roman Empire, on into the Industrial Revolution and ending with a glance towards our uncertain future, heading this way at an accelerated clip.

The first lecture given by Professor Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum, is called ‘The Neanderthal-Modern Human Transition’, and provides the listener with a very rounded discussion on the origins of Neanderthals and the history of their initial discovery. He further relates how modern research techniques have greatly enhanced the capabilities of anthropologists and other researchers to examine this lost species in greater detail than would have been considered possible 30 or 40 years ago. The discussion on the possible causes of their extinction addresses just about every idea that’s currently on the table, and emphasises the point that there was no single killer-cause that expedited Neanderthal extinction, indicating that it was a combination of different factors that were in play for tens of thousands of years. I particularly liked the tiny section describing the additional fossil fragments in the Neander Valley, where the original find was made in the 19th century. Workers had been tossing anything they found in caves prior to quarrying activities, and the original Neanderthal bones were spotted after they had been thrown to the ground from above – two archaeologists returned there in recent times, worked out where the previously found bones would have been deposited, and found a couple of missing fragments for their troubles.

Lecture 2, Farming in Island Southeast Asia by Professor Graeme Barker, Disney Professor of Archaeology, Cambridge University in which he “talks about the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to farming societies in the Stone Age in South East Asian Islands. He discusses the various reasons why this transition took place and the advantages it brought to people”.

The third lecture, from Professor David Killick, Department of Anthropology, University of Arizona,  is Early Metallurgy Around the World, for which this is the description: “Professor David Killick talks about the invention of metallurgy and the transition from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age and what the social roles of emerging metallurgy were and adoption of metallurgy had the same meaning in societies throughout the world”

Next to take the stage was Professor Stuart Manning, Goldwin-Smith Professor of Classical Archaeology, Cornell University, whose lecture “Volcanogenic Origins of the Classical World” discusses “the origins of the classical world: from the growth of Minoan Crete during the Bronze Age, 2000 BCE, where a possible volcanic eruption on Santorini led to the destruction of Minoan Crete and a catalyst to the creation of the Classical world.”

The next two travel to Britain, in the times immediately prior to and after the Roman occupation which began in 43 AD, and which I found to be the most interesting. I don’t normally give the Roman empire much consideration in the course of my various blogging activities, but the two lectures listed below were not only fascinating to behold, but served to highlight how quite complex societies can evolve over hundreds or thousands of years, yet still be vulnerable to irreversible collapse over very short periods of time.

In “Becoming Roman in Britain” Professor Chris Gosden, Professor of European Archaeology, Oxford University gives an excellent talk on the nature and structure of societies in the Bronze Age and Iron Age, the latter of which was in evidence at the time of the successful Roman invasion of 43 AD. Here’s the description: Britain under Roman rule and the incorporation of Britain into the Roman world. Gosden also talks about the significance of our environment, the outside, material world, and how it influences historical events in ancient history. Interesting to note that the Bronze Age people concentrated more on quantity and standardisation of manufactured goods, whereas Iron Age fabrications were fewer and more idiosyncratic.

The most puzzling lecture, “The End Of Roman Civilisation” from Dr Bryan Ward-Perkins, Trinity College, University of Oxford, documents the sudden and complete collapse of a sophisticated market economy that had been thriving for centuries until about the middle of the fifth century AD, when Roman influence in Britain came to an abrupt end. Not only did turned pottery cease to be made, but use of coinage effectively stopped, whilst even stone buildings fell into complete disrepair. The vacant stone buildings were not utilised by the native British, and in some cases, pulled down and replaced with wooden constructions. He goes so far as to suggest that in these centuries, Britain returned to an almost prehistoric state which had been in evidence many centuries before the Roman incursion – and it wasn’t until around 700 AD that coin use became commonplace once more. However, long after the Romans had departed, he suggests that there was still some pride associated with Rome, as there are more monumental inscriptions in Latin from this era than for the occupation itself, especially in Wales – which I found quite surprising.

Definitely my favourite episode, not because I have a morbid fascination  with collapse and decline, but the image of post-Roman Britain lying in stately ruins is compelling. Moreover, the dramatic changes in Britain were much more defined than other parts of the Roman empire which experienced a slower and more gradual decline, and it’s something of a mystery as to what caused the catastrophe in Britain, as well as what was going on in the unrecorded Britain of the the 5th and 6th centuries. Dr. Ward-Perkins surmises that Britain didn’t recover economically till the 10th or 11th centuries AD, but he suggests that there was at least some cultural continuity, because the ancient Brits withstood the invading Anglo Saxons longer than anyone else in the lands formerly under Roman rule.

Also included are references to the Portable Antiquities Scheme, an excellent resource whereby people  – especially metal detectorists – can report their finds to a local PAS representative, who logs the information, thereby giving a much clearer idea of previously poorly understood sites and phases of the past.

Industrial Transformation with Professor Marylyn Palmer, Professor of Industrial Archaeology, School of Archaeology and Ancient History, University of Leicester, postulates there was an earlier industrial revolution which is suggested to have taken place before the 19th century phase with which we are more familiar. She also examines the idea that the transition from foraging to agriculture was equal in stature to that of the mechanised Industrial Revolution.

The final lecture, Technology and Transition in the 21st Century given by Professor Steve Rayner, James Martin Professor of Science and Civilisation, Said Business School, in which he discusses how “society in the 21st century the impacts of science and technology, particularly cyber-technology and the Internet. He also asks how the new technology will change society and what it means to be a person. As mentioned earlier, he notes how the future is addressed from the philosophical perspective that all is not well with our current world, and that the future will either be a great improvement or significant downturn for both the planet and our descendants.

Societies In Transition – Linacre College, Oxford

image from Computer Science for Fun

This is a quick heads-up for US television viewers with access to the Discovery Channel – airing tomorrow night, Thursday July 16th at 9 pm ET/PT is a programme in honour of the Apollo Moon landings, the first of which took place no less than 40 years ago this week. The focus of this programme ‘Are We Alone?’ is described thus by Discovery:

The 2-hour program seeks answers to the profound age-old question of whether alien life exists within our universe.

The program is narrated by Gentry Lee, the chief engineer of the Solar System Exploration Directorate at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. As you undoubtedly know, Lee managed the extremely challenging but successful NASA Mars rover programs.  He was also involved in the Viking and Galileo space missions, co-authored science fiction works with Arthur Clarke, and collaborated with his friend Carl Sagan on the award-winning public television series, Cosmos.

Surprisingly, the answer revealed by ARE WE ALONE? is there are several planets that could already harbor alien life, such as Mars, and those that possess conditions similar to ancient Earth that could evolve biological life forms similar to those on our 4-billion year old planet.  We know this both from several unmanned space missions, the Hubble Telescope, and also revolutionary advances in our scientific understanding of the universe – and our own planet – that occurred after the Apollo 11 mission.

For a sneak preview, just visit this link to a 2-minute video clip, where we encounter NASA astrobiologist Chris McKay in California’s Death Valley, as he searches for clues in the dessicated landscape as to what type of lifeforms might be able to survive in such a harsh environment, where not a drop of water is available. Comparison is made with the current environment on Mars, where water ice has been detected, and with every indication that that the Red Planet may once have had oceans, lakes and rivers on its surface, prerequisites for complex life as we know it. Meanwhile, new research just published, indicates that the planet Venus, described as Earth’s evil twin, may too have harboured water, a surprising observation indeed when we consider its greater proximity to the Sun – whether this means there could also have been life on Venus is probably too early to say.

But the putative presence of water on at least 3 major planets  – and quite possibly on one or more moons  – in our own solar system offers the possibility that the habitable zones around stars may be greater than thought, although of course there is still no way of predicting whether life at the microbial level is more likely to occur than more complex, sentient life that exists here on Earth.

I can’t offer a review of the programme itself as I haven’t seen it, although I might be able to add a review later this week or next, but if the video clip with Chris McKay is a yardstick, this should be very well worth watching – McKay is a renowned astrobiologist, and this interview in September 2008 provides an insight into his past research and current thinking – here’s a brief snippet from the introduction:

McKay is now a planetary scientist at Ames researching the evolution of the solar system as well as the origin of life. He’s been involved in planning Mars missions including the 2009 Mars Science Lander. He’s an authority on Titan (Saturn’s moon) and was co-investigator on the Titan Huygen 2005 probe. McKay is also Program Scientist for NASA’s Robotic Lunar Exploration Program.  He says he does his best thinking in extreme Mars-type environments –the Arctic, Antarctic, Siberia and Chilean desert. In 1994, The Planetary Society honored him with the Thomas O. Paine Memorial Award for the Advancement of Human Exploration of Mars.

McKay now serves on the board of directors of The Planetary Society and on the editorial boards of Astrobiology journal as well as Planetary and Space Science journal. He studied physics and astrophyics as an undergraduate and has a Ph.D. in AstroGeophysics from the University of Colorado.  Chris McKay is author / editor of several books, among these: Case for Mars II, Comets and the Origin and Evolution of Life, Earth’s Climate, From Antarctica to Outer Space: Life in Isolation and Confinement.

Exploration of our planet is a behaviour that has defined human culture and technology for at least the last 2 million years, as our archaic ancestors  Homo erectus gradually began to spread out across Africa and Eurasia, and although it might be argued that these early migrations were mitigated solely by the hunt for food and shelter, I think that an element of exploratory curiosity on the part of our forebears may on occasion have motivated people since at least the Lower Palaeolithic.

With the exception of the Apollo lunar landings between 1969 and 1972, humankind’s exploration of space, stars and other worlds has been largely confined to robotic and observational means, and if we do detect alien life, it seems more likely that our machines rather than our physical selves will be the first to establish contact. But knowing where to look for signs of life is a very important step along the way to detection, and I imagine that ‘Are We Alone’ will provide viewers with a very good idea of exactly how that search will be conducted in coming years and decades.

Another topically related video, shown in the UK a few years back, that can be found online is “What We Still Don’t Know: “Are We Real?”, which I’ve discussed previously and elsewhere, and is certainly worth watching if you’re unable to catch the Discovery Channel in the US on Thursday night.

Of further interest might be the ‘Are We Alone Podcast’ hosted weekly by Seth Shostak of the Seti Institute.