Anthropology and Archaeology: Year In Review 1999



Physical Anthropology

In 1999 paleoanthropological publications presented new fossil data that might necessitate the rewriting of standard textbook interpretations of hominid evolution. From Portugal came skeletal evidence for Neanderthal–modern human hybridization, while Ethiopian excavations revealed physical and cultural remains of a possible new human ancestor, Australopithecus garhi.

The spectacular Portuguese specimen, known as Lagar Velho I, was an almost complete skeleton of an approximately four-year-old child, who, despite having been buried in typical Upper Paleolithic fashion with red ochre decoration and a pierced shell, displayed a mosaic of modern and Neanderthal skeletal traits. The burial was dated at between 24,000 and 25,000 years ago, at least 5,000 years after the supposed extinction of the Neanderthals. Advanced human morphological traits included a well-developed bony chin, modern proportional tooth dimensions, and specific features of the mandibular ramus, radius, and pubic bones. On the other hand, the child’s body proportions were characterized by a large trunk, powerful chest and shoulder musculature, short but extremely robust leg bones, and a greatly reduced tibia-femur length ratio. This forms a “hyperactic” pattern exhibited by all known European Neanderthals but not by the early modern human colonizers of Europe, who all had subtropical body proportions. Even the child’s prominent modern chin was hafted onto a receding mandibular symphysis, a Neanderthal trait, rather than jutting forward as in other early modern specimens. The controversial explanation by the authors of the original report for the mixture of modern and archaic traits seen in the child invoked long-term interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals. This inference implies that this specimen was not the result of a rare or singular interbreeding event but rather was the descendant of an extensively admixed population. The implications of this conjecture, if correct, for understanding the course of human evolution, included: (1) hypotheses of complete replacement of archaic populations by modern humans dispersing from Africa without interbreeding between residents and colonists would be refuted; (2) Neanderthal genetic material may still exist in our gene pool; and (3) separate species status for the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) would be inappropriate.

Since 1996 the Bouri Peninsula in Ethiopia had yielded a series of significant discoveries pertinent to the transition between the australopithecines and the genus Homo. Reports by a multinational team proposed a new taxonomic group based on a partial cranium, discussed the postcranial remains of different individuals, and presented the strongest evidence to date that hominids used stone tools to butcher large mammalian carcasses as far back as 2.5 million years ago. Although few stone tools were recovered at the Bouri sites, there were roughly contemporaneous and extremely rich tool deposits at Gona, only 96 km (61 mi) to the north. Unambiguous striations and other cut marks produced by stone tools were found on antelope and horse bones at Bouri, and long bones were consistently broken open, presumably to extract marrow. As was true for Gona, the identity of the toolmakers remained unknown at Bouri; however, the contemporary skeletal remains of the newly named A. garhi occurred nearby in the same beds as the butchered mammals. Thus, this taxonomic group may well have been responsible for the crucial dietary shift toward increased eating of meat and thereby may have paved the way for the emergence of Homo in eastern Africa.

The Bouri cranial remains differed from previously identified hominid species. The reconstructed face was apelike in the protrusion of the upper jaw region, whereas certain dental features resembled early Homo. The large palate and teeth implied that the specimen was male; however, its braincase was relatively small (about 450 cc [27.5 cu in]). Although the molars were huge, the total craniodental pattern clearly differed from all known robust australopithecines. This partial cranium formed the holotype (single type-specimen) for the new species A. garhi.

The previously discovered postcranial bones came from the same stratigraphic layer as the cranium. Because they were not directly associated with the holotype, they had not as yet been placed in the A. garhi taxon. On the basis of extrapolations from limb bone measurements, it was determined that one of these ancient hominids was about 1.4 m (4 ft 6 in) tall, with long legs and long, apelike forearms. This combination of limb features led to the conclusion that in human evolution legs lengthened before the forearms shortened.

In addition to the paper on the Bouri cranium, a number of other reports criticized recent cladistic analyses of the hominid fossil record. Cladistics is a systematic approach to reconstructing evolutionary history that relies exclusively on an analysis of the number and distribution of shared, derived characteristics to determine taxonomic relationships. For instance, a systematic review of criteria for membership in the genus Homo led to a proposed revision of this taxon. Researchers concluded that a genus must be both monophyletic (a group of species consisting of a common ancestor and all its descendants) and adaptively coherent. When applied to the genus Homo, these criteria necessitated the removal of the earliest and morphologically primitive African members (Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis) and their reassignment to the genus Australopithecus. According to this revised classification, the genus Homo first appeared in the fossil record approximately 1.9 million years ago with the emergence of Homo ergaster (or early African Homo erectus). In a similar vein, inclusion of functional explanations and adaptive considerations in the reanalysis of the robust australopithecine face led to cautioning against the uncritical application of cladistic methods and principles. The important lesson was that following the tenets of mainstream cladistics without taking development and adaptation into account can lead to significant distortions when assessing taxonomic relationships.

Cultural Anthropology

Cultural anthropology, the only social science traditionally dedicated to describing and understanding the diversities and commonalities of human culture and society, remained a discipline in creative ferment during 1999. Ethnographers, those who describe culture, continued searching for more effective data-collection methods as they struggled to determine the most productive sources of information. Many debated the relative merits of direct fieldwork observations over written or other records. Others wondered whether traditional tribal peoples or modern urban societies represented the most fruitful subjects of study. Many ethnologists, those dedicated to analyzing culture, for their part, continued to search for more meaningful ways to interpret ethnographic findings. Others struggled to determine whether the theories and methods of science or the humanities held the greatest promise for understanding culture. All cultural anthropologists continued to ponder whether they best served as neutral detached observers or as politically engaged activists in a world facing unprecedented population growth, resource depletion, environmental degradation, and the threatened extinction of ancient tribal cultures.

One such threat was reported by Argentine anthropologist Miguel Ángel Palermo—the death of Virginia Choinquitel, regarded as the last Ona Indian of unmixed ancestry, in the community of Río Grande, Tierra del Fuego, Arg., on June 2. On the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal, 50 of the 300 people of the Jarawa tribe were felled by measles and pneumonia. The diseases, especially lethal in newly exposed populations, had been contracted during visits beyond the borders of their 700-sq km (270-sq mi) reserve to share new foods and watch television with outsiders. Pointing out that similar contacts had resulted in an epidemic that had killed all but 35 of 5,000 Great Andamanese people on a nearby island in 1977, ethnographer Kanchan Mukhopadhya of the Anthropological Survey of India called on local authorities to abandon policies to bring the Jarawas into closer contact with outsiders.

On October 12 a team of scientists at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., published a report announcing that the world population had reached the six billion mark. Noting that the number of people would double in less than 50 years if the present rate of population increase did not diminish, the report warned that life would be miserable for everyone in the year 2100 if people did not control population and adopt sustainable resource management policies. In Paris the Musée de l’Homme examined the causes and consequences of unrestrained population growth in “Six Billion Human Beings,” an exhibit and interactive World Wide Web site.

Other anthropological sites on the Web proliferated dramatically in 1999, offering everything from databases, department descriptions, discussion groups, and course syllabus postings to interactive games, video files, and information clearinghouses. Several sites stood out among the many thousands. Anthropology in the News ( by the department of anthropology at Texas A&M University at College Station provided indexes and links to news items of anthropological interest from other sites. Leading an international team of anthropologists from France, Norway, South Korea, and the United States, Cornell ethnologist John Borneman and media artist Linda Fisher created Death of the Father: An Anthropology of the Ends of Political Authority ( Site visitors were given opportunities to explore how the deaths and funerary treatments of Benito Mussolini and five other 20th-century authoritarian leaders-cum-father figures provided anthropological insights into their societies and regimes for both students and specialists. A highly interactive Web site primarily directed toward students, it deftly integrated a substantial body of explanatory text, images, maps, chronologies, and key concepts within a broad holistic framework.

Ethnologist Bradd Shore of Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., reviewed the status of holism, the basic anthropological precept holding that biological, social, psychological, and other factors should be examined together to understand both individual cultures and the human capacity for culture in general, in a commentary published in the December 1999 issue of Anthropology News. Shore suggested that two contending forms of holism dominated anthropological discourse. He termed the first eliminative holism, after its practitioners’ tendency “to overstand rather than understand the world” by using one theoretical viewpoint to eliminate competing perspectives to explain everything.

Shore termed the opposing tendency to incorporate all voices and perspectives black holism, after the gravitational forces generated by massive dead stars so powerful that not even light can escape. Seeing in this signs that anthropology had entered what he called its “anecdotage,” Shore voiced concern that “kaleidoscopic representation of multiple perspectives, endless voices. . .became not the means of an understanding of things, but an end in itself.” He likened this form of holism to a type of household pest trap in which “everything checks in, but not much checks out.”

Shore proposed that his colleagues deal with the shortcomings of these approaches by renewing their efforts to revitalize interdisciplinary integrative holism. Long practiced by many practitioners in fields as diverse as political anthropology and medical anthropology, this integrative holism permitted investigators to more clearly view the findings of diverse disciplines through what Shore called “the lens of cultural variation.” Shore expressed the hope that by providing a genuinely integrative framework acknowledging both the complexities of the real world and the limits of knowledge, anthropology could regain its position as a bridge linking all students of humanity.


Eastern Hemisphere

It was a banner year in 1999 for Old World archaeology. In Italy 11well-preserved Roman ships—the largest group of ancient vessels ever found in one place—were discovered by chance during construction at Pisa’s San Rossore train station in what had once been the city’s harbour. The ships were dated to between the 2nd century bc, when Pisa served as a Republican naval base, and the 5th century ad, the end of the Roman Empire. Among the ship remains were Iberian and Corsican ceramics, glassware, rope, and Punic incense burners. During excavations in the Forum of Caesar in Rome, four circular tombs that dated to the end of the 7th or early 6th century bc were found. A letter-sized bronze tablet bearing 32 lines of text written in ancient Etruscan, originally found in Cortona in 1992, was unveiled by archaeologists. The 2,300-year-old document, known as the Tabula Cortonensis, appeared to be a contract, possibly a real-estate agreement. Epigraphers were particularly delighted that the lengthy text, which added 27 “new” words to a known Etruscan vocabulary of about 500 words, contained several grammatical constructions and verbs, the conjugations of which had been unclear until the find.

Two Celtic chariot tombs dating to 300 bc were uncovered during runway construction at the Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris. One belonged to a warrior armed with an iron sword with sheath and a lance and buried in a chariot pulled by two horses. A second tomb nearby contained the personal effects of a weaponless occupant, a chariot decorated with bronze appliqués, and a finely wrought round plate. Eight other tombs from the same era were also found.

Twelve horses sacrificed 2,500 years ago and buried in full ceremonial regalia, including gold-leafed saddles, red saddle blankets, and numerous gilded ornaments, were unearthed in a Scythian kurgan near the village of Berel in Kazakstan’s Bukhtarma Valley. The horses were found frozen and well preserved, lying side by side on a bed of birch bark near a funerary chamber containing the pillaged graves of two nobles.

A rich Scythian-Sarmatian burial site dating to the early 3rd century bc was discovered near the town of Ipatovo in southern Russia. The grave contained the remains of a woman along with gold necklets and spiral bracelets, anakinakes (dagger) in a gold-covered scabbard, and local and imported ceramic vessels. Her chamber lay within a 7-m (23-ft)-tall barrow, which dated from the Early Bronze Age (3rd millennium bc). Like many such mounds in southern Russia, it was reused numerous times for secondary burials.

Analysis by French National Museum scientists of unused pigment found in the Troubat Cave in the Pyrenees of southeastern France revealed that Ice Age artists were the first to create artificial colours to decorate their caves. Yellow goethite and red hematite, both iron oxides, appeared to have been heated to change their colour before they were applied to the walls 10,000 years ago.

Broken and cut human bones found scattered about three hearths in Moula-Guercy, a cave overlooking the Rhône River in the Ardèche region of southeastern France, confirmed that Neanderthals practiced cannibalism 100,000 years ago. The 78 bone fragments, which were dated at between 80,000 and 120,000 years ago, appeared to have come from at least six individuals. The redating of a Neanderthal jaw and a cranial fragment—found in a cave at Vindija, Croatia, in the 1970s and ’80s—to c. 28,500 years ago made them the youngest Neanderthal fossils ever found in Central Europe.

In Africa the engraved images of two giraffes, estimated to be some 7,000–9,000 years old, were found atop a sandstone outcrop in the Sahara of northeastern Niger. The carvings, one of which was more than 6 m (20 ft) high, were among the finest examples of African rock art found to date; the larger of the two images could well be the largest-known single prehistoric work of art in the world. Surrounded by hundreds of smaller engravings, the giraffes were carved in the so-called Bubalus style of the Large Wild Fauna period (c. 9000–6500 bc).

More than 100 mummies were found in a series of multichambered rock-cut tombs at Al-Bahriyah Oasis in Egypt’s Western Desert. Mummified in a Greco-Roman manner during the 1st and 2nd centuries ad, the bodies were covered in gilt and sumptuously painted with religious scenes, making them among the finest ever found in Egypt. At Tell Muhammad Diyab in northeast Syria, 20 baked clay balls bearing Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions appeared to represent a heretofore unknown record-keeping system used in ancient Mesopotamia. A jug containing 751 7th-century Byzantine gold coins—the largest hoard ever to be scientifically excavated in Israel—was found under the floor of a 4th- or 5th-century villa at the site of Beth Shean.

Egypt’s Western Desert yielded another important discovery, two inscriptions that may represent the earliest-known phonetic alphabet. Found by Yale archaeologists John and Deborah Darnell on an ancient road near Wadi Al-Hol (Gulch of Terror), the script, which incorporates elements of earlier hieroglyphs and later Semitic characters, was carved into a natural limestone wall alongside hundreds of Egyptian inscriptions about 4,000 years ago. The alphabet, however, had yet to be deciphered. According to John Darnell, the forms of the Egyptian characters in the alphabetic inscriptions offered clues to the date of the script’s creation. The water sign, for example, which in later hieroglyphs was written horizontally, was carved vertically, common in the hieroglyphic scripts of the early Middle Kingdom c. 2250 bc.Though the media was quick to herald the discovery as a “hallmark of civilization,” the Darnells argued that earlier hieroglyphic texts were quite sufficient for communication. The invention of a phonetic alphabet, being far easier to learn, however, allowed for the rapid spread of writing among the general populace. As a result, literacy was no longer limited to professional scribes.

The discovery of inscribed shards dating to c. 2800–2600 bc at the site of Harappa in northern Pakistan attested that a writing system developed in the Indus Valley decades, and possibly centuries, earlier than previously believed.

In China excavators found six bone flutes that were dated from 8,000 to 9,000 years ago, making them the world’s oldest complete, playable, multinote musical instruments. Crafted from the hollow ulnae (wing bones) of the red-crowned crane, the flutes were found at the Neolithic (c. 8000–2000 bc) site of Jiahu in central Henan province.

Western Hemisphere

Recent archaeological discoveries continued in 1999 to shed light on the first Americans and pre-Columbian civilizations and also on more recent American history. In regard to the latter, English colonist Mistress Ann Forest, wife of Thomas Forest, arrived at Jamestown, Va., in 1608 with her husband but died within a year. She and her maid were the only two women at Jamestown in the first years of the settlement’s existence. The foundations of the original triangular Jamestown fort were discovered in 1996. Subsequently, archaeologist William Kelso located remains that he was sure were those of Mistress Forest, for the skeleton is that of a woman buried in an elaborate coffin, a sure sign of high social standing. Forest was only about 1.4 m (4 ft 8 in) tall and about 35 years old when she died. A computed tomograph (CT) scan of the poorly preserved skull allowed sculptor-anthropologist Sharon Long to make a clay and plaster model of Forest’s appearance.

As of 1999 the complex story of relationships between Europeans and Native Americans was still little understood, but archaeology was playing an important role in deciphering this aspect of American history. A mass grave of 52 people, found during the building of an oil refinery in Carson, Calif., bore testimony to the violence of some early years. The cemetery was dated to between 1510 and 1685 and was associated with local Gabrielino Indians. Whereas some of the bodies were buried carefully, many others were thrown hastily into their graves. Two people were missing their hands and another his arms and legs, as if they had been punished or drawn and quartered, a European practice of the day. The cemetery also yielded glass trade beads from Italy and a European clay pipe fragment.

When Hernán Cortés encountered the Aztecs of Mexico, they still revered the abandoned city of Teotihuacán (located 48 km [30 mi] northeast of Mexico City), one of the largest cities in the world during its heyday in the 6th century ad. They believed that their world originated on the summit of the Pyramid of the Sun in the heart of Teotihuacán. A team of American and Mexican archaeologists recently investigated the nearby Pyramid of the Moon, which stands at the head of the Avenue of the Dead, bisecting the city. They found not only evidence of four important substructures but also the edge of a complex of human burials dating to about ad 150. One man had been buried seated and facing south. His hands were tied behind his back, and he lay to the side of the burial complex, which suggested he was an important sacrificial victim, perhaps killed at the dedication of a monument or to celebrate a ruler. More than 150 artifacts surrounded the skeleton, among them fine clay vessels, jade, figurines, obsidian (volcanic glass) blades, and jadeite ear spools. Several hawks and two jaguars had been buried alive in cages near the victim. As a result of these discoveries, the excavators believed they had a good chance of finding nearby the undisturbed burial of one of Teotihuacán’s powerful but unknown rulers.

Spectacular Mayan discoveries continued to chronicle this most remarkable of pre-Columbian civilizations. Archaeologists Alfonso Morales and Christopher Powell probed the acropolis of the city of Palenque, which flourished from about ad 379 to 799. They used ground-penetrating radar to locate anomalies atop a pyramid named temple XX. Excavation soon revealed a grave capstone. Inside was a chamber painted with murals, including an image of a celestial lightning god. Eleven intact clay vessels and numerous jade fragments were scattered on the room’s floor. Stabilization and clearance of the tomb was expected to take many months. Nearby, another temple mound, XIX, yielded a support pier 3.7 m (12 ft) high and a bench or platform carved with an image of Lord Kinich Ahkal Mo’Nab, who ruled Palenque from 721 to 764. A perfectly preserved inscription of more than 200 glyphs revealed that the ruler was the incarnation of an important primordial Mayan god. Epigrapher David Stuart calls this inscription, with its account of mythological history before the birth of Palenque’s three patron gods, one of the most important Mayan inscriptions to be discovered in years. It demonstrated the close relationships between Mayan kings and the founding gods of their city.

Evidence of very early human occupation continued to be reported from sites in the eastern United States, among them the Topper site near Allendale, Va. The site had previously revealed side-notched stone points dating back to as early as 11,000 years ago. Excavator Albert Goodyear concluded that this was an occupation of the Clovis culture. Recently, he excavated below the Clovis level and unearthed a scatter of stone flakes, small blades, a pile of chert pebbles, and four possible hammerstones underneath a sterile layer. This was either a slightly earlier Clovis level or an occupation dating back to before 13,000 years ago, to the very earliest settlement of North America.

Meanwhile, excavators at the Paulina Lake site, near Bend, Ore., located what may be the earliest known Native American dwelling in North America, radiocarbon-dated to about 7400 bc. A thick layer of ash and pumice from an eruption of nearby Mt. Mazama in about 5600 bc covered a hearth, living floors cleared of rock, stone tools, and food remains. Large wooden posts enclosed an oval area about 4 × 5 m (13 × 17 ft) that was once the site of a tepee-like dwelling with a roof of woven grass, reed mats, or hides. Trace element analyses of the obsidian fragments found on the site revealed that the people were moving south from the Fort Rock area about 100 km (60 mi) north, probably in the spring, to stay at the lake site for weeks and possibly even months.

Anthropologist Johann Reinhard had spent his career searching for Inca sites high in the Andes Mountains in Peru. In 1995 he discovered the well-preserved body of a young girl, subsequently nicknamed Juanita, who had been sacrificed high on Mt. Nevada Ampato. During 1999 he discovered the perfectly preserved bodies of two girls and a boy on the summit of a 6,700-m (22,000-ft) volcano named Llullaillaco, in northwestern Argentina. Bundled in fine textiles, the victims had been sacrificed to mountain gods five centuries ago. Rich offerings of cloth, clay pots containing dried meat, and 36 small gold, silver, and shell statues of humans and llamas were laid out carefully with the bodies. CT scans showed that the frozen bodies were so well preserved that their internal organs were intact. One girl’s body had been slightly damaged by lightning. The other’s head had been deliberately deformed into a conical shape and adorned with a white-feathered headdress. In April Argentine archaeologists discovered the mummy of a baby in a cave 3,600 m (11,800 ft) above sea level in northwestern Argentina. Wrapped in leather and straw, the mummy had been well preserved by the dry climate and was estimated to be between 1,500 and 2,000 years old.

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