Paleolithic research in the Armenian Highlands and Anatolia

I returned safe and sound from Anakara a couple of weeks ago (an unexpected overnight stay in Terminal 5 at JFK not withstanding) and am happy to report that the trip was well worth it. It was an intimate event, with 14 papers and perhaps 20-30 audience members. Some highlights:

• The first paper was by Amilié Vialet and her colleague M. Cihat Alçiçek, who discussed the Kocabaş skullcap. I was particularly interested to hear this talk, as I knew next to nothing about this important hominin fossil. The remains consist of the frontal and parietal of a hominin that were recovered in 2002 during quarrying activities in the travertines of the famous Pammukale (Turkish: "Cotton Castle") hot springs (and UNESCO World Heritage Site) in western Turkey. (I actually visited this area, which also includes impressive ruins from Greek and Roman times, on a vacation way back in 2001.) The top of the skullcap was literally shaved off by heavy equipment (unfortunately, the rest of the skull, nor any other part of the skeleton, have ever been recovered) but, thankfully, the recovered bones were brought to the attention of Alçiçek, who recognized their importance. John Kappelman and his colleagues had previously published on the remains and suggested that (1) they dated to ~500,000 years ago, (2) provisionally, they represented H. erectus; and (3) the individual suffered from the earliest known case of tuberculosis. Vialet (who, apart from being a world-class paleoanthropologist, is a genuinely nice person) summarized more recent work on the fossil. Perhaps most importantly, they push back the age of the remains using a variety of dating techniques to ~1.4 million years ago, which makes them among the oldest in all of Eurasia. An audience member asked Vialet about tuberculosis, and she vacillated, saying that a confident diagnosis from their team would need to await further analyses. Their 3D reconstruction of the cranium, however, suggested a closer affinity of Kocabaş to Homo ergaster fossils from Africa rather than early Homo (including the crania from Dmanisi) fossils or later, classic Homo erectus populations from Asia. Vialet suggested, then, that Kocabaş represents an "expansion [from Africa that is] different from that represented by the Dmanisi fossils". It is becoming increasingly clear that the movement out of Africa by hominins ca. 2 million years ago was a complex series of events (emphasis on the plural) that involved many populations, some of which were able to establish long-term occupations and others that quickly went extinct. The new information from Kocabaş certainly reinforces this idea.
• What followed was a series of papers by our Turkish colleagues that summarized the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Anatolia. What struck me is that apart from a few notable exceptions (Kaletepe Deresi 3, Karaïn Cave, Yarımburgaz Cave, and Üçazğlı Cave), much of what is known is based almost exclusively on surface assemblages that lack key contextual information (chronometric dates, paleoenvironmental reconstructions, etc.). For example, Kadriye Özçelik reported on surface surveys that documented for the first time the presence of Paleolithic material in the Denizli Basin of southwestern Anatolia (this is the same region in which the Kocabaş fossil was uncovered). It is quite amazing, if you think about it, that it took until 2014 to officially recognize the presence of Paleolithic tools in this region, especially since, as I later learned, handaxes have been known in Turkey since 1896. While those of us working in Armenia faced a similar situation−that is, a dependence largely on surface finds−a great deal of progress has been made on this front in the last 10 years, due largely, I think, to the support of the Armenian Academy of Sciences, which has done much to nurture Paleolithic research in Armenia. My conversations with Turkish researchers revealed that it is extremely difficult to acquire permits to even examine and collect surface assemblages in Turkey, much less excavate stratified sites. Until that changes, I fear that our knowledge of Paleolithic settlement in modern Turkey will continue to lag behind that of other nearby countries.
• Our paper summarized work on Bagratashen 1, and we officially announced OSL dates from the Middle Paleolithic horizon of around 35,000 years ago. While Middle Paleolithic sites of this age are not unusual, the types of stone tools uncovered from the deposit look like artifacts from other parts of the southern Caucasus and the Levant that are much older, somewhere around 150,000 to 200,000 years ago (see my previous post on Bagratashen 1 here). So, either our dates are way out of whack (which is possible), or we have an example of technological convergence where culturally and temporally unrelated hominin groups independently converged on similar tool types. There is a long history in archaeology of viewing stone tools to track human populations. That is, particular cultures made particular types of tools, so if you find similar tools, you have the same people. However, folks have long pointed out that, as complex a technology that lithic manufacture can be, there are only so many ways that one can reduce a chunk of rock into different shapes. Dan Adler and his colleagues made precisely this point in their paper about their excavations at Nor Geghi 1 in Armenia. What they found is that at about 330,000 years ago, folks in Armenia were creating both bifacial artifacts typically associated with the Acheulean and Middle Paleolithic Levallois products at the same time. This shows definitively that, at least at Nor Geghi 1, making Acheulean bifaces has little to do with being part of an Acheulean "culture" that represents a particular group or species of hominins. Likewise, it seems that the appearance of Levallois technology, again at least in Armenia, need not necessarily represent a new group or species of hominin. Perhaps it is time, as Dan simulated with a humorous slide, to flush many of these stone tool "cultures" down the toilet.

I should also point out that Phil was able to bring together Turkish and Armenian researchers to discuss Paleolithic archaeology. This shows the power of science in general, and archaeology in particular, to transcend political and ethnic enmity and bring together people with common goals. I was honored to be part of such a momentous event.

Off to Turkey!

I am leaving tomorrow for Ankara, Turkey, where my colleague Phil Glauberman has organized a workshop entitled "Palaeolithic Research in the Armenian Highlands and Anatolia". I am honored to be included in this event, which will bring together an international contingent of researchers that work on the Lower and Middle Paleolithic in a very under-appreciated and understudied region. I'll be presenting on our recent work at Bagratashen 1. It's been 15 years since my last visit to Turkey, so I'm looking forward to the trip. Check back soon for a post that summarizes the event...  

Society for American Archaeology meetings 2015

I attended the 2015 meetings of the Society for American Archaeology in San Francisco this past April (yes, again I am behind in my posts). Although I wasn't able to stay for the whole event, I did get a chance to see some really great talks. We presented a couple of posters on our recent work at Olduvai Gorge as well. As usual, I'll present the highlights from my notes:

• Paul Goldberg and his colleagues provided some new geoarchaeological results from the important Paleolithic site of La Ferrasie (Dordogne, France). The Middle Paleolithic deposits at La Ferrasie, which date to between 90,000 and 45,000 years ago, represent one of the most important, and continuous, MP sequences in western Europe. Even more critically, several partial Neandertal skeletons were recovered from the site, most of them in 1909. One thing that I learned is that the cave is actually made up of two distinct areas, an eastern and western, both of which, as Goldberg and his colleagues showed, with different formational histories. What is more, the artifacts found within the cave's sediments were likely originally discarded somewhere else and only later washed in to their final location. Goldberg also talked a bit about La Ferassie 2, which is the partial skeleton of an adult whose exact provenience and age was still poorly understood. Although they were unable to relocate the exact find spot for this individual, they sampled some sediments from the original foot (currently housed in the Musée de l'Homme) and were able to match them to the sediments from their Layers 4-5, which are dated to around 45,000-50,000 years ago.
• Probably the most fascinating talk that I saw was given by Thomas Morgan and his colleagues entitled "The social transmission of Oldowan lithic technology." They conducted an elegant experiment in which novice knappers were permitted to learn Oldowan lithic technology in one of four ways: (1) through reverse engineering (that is, by looking at finished products); (2) observation only (that is, by watching someone else create flakes without the benefit of active teaching); (3) simple, "ape-like" teaching; (4) gestural teaching only (that is, being taught by an expert with gestures but no words); and (5) with fully verbal teaching. The results showed that novices created more, and more useful, flakes with the benefits of teaching, particularly verbal teaching. What intrigued me was that there was no evidence that observational learning was any better than reverse engineering. So, apparently, watching someone is no better than simply looking at finished products.
• I attended a really fun session in honor of the 20th anniversary of the publication of Robert Kelly's "The Foraging Spectrum", which is a landmark book in the study of hunter-gatherers. Nick Conard and Britt Starkovich humorously critiqued the behavioral ecological approach championed by Kelly through, among others things, references to Jerry Garcia (you had to be there). Raven Garvey and Robert Bettinger presented a fascinating case study of two hunter-gatherer groups that, despite living in very similar environments (the subarctic and subantarctic), exhibited very different levels of technological complexity. They argued that culture, and the density of social networks in particular, encouraged (or discouraged) the invention, adoption, and spread of ideas. Thus, for them, ecological and adaptive factors can only go so far in explaining hunter-gatherer diversity. Mike Cannon and David Meltzer offered a mathematical model to explore foraging options when resources become limited. They asked, essentially, when, and under what circumstances, will a group of hunter-gatherers either (1) move on to use familiar resources elsewhere or (2) stay put and learn how to exploit new resources. The highlight of the session was, of course, Bob Kelly's reflections on writing the book. His story about the genesis of the title was especially interesting: he had decided on a title (I can't remember what he said it was now) but the Smithsonian Press had asked him to change it to something more catchy. He told this to his wife, who was flipping through a magazine at the time, and she came back with "Why don't you call it the 'Foraging Spectrum'"? The rest is, as they say, history!
• Mathieu Lejay and his colleagues presented some data on Aurignacian-aged fireplaces from France. What I found interesting (and it makes sense once you think about it) was that their experimental work showed that bone-fed fires tend to be more bioturbated than wood-fed fires because of the increased organic content.

Overall, a really enjoyable meeting...

Back from the Gorge...

I returned from Tanzania last Thursday. We had another successful field season and another great group of students for the field school. Updates to come...

American archaeology in the 21st century

Every year we  present the Distinguished Alumni Award (DAA) to recognize graduates of the Department of Anthropology at UNCG. This year's winner was Lea Abbott, who is currently the Assistant State Archaeologist for North Carolina. Lea graduated from UNCG in the late 1970s, and his primary research interest is lithic technology. Our DAA committee, however, asked Lea to focus on the role of archaeology in the 21st century and the career prospects for our students, and he delivered with a great talk.

First, he summarized wonderfully the place that archaeology occupies in the broader context of humanity. Archaeology, according to Lea, is important because (1) it helps to round out history (he used the example of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, as his talk was given on the anniversary, April 9th, of that seminal event in American history) and (2) it is the major venue by which the world's historic and prehistoric heritage is preserved (he mentioned the recent destruction of archaeological sites associated with unrest in the Middle East).

The students at the presentation were, unsurprisingly, also interested in jobs. Lea pointed out the intimate relationship between archaeology and development in the United States. Federally funded development projects require an assessment of the archaeological (or cultural) resources that may be impacted by the work, and there are many, many contract companies that provide this service. One only needs to drive down I-40 in North Carolina, Lea commented, to see new solar energy farms popping up, all of which required archaeological assessments prior to construction. This amount of work in cultural resource management rises and falls with the broader economy: lots of development, lots of archaeological jobs. Lea seemed to think that with the economy in an upswing the number of archaeology jobs for anthropology and archaeology graduates will be on the rise.

Lea also outlined some of the biggest issues that will confront the next generation of archaeologists. One of the most urgent is related to rising sea levels. There are, in North Carolina alone, ~5,800 archaeological sites that lie at or <30 feet above current sea level, and they are being eroded away at an alarming rate.

He concluded by offering some advice to students, particularly those who wish to pursue graduate studies. First, and most importantly, people who make a career of archaeology have to feel it not only "up here" (he pointed to his head), but "in here" (he pointed to his heart). If that doesn't apply to you, then archaeology is probably not a great career choice. Get engaged immediately, he also said, as professors have a lot going on, and students that are engaged tend to get great dissertation projects. He also recommended that students have a back-up. Take courses that will provide you with skills that can get you a job outside of archaeology.

Disasters and social change

Under the guidance of our Department Head, Bob Anemone, the Department of Anthropology at UNCG initiated a brown bag lecture series entitled "How I spent my 'summer vacation'," with summer vacation in quotations because we (the anthropology faculty) are active researchers who conduct much of our field work and data collection during the summer months.

On April 1, our colleague Art Murphy presented on his work in Mexico on human responses to disasters. For the last few years, he has been working on the ABC Day Care Center Fire, a tragic event that eventually resulted in the death of 49 children. He is currently on a Fulbright in Mexico and, while there, he was asked to work on a more recent disaster, the chemical spill at the Buena Vista del Cobre mine. There is a lot going on in both cases, not the least of which is politics, but there is one point that Art made that resonated with me. It is often assumed that disasters−take Hurricane Katrina or the Haiti Earthquake−highlight social inequalities and are thus movers of social change. While the former is true, Art pointed out that the latter is typically not: as things calm down, people try to recreate and preserve the system of inequality that existed before the disaster. 

19th century German science as seen through literature

Another post from my lengthening backlog...

The Lloyd International Honors College at UNCG hosts an event they call "Food for Thought," which brings UNCG scholars to speak about lively topics. I had never attended, but I saw the title for the February 11 talk, "Visions, Dreams, and Divinations: Literature and Science around 1800," and was intrigued by the fact that a visiting German scholar, Susanne Gomoluch, was speaking. Apart from my interest in the history of science, I've spent quite a bit of time in Germany, so, my interest piqued, I went.

She began by providing some historical background, and the political situation in Germany during the late 18th and early 19th century is particularly critical. At the time, what is now Germany was a loose confederation of autonomous states and principalities that was, until 1806 when it was dissolved by Napoleon, the Holy Roman Empire. This was followed by several loosely affiliated German confederations until the eventual unification of Germany under a single government in 1871.

Holy Roman Empire in 1789. By Robert Alfers via Wikipedia.

The looseness of the political arrangement is important in this context because there simply was no unified policy towards anything. Germany lagged behind Great Britain and France in industrialization, for example, largely because of this lack of centralized decision-making. This also meant, though, that a diversity of perspectives on science emerged in the German states. Dr. Gomoluch spoke about a number of interesting issues, but the most fascinating was a character named Karl Phillip Moritz (1756-1793). Moritz, among other things, was a high school teacher, professor of archaeology and, most pertinent here, the editor of Das Magazin zur Erfahrungsseelenkunde als ein Lesebuch für Gelehrte und Ungelehrte (The Magazine of Experiential Psychology as a Reader for Scholars and Laymen), which was one of Germany's first journals of psychology. The journal featured much early work on mental pathology, deaf studies, social deviance, and the interpretation of dreams.

An interesting presentation, and LIHC also provides a pretty nice spread of food... 

Osteology in the Carolinas 2

Here's another post from my backlog. In February of 2014, I attended the first Osteology in the Carolinas meeting. This year's event was held on February 7, 2015, hosted by UNCG, and organized by our own Bob Anemone. Twelve papers were given, and there were around 20-30 attendees, some from as far away as Virginia and South Carolina. Another set of really interesting papers, one of which was given by a UNCG anthropology undergraduate, Alexa Uberseder (great job, Alexa!) on our work at Olduvai Gorge this past summer. Some snippets from my notes:

• Gwen Robbins Schug (Appalachian State) focused on re-imagining the idea of social collapse, a theme made very famous by Jared Diamond's 2005 book "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed." In that book, he cites examples of past societies that apparently outstripped their resources and thus collapsed. Gwen made the point that "collapse" may not be the best word, as a detailed examination of the archaeological record indicates that when societies undergo dramatic changes, significant reorganization usually occurs, but the cultural framework remains intact. In fact, what often happens, as her work among South Asian prehistoric sites demonstrates, is that people decide to either remain in cities or move to more rural settings. The latter typically results in a signature that can be misunderstood as a total collapse of society.  
• Megan Perry (East Carolina), who spoke at least year's meeting, and one of her graduate students, Kathryn Parker, both gave talks on attempts to identify the origin of people living in Byzantine and early Islamic times in the Middle East. By assessing the isotopic signatures in food items or geological formations on the landscape, it is possible to determine where people did most of their eating and to track trade routes.
• David Hines (University of Florida and Regime Crimes Liaison Office Mass Graves Investigation Team) summarized some recent work on extracting DNA from skeletons in mass graves in associated with ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Interestingly, they found that some bones are better for producing DNA profiles than others (as it turns out, the pelvis and femur work best).
• The last talk for which I took detailed notes was by Ashley Gosselin-Ildari (Duke University), who spoke about the use of clickers in large, introductory biological anthropology courses to encourage active learning. This was interesting, and timely, since I started using an on-line Student Response System (SRS) called Socrative to achieve the same goal. I am looking forward to hearing the student reaction at the end of the semester.

Overall, another enjoyable get-together...

Back from DC

As I said earlier, I was in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday and Thursday. I drove in a few hours before my talk was scheduled on Wednesday and decided, after checking in to my hotel (the 100-year-old Hotel Harrington, highly recommended for its location), to visit the National Archives. I was excited for two reasons. First, I really enjoy history, and second, I am a huge fan of the movie National Treasure, parts of which are shot (or at least are supposed to take place) in the archives. It was amazing. I was able to see the original Declaration of Independence (which is much, much more faded than the movie makes it out to be), Constitution, and Bill of Rights. They also have a copy of Magna Carta that dates to 1297 (the reign of King Edward I, who confirmed the rights laid out in the original 1215 version). No photos inside, unfortunately, but I did get this one from the outside:

National Archives from Pennsylvania Avenue. The temporary exhibit was

"Spirited Republic: Alcohol in American History." 

Wednesday afternoon I spoke to the Anthropology Department for the Smithsonian's Paleoanthropology Seminar on our recent work at Olduvai Gorge. I gave the talk a cutsey title, "New Perspectives on Old Bones and Stones at Olduvai Gorge." That night I was treated to an excellent meal and great conversation by my hosts.

Thursday morning I was up early so I could visit the Woodrow Wilson House, which is a Georgian Revival on S Street SW where the Wilsons lived together from 1921, when the president completed his second term, until the president's death in 1924. His second wife, Edith, continued to inhabit the home until her own death in 1961. She graciously left the house and all its furnishings to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is beautiful, and the folks who run the house provided a wonderful tour (thanks Fay!) with a lot of interesting tidbits (they have Woodrow Wilson's famous fur coat, for example, which is made of kangaroo and wombat, and the huge tapestry given to Woodrow by the government of France apparently had a few too many exposed breasts and butts for Edith's liking). I was able to get some nice photos of the home:

A painting of an Armenian girl, done by her uncle, that hangs in the Wilson
sitting room. It was given to Woodrow Wilson in recognition of his service 
to the Armenian people.

The Wilson library. If you look just above the top row of books on the left, you
will see a rolled up screen, which the Wilsons would drop in order to watch 
movies.

Later that day, I met Briana at the museum to participate in an informal chat with Smithsonian volunteers about Neandertals. It turns out that I was on site for a little get together celebrating the five-year anniversary of the opening of the Smithsonian's David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins. Rick Potts, who was the driving force behind the exhibit, talked a bit about the trials and tribulations associated with getting everything up and running (as you can imagine, it was a ton of work). Check out the awesome cake (those familiar with the hominin fossil record will notice the dental abscess, which was fashioned to resemble the Broken Hill, or Kabwe, specimen from Zambia):

Cake commemorating the five year anniversary of the Hall of Human Origins
at the Smithsonian.

After we had nibbled on cake, I sat down with several of the Hall's volunteers to talk about some of our work in Denmark and Armenia on Neandertals. They were all extremely well informed on the latest information, particularly the paleogenetics, and it was a lot of fun discussing things with them.

Giving a talk at the Smithsonian

I am off for our nation's capital tomorrow morning to give a talk for the Smithsonian Paleoanthropology Seminar. I'm very happy to be reciprocating the visit of my friend and colleague, Dr. Briana Pobiner, who came down to North Carolina last fall to talk about her outreach work. I'll be discussing some of the recent goings on at Olduvai Gorge, and then on Thursday I'll be sitting down with some folks to talk about research we conducted some time ago on the possibility of a Neandertal occupation of southern Scandinavia. Looking forward to it! 

Visit to Jefferson's Poplar Forest

I am WAY behind on my posts, so here is my attempt to begin catching up...

Back in October, I attended the 1st MABIG meeting. My wife Noell and I decided to make a weekend of it and, on the way, we visited an interesting winery (Peaks of Otter, where we tried a pepper wine paired with, no joke, easy cheese) and Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest. Jefferson designed Poplar Forest to be a retreat from the busy world of Monticello, where he often had to entertain an endless procession of visitors.

The home is an octagon, and represents one of the most unique architectural achievements of the early republic. Today's situation reflects that of the early 19th century in that Poplar Forest is wonderfully cared for but not as crowded with tourists as Monticello. We were given a fantastic tour with just a handful of other folks. Unfortunately, the much of the original interior was lost in a fire in the 1845, and several owners later modified the building's layout. They are now painstakingly refurbishing the home to its original (Jeffersonian) state with the use of period tools and technologies. Visitors are not allowed to take photos inside the home at this time, so ours are limited to the exterior.

Noell standing in front of the Poplar Forest home.

One part of our visit really stuck with both my wife and I, and it involved African slavery. It is well-known that Jefferson was a slave owner and that slaves were involved in the building of both Monticello and Poplar Forest. There is one area at the back of the Poplar Forest building that was excavated by hand through slave labor (shovels, picks, and wheel barrels) in order to expose the basement of the home to the outside. As our docent explained this process, the following exchange occurred with one member of our tour group (note: I am paraphrasing here, as I do not remember the exact words that were spoken, but the gist is accurate):

Female visitor raises her hand and says: So, when you say "slave," you mean that they weren't paid?

Docent: Yes, they didn't receive payment for their work.

Female visitor: But they did get room and board, right?

Docent: Yes, yes they did.

A view of the back of the Poplar Forest home. Note the depression, which was
excavated by hand through slave labor.

The questions ended there, but the way she looked to her friends and the way she asked the question implied that her reaction was "See? They got room and board, so that's not so bad." I think that (white) people still have a hard time accepting and fully understanding the type of slavery that persisted in the Americas up until the Civil War. In fact, this reaction smacks of the "benevolent master" perspective that many slaveholders clung to in order to justify the enslavement of Africans.

There is also a lot of really interesting archaeology being done on the grounds, and an edited volume was recently published that summarizes much of it (Heath and Gary, 2012).

References:

Heath, BJ, Gary, J (Eds.) (2012). Jefferson's Poplar Forest: Unearthing a Virginia Plantation. University of Florida Press, Gainesville.