Call For Nominations: The Dawson Awards 2015

Charles Dawson (1864–1916)

It is with extreme pleasure that I call for nominations for the inaugural

Charles Dawson Prize

in recognition of the nefarious amateur archaeologist said to have been responsible, in 1912, for mounting the Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus dawsoni) hoax, which set paleoanthropology back at least four decades. Heck! Even if Dawson wasn't the perpetrator, his name belongs on these awards because he should've known better than to fall for such a cheap trick!

Tip o' the old brown fedora to Leon Jacobson for suggesting that The Subversive Archaeologist host an archaeological equivalent of the much-revered Darwin Awards. It took less than a second to decide in whose honour this prize should be named.

One Grand Prize will be awarded, along with honourable mention for two runners-up. The awards will be announced on the first of April, 2015.

SELECTION CRITERIA
 
First and foremost, the Dawson Prize will be given for ignominious achievement in the archaeological sciences—broadly construed as those endeavours that contribute to knowledge of human or bipedal ape past behaviours and cognitive or cultural abilities and achievements—from observations made during excavation, or from excavated materials.

Nominees must possess advanced degrees, although it isn't necessary that they be in archaeology or anthropology. Any discipline that aids or makes possible archaeological or paleoanthropological interpretation is a potential candidate. However, possession of an advanced degree is crucial. How else to gauge how far the mighty are fallen?

The work in question must be reported in a peer-reviewed publication, to ensure that the Dawson Prize is shared equally by the researchers and their enablers—the estimable referees. The more high-profile the publication; the greater the failure, and more apt and just the deserts of this award. Publications such as Science, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and their ilk will garner the most attention from the judges—work published in PLoS ONE will be considered only in the absence of nominees who publish in scholarly vehicles of long standing.

Special weight will be given to research findings that are uncritically parrotted in the media as having huge scientific importance. Included are minor- and major-market newspapers, and web sites devoted to science writing—especially archaeology and paleoanthropology. If you wish to have your nomination considered for this criterion, please include links to several examples.

NOMINATING PROCESS

To expedite judging, the following minimum information will be required from you.

1. Name(s) of those responsible for the research.
2. Full bibliographic information for the publication(s).
3. A hint as to why you think the work is deserving of the Dawson Prize.
4. Your name and affiliation, if you're fortunate enough to have one—an affiliation, I mean.

Submit nominations using the Comments function at the bottom of this announcement.

THE DECISION OF THE JUDGES . . .  ER . . . JUDGE . . . WILL BE FINAL.

Let infamy reign!

Patronizing the Paleolithic: And I Don't Mean Like A Diner At Your Favourite Restaurant

I've been thinking about the implications of what I said yesterday about the Clovis "points" being the first example of a stone artifact that bears unequivocal evidence of its maker's intention to haft it to a shaft. If you missed it, here it is, for you, Dear Reader, direct from its one-day-long run on Palaeoanthropologica at Facebook.

I've remarked on this before, in my critique of Belfer-Cohen and Hovers' "In the Eye of the Beholder: Mousterian and Natufian Burials in the Levant," Current Anthropology 33:463-471, 1992. 

Rather than labelling us intellectual bigots, perhaps Belfer-Cohen, Hovers and others should examine the implicit beliefs and motivations that lead them to accept very tenuous arguments for what are called symbolic or ritual behaviors on the part of Neanderthals and other Middle Paleolithic hominids. Moreover, when they treat a portion of reindeer backbone or pig manidible as grave offerings, isn't it just a little patronizing . . . to suggest that "the mundane 'grave goods' associated with Middle Paleolithic skeletal remains may reflect the simplicity of the material culture and of the social organization."

Is not this tantamount to saying that there's a direct relationship between the presence/absence of 'grave goods,' their 'sophistication,' and the degree of cultural ability? Since this is something that Belfer-Cohen and Hovers would argue against, I find it interesting that they would introduce such a notion at this point in their argument. A pig mandible, if it were in fact shown to be an object placed with a purposely buried individual (and could be demonstrated to have had some symbolic meaning to that hominid, which would be difficult to argue from the archaeological evidence), should not be looked down upon as 'mundane' (or that it represented an incipient kind of symbolic behavior) simply because it does not conform to the investigator's (culturally bound) ideas of what constitutes 'sophisticated' funerary offerings. [(!) I'm thinking as I put this passage into today's blurt.] I would add that the enigmatic structures mentioned in their paper, such as "talking tubes" or "eternal flames" associated with Natufian burials, do not carry such inherent meanings—these are constructions of their excavators and are not self-evident. I'm struck by the ease with which Belfer-Cohen, Hovers and others accept such inferences and speculation as a reasonable construal of the archaeological remains. 

And so, when I went off yesterday about hafting and Clovis points, it emanated from the same place in my viscera whence came my lecture to Belfer-Cohen and Hovers.

To the rank and file of paleoanthropology, I say just this.

The object pictured below—a "Levallois Point" from Kebara Cave—

is not the equivalent of the things pictured below—Clovis points from the East Wenatchee Clovis Site (also called the Richey-Roberts Clovis Site or the Richey Clovis Cache).

And, unless you're prepared to admit that you're ascribing similar motivations and cognitive abilties to the authors of both 'types' in the same way that you would when praising a child for tacking a piece of lath at right angles to a 4x4 and calling it an airplane, as far as I'm concerned, you can publish your rubbish in PLOS ONE, claiming that experiments clearly demonstrate the ability of a "Levallois point," or any pointy piece of rock, to pierce animal hide, or to open a hypothetical mortal wound in a hypothetical warm-blooded creature. But, know that it and similar work will always be tantamount to saying to the kid, "Let's take it up on the roof and see if it'll fly." And you thrust it into the air. And, well, fly it does! Just like a fighter jet plane in a strafing dive—except that it didn't pull up at the end, which is just an incremental improvement and doesn't detract from the thing's ability to fly straight down at great speed. And you can document it, and others will model it, and still others will multi-dimensionally image it in ways that no one has done before. And the referees will jump on it and say, "Oooooh! You have to publish this, Dude!"

And then I can say that it's not a lot like the flight of an SR-71. But you'd wag your finger at me and tell me that to say so is an example of my culturally bound, or ethnocentric, or ageist, or even racist, value judgement, and not worthy of an enlightened anthropologist. And all I can say in response is that you're being patronizing toward your favourite bipedal ape species, and not recognizing it in the way that a truly contextual anthropologist would. Furthermore, we're no closer to the truth of what went on in the Paleolithic, now that you've published your scientistic mumbo-jumbo. And you might say, "But, hey, at least we're keeping 'the conversation' going." And, of course, I'd demur, and say, "Why that conversation? Can't we be a little less silly and a lot more reasonable? We might as well be publishing about the possibility that Neanderthals built houses of cards, since we know they could knock off a mammoth with a sharp rock, and a house of cards is easy by comparison." [A house of cards. There's a metaphor for these times.]

But, then I'd sit back, remembering that you're publishing in PLOS ONE and I'm just a blogger, who, everyone knows, is sitting in my virtual pajamas in my in-reality-dead mother's basement, tapping away in my totally uniformed and (thankfully for the discipline) ineffectual way for anyone to read and believe, but who, if so, is demonstrating that they're ill-equipped to tell the difference between my pseudo-science and your 'real' science—the best reason ever for dismissing blogging out of hand. And here I'll stay.

Oh, and by the way, here's a picture of that SR-71. Just one specification will help you comprehend how far above my lath and 4x4 creation this mechanical beast was. Maximum speed: Mach 3.3 (3,540+ km/h at 24,000 m—give or take its operating ceiling). For those of you who, like me, are a little unable to fasten on the real implications of such numbers, think of it this way—the fastest rifle bullet emerges from the firearm's muzzle at around Mach 3.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

My lath and 4x4 airplane sat on the top of the porch for weeks before I resigned myself to the fact that it'd never fly—no matter how much I willed it to.

SUBVERSIVE SHIRTS—The online store. Exclusively at the Subversive Archaeologist and street fairs around the Pacific Northwest Order Online

Neanderthal Childhood? WTF? Spikins et al. Should Get A Grip!

A number of colleagues have commented that the original article used unnecessarily violent language with respect to Penny Spikins and Paul Pettitt. While I feel that the original text merely evinced poetic license, I have nonetheless moved the piece to a separate page that must be accessed only through this page.

Those wishing to see the Subversive Archaeologist's pithy remarks with respect to Penny Spikins's theory of Neanderthal childhood are welcome to click over to the original content at
http://www.thesubversivearchaeologist.com/p/sometime-you-just-need-to-rant.html

Thank you for visiting, and for your cooperation.

So long!

I Won't Beat Around The Bush. The Grimaldi So-called Spatial Analysis Is A Noisome Pile Of Putrefying Dung.

I'm gobsmacked! To judge by the media frenzy surrounding

J. Riel-Salvatore, et al.  I.C. Ludeke, F. Negrino, and B.M. Holt. (2013). “A Spatial Analysis of the Late Mousterian Levels of Riparo Bombrini (Balzi Rossi, Italy),” Canadian Journal of Archaeology, 37:70—92, 2013.

you'd think that the authors had some seriously cool shit to tell us about. Here's a smattering. How many times can you say the same thing, but in different ways? Let us count the ways.

Times of India
Neanderthal 'Homes' were Tidy and Organised

Arizona Daily Star 
Neanderthals organized their caves around tasks, study says

Wunderground.com 
Neanderthals Organized Their Homes Like Humans, Study Says 

Phys.Org 
New evidence suggests Neanderthals organized their living spaces 

Haaretz 
Neanderthals give new meaning to 'clean up your room' 

Business Mirror 
Neanderthals organized caves around tasks, study says 

TIME 
Neanderthals Were Neat Freaks: Inside the Original Man Caves 

Huffingtonpost.com 
Neanderthal Shelters Were Organized By Activity, New Excavations Show 

Examiner.com 
Anthropologist finds that Neanderthals had organized living spaces

Sci-News.com
Neanderthals Organized Their Living Spaces, Scientists Say

Voice of America 
Neanderthals Organized Homes by Activity 

UPI.com (blog) 
Neanderthals organized their living spaces like modern humans 

Nature World News 
Neanderthals Were Efficient Homemakers, Study 

Science World Report 
Ancient Neanderthals Organized Their Homes Like Modern Humans 

www.smithsonianmag.com
Anthropology | Smithsonian Magazine 
Neanderthals May Have Practiced the Ancient Art of Interior Design 

Daily MailOnline 
Neanderthal homes were tidy and organised: Ancient shelter reveals that living spaces were carefully divided into a kitchen and bedroom 

[The headlines are so many and various that Vivaldi would have envied the collective genius displayed! Or, should that have said, "Carl Jung?"]

Given the coverage this one article has received, what I'm about to relate to you, Dear Reader, might be a tad surprising. Indeed, when the cards have fallen wherever they might, it'll become clear that there is a very well-oiled outreach / public relations / propaganda machine attached to one of these authors!

Let's get started. Shall we?

Hands up everybody who's read Cave bears and modern human origins: The spatial taphonomy of Pod hradem cave, Czech Republic. Don't feel bad. Nobody else read it either. Jim O'Connell called it "schizophrenic." I'm fairly certain that Mary Stiner didn't before she opined on the bears at Yarimburgaz. [Lived too long with taphonomy, I'm guessing.] And almost certain that Ofer Bar-Yosef didn't. Any bets that Julien Riel-Salvatore read it? Keep your money. He didn't. Know how I know? Because, if he had he'd never have made the mistake of writing a pile of noisome . . . archaeological myth, much less have had the really bright idea to publish it in . . . of all the inscrutably bizarre places . . . that never-was paragon of palaeoanthropological peer review, The Canadian Journal of Archaeology. [I'll give you a moment to drink that in.]

Moment of silence, please, in memory of that journal's reputation. Especially now that the UC Denver crew have had their way with it.

Ripari Bombroni is in the extreme west of Italy, where it butts up against Monte Carlo, which, if you think about it, is fitting. After all, the authors have "won big" to judge by the media attention.

From Riel-Salvatore, et al. 2013

From Riel-Salvatore, et al. 2013

As for the site, itself, the illustration at left is a general plan of the excavation at Ripari Bombrini. Riel-Salvatore et al. (2013) use the sediments recovered to argue for, among other inferences, Neanderthals having used their living space in patterned ways---just as you and I would. We do it for reasons having to do with the cultural constructions of gender, age, social status, and perceived necessity, among other reasons. The meanings with which we humans imbue space are well understood. HOWEVER [and I can't stress this enough], no one has yet adequately argued for the existence of meaningfully constituted space use among our near relations, the Neanderthals and other bipedal apes that made stone artifacts collectively termed Mousterian. 

Riel-Salvatore et al. are no exception. Except that, in their case, the 'evidence' for meaningfully constituted space use among Neanderthals is as vanishingly little as is the site itself. I hope to demonstrate that their assertions amount to nothing more than an off-the-top-of-my-head claim, an exaggerated claim, a stretch-of-the-imagination claim, an utterly failed claim.

For any of you who've been sleeping, or elsewhere, or both, for the last couple of years, you'll need to know that there is great debate about the place of the Neanderthals in our family tree. It's a hot potato because Neanderthals lived right up until the time that people like you and me entered what's now Europe around 50 to 40 ka.

To my great distress, there has been a blizzard of outrageous claims for modern-human-like behaviours in MP bipedal apes. Each builds on the other, like so many playing cards. I seem to be fighting a losing battle against what passes for scholarly inference-making. I've had lots of practice. But, in general, the archaeologists that inhabit the Olympus of social science have ignored what I've had to say, or have dismissed it without so much as breaking a sweat to show me where I'm wrong.

And the band plays on. Today's beaut of a knowledge claim is just one more brick in the wall.

In the plan I've added a simple annotation to point out the hatched area denoting what is a low, bedrock outcrop, inferred as the "back wall" of what somebody has inferred is a collapsed rockshelter. This "back wall" figures prominently *cough* in the authors' claims. But you don't need to memorize its location—I'll be referring to it many times more before I'm done.

Each square in the plan measures 1 m by 1 m. Note the "pylon" and the "back" wall of the shelter. Note also that the entirety of the Mousterian/Middle Palaeolithic portion is shaded dark grey. Try to ignore this figure's title, "Aurignacian 1," because it has no bearing on the claims that Riel-Salvatore et al. make in this paper. However, it's a mystery why they couldn't have at least scribbled out "Aurignacian 1" and  pencilled in "Ripari Bombrini," or some other more generic decription than one that refers to the modern human archaeological traces that the authors presumably encountered before they hit the MP layers.

Make note of the area represented by the diagonal, parallel lines. It shows where there is "no stratum present." Note that it comprises . . . oh, I'd say . . . 40 percent of the "Mousterian" excavation. Thus, Riel-Salvatore et al. are arguing from observations gleaned from a column of sediments approximately 4 m long, 60 cm wide, and give-or-take 1 m deep. That's about the volume of a small bedroom closet. I'd be afraid to bet the farm on such a small volume of any site. But I'm not Julien Riel-Salvatore [obvies].

If I were being vituperative, which is not my way, I'd say that this next photo is—or should be—the source of some embarrassment for Riel-Salvatore, et al. That's because this expansive, wide-area excavation [gawd I wish there was an emoticon for 'sarcasm'!] at Riparo Bombrini is the foundation for some hair-raisingly unsupported [and insupportable] Middle Palaeolithic palaeoanthropology.

North is on a line from bottom left to top right, and is, undoubtedly in the direction of the grid strings that divide the 'site' from side to side.

So. What do we see in this seagull's-eye view? Having seen the 'site' plan, you'll recognize the trench in which these people are excavating—it's the entire site. I've indicated the features shown on the plan, and some others that aren't described in the paper. OK. There's the "pylon" near the top of the photo. And there's the rock outcropping "back" wall of the shelter near the bottom. You can also clearly see in this photo what isn't noted on the plan: a) the site's proximity to a busy rail line, and b) the three-rail fence bordering the rail right-of-way. 

A few observations are in order. 

Top-left guy's behind is about 2 m from the rail line. That's close. 

But what I find truly amazing is the uniform edge of the site that parallels the rail line. It must have been created by some really fine bulldozer work at the time of the rail line's construction. Or, there could be another explanation.

Go back to the site plan. Remember the hashed portion of the site labelled "stratum not present?" Well, in truth it is present. See the wavy side wall up against which not one, not two, but three archaeologist's butts are *cough* abutting? The dirt's there, and the rocks. But, for some reason the excavators decided that it wasn't there.

Help me here. What theoretical construct in archaeology would lead an excavator to say that something isn't there when, clearly, it is? Two words. Construction. Debris.

Now you can understand why the edge of the rail line is so . . . linear. It looks like some sort of combination retaining wall and pedestrian pathway. See? There's a smooth surface pointing up at you in the photo. You can tell it's horizontal because it's parallel with the fence rails. Further down you'll see evidence that those rails are horizontal. So, for the time being, let's assume that the photographic evidence tells us that, at a minimum, the authors are excavating next to an artificially constructed retaining wall that has a smooth, level top surface of some indeterminate extent. I say 'indeterminate' because the authors don't say what it is. We can't infer that what we see here is the remnant of a wider, smooth, level pathway that needed to be peeled back before the excavation could take place. Let's just assume, as the authors no doubt wish us to, that what we can see is all there was of the upper surface of the retaining structure.

Somehow the authors knew when they were excavating in undisturbed Mousterian sediments. That's very fine work. But, I'm curious as to their criteria for what was and what wasn't undisturbed. I don't have an answer. Maybe one of you would like to address the authors to find out.

One last note before I move on. It's kind of a spoiler. Pop down a bit to where the three stratigraphic plans appear. You'll notice that M1 through M3 are 'lumped.' *cough* Notice also all of the amorphous grey-shaded areas. In the key those are labelled, simply, rock. Although the two kinds of feature are almost identically 'coloured' on the plan. Regardless, it appears as if there were a goodly number of rocks in the upper Mousterian levels.

Okay, with all that in your head, look again at the seagull's-eye view, up above. Not only did the excavators accurately trace the boundary between the disturbed and the undisturbed sediments, but they also decided that the large number of rocks in the upper part of the Mousterian stratigraphic column weren't just more construction rubble. This is a mystery to me. And it should be to you.

It's almost miraculous, don't you think? First that the railroad construction was arrested less than a metre from an important MP archaeological site. Second, these obviously head-on-straight excavators could tell construction rubble from "collapsed rockshelter" rubble. I guess it's not, technically, miraculous. But it certainly is a very convenient pair of occurrences from the archaeologist's point of view. I've been in the field I've spent years on my knees. It's devilishly difficult to recognize the backdirt from someone else's excavation when you're digging in the same area. It's not always possible. But somehow Riel-Salvatore et al. were expert enough to know where the construction disturbance ended and the Mousterian sediments started. Extraordinary.

See you after the site profile.

The presentation reminds one of the early twentieth century temoins that Peyrony and others drew for publication. The likeness is virtually perfect, even down to the vaguely defined "strata" and the intermediate "levels" marked with the capital Ms. From Riel-Salvatore et al. 2013.

I had to put up the profile drawing, mostly for the old-timers, who'll recognize, as I do, the style of presentation. It's straight out of the original French publications of the important MP sites such as La Ferrassie and Le Moustier. Now back to the backstory to today's subject of scrutiny.

You've now seen the seagull's-eye view of the excavation. Now have a look at it from the point of view of a sceptical graduate student. The photo below is a bipedal-ape view of the area.  

As you're poring over this photo, compare the landmarks on this image and  the seagull's-eye view up above. Satisfy yourself that the correlations I've made between the site's location within the natural and the built environment is indeed accurate. It's important. How do I know this, since I've never been to Ripari Bombrini? After the photo below, I'm reproducing a map of the area of Ripari Bombrini.  This area boasts a number of caves. The pedestrian bridge in this photo conducts tourists over the rail line on their way to those caves—the blackened areas are the inferred volumes of the caves and rockshelters that dot this area. You can see that Ripari Bombroni is a sliver of black hugging the cliff seen in the photo. So, the view in this photo is that of the area of the 'site' of Ripari Bombrini. Cliff. Rail line. Tunnel. The very place.

Add caption

Kayso. Let's see these magnificent patterns—the ones the media are so enamoured of at the moment.

Sadly the contents of M1 through M3 had to be mushed together because even in so small an excavation the authors describe the difficulty of following depositional units across the 4-m long by 60-cm wide excavation. They state

As a side-note, during this process, it proved necessary to combine Levels Ml, M2, and M3 into a single composite level due to vagaries in the excavation process that made it difficult to disentangle them towards the back of the shelter.

Now, there's no shame in having encountered such circumstances—they're a commonplace in cave and rockshelter excavations. However, this in no way absolves the authors of having made some outrageously ambitious inferences on the basis of their limited excavation, and what amounts to non-existent analytical techniques brought to bear on their observations. 

Let's get the spatial reference points before getting started. Sorry for this long quote. But you'll understand once you read it. It's important to understand how the authors created their analytical units: i.e., the "back" of the shelter, the "front" of the shelter, and the "outside" of the shelter.

The only noteworthy observation . . . of the gross distribution of artifacts in the Mousterian deposits . . . was . . . identification of a recurrent very narrow linear gap running approximately NW-SE through units AA1 and BB1, roughly paralleling the back wall of the shelter.

On the plans above, this hypothetical "dripline" is indicated by a bold, dashed, line. [Which, by the way, is the straightest damned dripline I've ever seen! Hardly seems like it could have occurred naturally. But then, maybe it didn't.]

One possible tentative interpretation of this gap is that it [ . . . is . . . ] the dripline of the rockshelter prior to its collapse. . . .  areas inside and immediately outside of rockshelters were often associated with different kinds of activities . . . . That being the case, the interpretation of the linear gap corresponding to the shelter's former dripline is potentially testable by the identification of different concentrations of artifacts on either side of it.

Whoa there. Teachable moment: Riel-Salvatore et al. are setting you up for a fallacious argument, one of which I'm certain they're unaware. It's alternatively called 'begging the question' and 'assuming the initial point.' [Don't get confused with the conversational English use of the term, which roughly translates to "brings up the question."] Begging the question is an informal logical fallacy—the circular argument—in which the outcome is predetermined by the choice of starting point. In this case, the authors have hypothesized a "dripline." See how they set up the test of their hypothesis.

To this end, each piece-plotted artifact was therefore also assigned to one of three areas in the site: the "back" of the shelter, comprising the area between the dripline and the back-wall; the "front" of the shelter, comprising the area to the west of the dripline in the trench itself; and the "outside" of the shelter, corresponding to squares D1 and E1 in Level M1-3 . . . .

Do you catch the circularity? First they propose that a line exists that separates the dry part from the wet part—their "dripline." Having established a hypothetical division in the site, they propose to see if the stuff outside the dripline is statitsically different from what went on 'within' the shelter. They are artificially subdividing the site's contents based on their creation of a hypothetical division with which to prove the existence of that subdivision. Sorry. Inference just doesn't work that way.

Assigning each artifact to its area of origin is important since the excavated areas across these various "zones" varies from level to level . . . , which may influence interpretations based on variability in their relative densities.  

Now that you've finished your orientation, we can begin to examine the authors' claims. In brief, they are as follows, straight from the horse's mouth.

Hearths are identified . . . at the back of the shelter . . . similar to that of "sleeping hearths" identified at other Mousterian sites [using equally shaky analogical reasoning]. . . . . [T]he distribution of artifacts is shown to co-vary with the nature of the prevalent mobility strategies in use at different times over the site's occupational history. Notably, use of the site as a logistical base camp is correlated with the presence of hearths and the accumulation of noisome debris beyond the dripline and outside of the shelter. Other uses of the site seem to have favored the discard of some classes of artifacts within the shelter itself. This shows that Neanderthals were indeed able to organize their use of space in patterned and somewhat predictable manners, and that the length and nature of their occupation of the rocksheiter need to be taken into account in such analyses.

Bloody marvellous, ain't it? We've got noisome refuse in the fantasy "outside" of the shelter, and hearths near the fantasy "back" wall. In between we have evidence of the inhabitant's mobility strategy. That would be in the fantasy "front" of the "shelter.' 

I'm impressed! I'm also mystified! And a bit sceptical! After all, we're talking about a total area approximately 60 cm by 400 cm. I think even a modern human would have difficulty locating a "back," "front," and "outside" in the space of 4 m. 

Logical fallacies aside, let's just do a reality check. In the unlabelled view from a seagull's perspective the hypothetical dripline roughly corresponds to the line described by the left-most excavator's left side [the one nearest the choo-choo tracks].

OK. Now, guy sitting on the right is in the "back" part of the site. Guy standing and person squatting in yellow are in the "front" of the shelter. And guy bending over at left is on the putative "outside." And what do the authors tell us about they're proposed spatial divisions?

If you were yellow person, you'd be in the "front" of the "shelter." Whether yellow person or one of our modern-like Neanderthals in that location, it'd be darned difficult not to be whiffing some really 'noisome' odours. We are, after all, talking about a metre's distance. I'm pretty sure that even standing guy, between one and two metres from the "outside," would have smelled a pile of putrefying animal remains. That leaves guy by rock—erm, sorry, the "back wall" of the cave. Maybe if he had a fire going he wouldn't be able to smell it. In all, three and a half metres doesn't seem to me to be far enough away for a modern-human-acting Neanderthal to have dumped the rubbish. What's going on? To employ a hackneyed and, by now, anachronistic epithet: Epic. Fail. No. 1.

At left is the plan of Mousterian 1, which, you'd have to think, was pretty ballsy of the authors to publish after telling us that they were unable to distinguish between M1, M2, and M3 across the entire site. Quelle surprise!

I guess I should cut 'em some slack. After all, we're talking big news here if the authors have indeed found unequivocal evidence of meaningfully constituted spatial patterning in the Middle Palaeolithic.

Okay. What do we have here in M1? No hearths. [I guess it was a warm year on the MP Mediterranean.] We see a bunch of rocks, mostly on the shelter's fantasy "outside." We've also got a bunch of Xs and +s (bones and artifacts), scattered randomly, to my eye.

I'm also not seeing an unbroken empty space where the "dripline" is drawn. I suppose the real evidence for the dripline must be in M2 through M5, and we mere mortals shouldn't question the authors, even though they've provided us no real evidence for their fantastic claims. Nope. I'm not seein' any patterns jumping out at me.

No. Wait. I see something! Remember the "Stratum not present" in the various plans? Look how abruptly it decides to be present at the top margin of square DD-1. That's odd. Don't you think? Hmm. Probably nothing. My aging eyes playing tricks on me.

All right. All right! I'm gonna stop the coy act. And I'll give up on the 'argument by innuendo' tactic.

What the authors obviously consider to be an ironclad inference—the rock referred to as the "back" wall—is a bit of a reach, to say the least. Even if you ignore the impossibility of all their other claims, you need to take seriously their inference that the bedrock outcrop is "the back wall" of the "shelter." [Someone should've told them that in the map, the 'site' is shown hugging the cliff, nowhere near the excavation.

So, how in the Hell did they infer a) that this bedrock outcrop was ever the "wall" of anything, and b) that it was the "back" wall of the putative rockshelter? The outcrop identified as "wall" has little or no vertical mass. Aren't "walls" supposed to have a primarily vertical orientation? And what about it's being the "back" wall? Why am I—why are we being fed this nonsense about Neanderthals ordering their space just as would you and I?

I'm reminded of an old amusing aphorism.
Question: Why does a dog lick its balls?
Answer: Because it can.

I must conclude that it's much the same as the dog. We're all being fed this nonsense from Ripari Bombrini because the authors could get it published. That's reason for another shout out to the Canadian Journal of Archaeology.

These authors have no evidence for their claims. None.

I'm sorry, Canadian Journal of Archaeology. You've been had by a sweet-talker from the lower 48. And you've lost your flower in doing it.

Which brings me full circle to my brief rant at the top. The archaeological literature contains an entire volume devoted to demonstrating that non-sapient animals are capable of creating non-random spatial patterns a cave. It's called Cave bears and modern human origins: The spatial taphonomy of Pod hradem cave, Czech Republic, and it's for sale. But I wouldn't waste my time trying to buy it. Apparently it''s being sold for thousands of dollars on Amazon. I can tell you, it's not me doing the selling! But it was me doing the writing. And the research. And the analysis.

Okay. So, Rob. You think you know something about spatial taphonomy. It's true. I practically invented it!

But who took any notice? I think you can figger it out.

So, what modern analogues do Riel-Salvatore et al. bring to bear in support of their claim to have found modern-human-type patterned space at Ripari Bombrini? None. Rien. Fuck all! Here is the totality of their 'effort' to rule out animal-type behaviour at Ripari Bombrini.

Preliminary analyses have identified less than a handful of carnivore fragments for the entire Late Mousterian of Bombrini . . . . Along with the fact that the spatial distribution varies in predictable ways with reconstructed Neanderthal mobility strategies and that carnivores do not create combustion features, let alone accumulate them in patterned ways, this low incidence of carnivores at the site suggests the preliminary spatial patterns identified at Bombrini most likely reflect patterns in human behavior.

Their leap of logic from "not carnivore" to "not animal" to [definitely] "human behaviour" without stopping to think, has no warrant whatsoever. Quite apart from the "combustion" features, there's no way that a statistical analysis would support a single one of their claims.

Honestly, if this paper is what passes for scholarship in today's palaeoanthropology, our beloved discipline is in worse shape than I thought.

Thanks for hanging in there again. You're good to me!

SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this. 

Proof That We Are Living in the Archaeological End Times

"And Lew said unto the earth diggers that there would be four or five signs that the End of Days was nigh."

"And the Prophet spake that when it came to pass that the signs were abundant there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth, together with hand-wringing and whinging, and a great waving of arms, and raised voices, acrimonious debate, and free-range theory. 

"And lo, to all who moiled in the earth it seemed as if, verily, palaeoanthropology had started down the slippery slope of over-reaching inference-making. And it was vouchsafed that the theoretical underpinnings of scientific knowledge was rushing toward utter irrelevancy at great speed."

I, too, have seen the signs! They are everywhere. And they really do abound! [For reals] You will know the signs by their Reality Distortion Field, the work of forces unknown, first espied by the holy Apple men of Cupertino. 

Here followeth the signs [modern translation: article titles] foretold to us of the numbering of our days.

Toothpicking and Periodontal Disease in a Neanderthal Specimen from Cova Foradà Site (Valencia, Spain) 

Did the Denisovans Cross Wallace's Line?

Impossible Neanderthals? Making string, throwing projectiles andcatching small game during Marine Isotope Stage 4 (Abri du Maras, France)

Israel conference: Cavemen discovered recycling

Scientists 'bad at judging peers' published work,' says new study

Fear not. For unto you this day is come a champion to counter the runaway imaginations and poor judgement of these grubbers in the earth.

Cometh ye anon unto the Subversio Archaeologicus and ye shall undoubtedly find good stuff to counter these very outlandish scientific claims. Do not despair. Let me do all the despairing. You have real work to do. And I look forward to fun in abundance.

ANY TIME IS A GOOD TIME TO GET GOOD STUFF AT THE SUBVERSIVE ARCHAEOLOGIST'S OWN, EXCLUSIVE "A DRINK IS LIKE A HUG" ONLINE BOUTIQUE

SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.

A Shell That Is But A Shell Of Its Former Self

I'm shocked, shocked to find that mythopoeic archaeology is going on in Italy! [Apologies to Captain Renault.]

Location of Fumane Cave and two palaeontological localities mentioned in Peresani et al.

Once again, the credulous, but impartial, referees at PLoS ONE have ensured that no matter how far-fetched the inference, they're dedicated to giving it an outlet. [I'd really like to know their rejection rate. Any ideas? I kinda doubt there is one! But, that's beside the point. Because that would be argumentum ad hominem, and everybody knows that's not a valid argument!] 

Peresani M, Vanhaeren M, Quaggiotto E, Queffelec A, d’Errico F (2013) "An Ochered Fossil Marine Shell From the Mousterian of Fumane Cave, Italy." PLoS ONE 8(7): e68572. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0068572

In this paper the authors analyze the bejeebuz out of a single, fragmentary specimen of Aspa marginata found in a Mousterian stratum. They say that the only possible conclusion is that this relatively tiny fragment of a marine shell was brought to the cave by [style-conscious] Neanderthals, [inexplicably] rubbed to create minute striations on the interior, and then smeared with hematite [to produce a nice, red lump that was somehow then displayed as a fashion statement]. These are the crucial inferences on which they base their claims.

1) The specimen is a fossil of Aspa marginata.
2) The specimen must have originated in fossiliferous rock 100 km away.
3) The specimen was originally 34 mm long and 24 mm wide.
4) The specimen has numerous minute striations on the inner lip.
5) The specimen has some hematite in numerous little surface dents.

Unfortunately for their argument, the authors have violated Rule #1—they haven't considered all of the natural processes that could account for a) the presence of a single small fragment of non-local shell, b) the striations on the lip, and c) the presence of hematite on the shell.

I want to apologize in advance for the length of this blurt, and for the length of time it has taken me to squeeze it out. It takes a long time to argue against the claims made in a paper like this, if only because the claims are based on limited 'evidence' and not much else. I've made an effort to perform the due diligence that the authors should have taken on. If they'd made the same effort as me, they would never have submitted their findings to a reputable refereed journal, much less to PLoS ONE!
[Because this blurt is so long, I'm going to make the better part of it accessible "after the fold," as they say in blogistan. That means, simply, that the article is continued on a secondary web page.]

Let's take the inferences one at a time...

Inference 1: Taxonomic identification

I have no quarrel with their species ascription. After all, I'm not a malacologist, nor an invertebrate palaeontologist. Despite my shortcomings there does seem to be some dispute in the literature as to the correct genus name—both Bufonaria marginata and Aspa marginata are used as is Bursa marginata [although, apparently, Aspa now has the edge over Bufonaria and Bursa].

Inference 2: The shell's provenance [or, to be more correct, provenience]

A. marginata has occupied the seas of Italy's part of the world since at least the Miocene [when, in fact, the Mediterranean was created by the collision of the African and Eurasian tectonic plates]. It's true that A. marginata occurs in fossiliferous sediments within 100 km or so of Fumane Cave, as the authors tell us. They're also careful to point out that in the present day the species doesn't occur the Mediterranean basin. Doesn't it seem a little odd that they've gone to the trouble of researching the present-day geographic distribution of A. marginata when they're dealing with a 47,000 year old discovery? Well, even if it doesn't seem odd to you, it does to me. I suppose it's possible that the authors wanted to rule out any possibility that their specimen was picked up on the Mediterranean littoral 47 ka. But why? For us to accept such a statement we'd have to think that marine conditions and A. marginata's trophic preferences have been static for those 47 ka. So, as my dear, dead Dad used to say: Beats the shit outa me. Furthermore, I'm surprised that they would cite the World Register of Marine Species as the source for their claim, because it seems to contradict their claim. I went to the same source and found two citations that list the Mediterranean as one of the places that this species lurks—here and here. As Frodo would say, I'm confusticated and bebothered.

If you look at Peresani et al.'s figure below, you may notice a very polished sheen on the archaeological specimen's inner surface, which I've circled in red. [Since we're given four views of the Fumane Cave specimen, the arrows are there to help you by pointing out the corresponding anatomical points on the archaeological and the comparative specimens.] I'll defer to the invertebrate palaeontologists in the group if I'm wrong. However, I think the lustre of this specimen's columella means that there has been no or very little mineralization of this specimen. In other words it appears to be an unaltered fossil, to use palaeo-speak. Such 'fossils' are a frequent occurrence in certain lithofacies. I'm also very curious as to how you would tell an 'unaltered' fossil from a contemporary one. *sigh* The lyf so short, the craft so longe to lerne.

a = archaeological specimen; b through d = comparative fossils

Unfortunately, we don't get to see inside the three comparative specimens. So, the sceptical among us are left to depend on the authors' 'authority' in this matter. And you and I know that argument from authority is not a valid form of argument.

In reality it's of little consequence whether or not the Fumane Cave specimen is truly a fossil or was a living organism at the time of the Neanderthals. There are any number of ways that a cm-sized clast of any solid could have arrived in the cave unintentionally, whether or not it was a fossil that had eroded out of bedrock. Any furry or hairy creature can transport small bits in matted hair for great distances. Had one such animal been killed or scavenged by a Neanderthal, a small fragment of shell could easily have come to rest in the cave and be preserved. The same would be true of other predators that transport carcass parts away from a death site, such as wolves and hyaenas. In this case, the authors' claim is just one of a number of possible scenarios. And a not very important one, at that.

Inference 3: Estimating the original size

I honestly don't have a clue why the authors thought it important to estimate the specimen's original size, nor do they offer a reason. Nevertheless, they take great care to justify their estimate of the original dimensions—including publishing a half-page regression curve to illustrate their six data points, seen below, and a column-width table containing the same six measurements. I feel so inadequate that I don't see the point. It's a mystery to me why the referees didn't just tell them to axe this part of their paper. I realize that in this digital age, bits and bytes are cheap, and the page count means little compared with the days of print-only publication. However, it's still true that you and I have precious little time to read unnecessary verbiage. Under the circumstances, absent a compelling explanation, I have to conclude that their treatment of the specimen's original size is a total waste of my time.

A bit of errant pedantry—Height is not spelled Heigth in any dictionary I've poked my head into. I guess proofreading is the first casualty in an electronic journal that promises "fast publication times." 

So, having thus demonstrated that they are the best darned fossil-shell, original-size estimators this side of the Pecos River, the authors get into the real purpose of their paper.

And I'll see you after the fold!

Ceci N'est Pas Une Barre de Savon: Apologies to René Magritte

Ceci n'est pas une barre de savon 

Behold the lowly bar of soap [albeit somewhat used]. In the past I've used similar objects to make fun of handaxes [here and here]. Although the tone of those essays was tongue-in-cheek, my purpose was serious: a used bar of soap is an excellent analogy to use when theorizing about the lithic reduction sequences that result in what's come to be known as 'the' Acheulean handaxe, and what's called the 'Levallois technique,' the two main aspects of which are the 'Levallois core' and the 'Levallois flake.'
     Some of you may lack an intimate knowledge of Middle Palaeolithic stone artifacts and the history of their interpretation. I must warn you. What I'm about to say will not be well received by Very Serious [Palaeolithic] Archaeologists. These objects have been heavily theorized, going back more than a century, and their 'reality' is a foregone conclusion in the disciplinary 'culture.' As such, my efforts are akin to pissing into the wind.

Me and my Level 4 Biohazard suit 

Never mind about that. Somebody's gotta do it. Might as well be me. Besides, I've taken a face-full so many times I'm ready for anything in my Level-4 Biohazard suit! Regardless, it does get tedious donning and doffing these togs every other day or so. [And guess what? They don't protect against hurt feelings or embarrassment. So, they're not perfect, 'specially when you consider the atmosphere of acrimony that sometimes prevails in  this binness.]
     Back to the matters at hand. By now you may have consulted my previous two outings on this issue. Today I'm hoping to break the argument down into its components so as to make a step-by-step case as to why a used bar of soap is a good analogy for the handaxe and the two genres of Levallois artifacts.
     First of all, let's talk about the functional underpinnings, beginning with a question [and don't get all bent outa shape. This isn't a 'Why did the chicken cross the road' joke!].
     "Why did the bipedal ape bang one piece of rock against another piece of rock with the result that a small, sharp-edged fragment was subtracted from the larger of the two blocks?" Was it to make the large block smaller? Not likely. Was it to prepare the large block for the removal of a second or third sharp-edged fragment? Hmmm. Let's think about that for a moment. It seems rather unlikely, given that this was just about the first time a bipedal ape left such a trace in the palaeontological record.
     Remember that we don't know much about the cognitive abilities of those first 'flintknappers.' All we can say for certain is that they would have been every bit as smart as the last common ancestor that we humans share with chimps. Best guess? A chimp-like brain. So, the cognitive abilities of those first 'flintknappers' were at best equivalent to those of present-day chimpanzees [unless we're to imagine that today's chimps have de-volved from a golden age of chimp cognition, which seems, again, unlikely].
     Do we think that the first 'flintknapper' banged one rock against another because it envisioned a useful sharp bit in the block of raw material and then struggled to work out a way to get it out? I'm gonna say that's also highly unlikely. [By so saying I might be accused of a certain bias against our early progenitors. However, I think it'd take one gigantic heap of special pleading to suggest that the first 'flake' was the result of forethought.] So, if not because of forethought, how do we explain that first act of rock against rock, and the removal of a sharp fragment. Here I'm jumping into the realm of speculation.
     I see a couple of possibilities. First, it could have been accidental, the result of a meaningless, nothing-better-to-do-at-the-moment banging together of two rocks with the unexpected effect that a small, sharp-edged fragment was detached from one of the two rocks. Second, it may have been a cognitive leap based on observation. In this scenario the first flake removal was an effort to replicate the result of two pieces of rock, in nature,  coming into contact with violent force such that a small, sharp fragment was detached. Not much to choose between there. Could go either way. What about that second possibility? How could that have occurred?
     I see at least a couple of ways that our bipedal hominid might have espied pieces of rock coming into contact in such a way that that first 'flintknapper' decided to take a *cough* crack at it. The first possibility is that it was, once again, a natural occurrence. Picture a cliff face from which, at random, fragments are naturally detached and fall to ground level with great force. At some point one block is going to come crashing down on another one resting on the surface and voila! The flake is born. The other possibility is that our incipient 'flintknapper' was out foraging one day with a fist-sized rock that was intended to be used as a missile in case it was surprised by a vicious predator [or to scatter a bunch of scavengers, or something equally as efficacious, in the palaeolithic sense]. Fast forward to the confrontation. Bipedal hominid flings rock at lion and misses, hitting cliff face or rock outcrop. Lion runs off. Our intrepid hominid goes to retrieve missile. It looks different now. There's a chunk missing. Hominid glances at ground. Spies flake. Picks up flake. 'Refits' flake. [Please, please, don't somebody use this scenario to argue for the presence of lithic analysts at 2.6 Ma!] Our better-than-chimp-brained bipedal ape puts two and two together and hominids lived happily ever after...
     So, our choices are 1) meaningless rock banging leads to lithic technology, or 2) observation of the results of rock banging leads to lithic technology. I think 2) is most likely. As for the event that brought about the observation, the possibilities are 1) naturally occurring fracturing, or 2) a rock used as a missile fractures when it impacts a larger rock mass. I think we must begin from this supposition, that our 'flintknapper' observed a natural phenomenon and put two and two together. This is the explanation that requires the least speculation. But, of course, it doesn't rule out the missile scenario.

     Just an aside, here. How did our savvy, soon-to-be 'flintknapper' know that a sharp rock could function as a cutting or scraping tool [which seems the most logical function for the arch flake and its progeny]? I reckon it's a no brainer. [Well, okay, it's a chimp brainer!] Ever bang your head on a sharp overhanging object, whether rock or other material? Hurts. There might be blood. Same with walking barefoot on sharp rocks. It probably didn't take an Oldowan Einstein to see the utility of sharp-edged rock fragments. So, it seems most likely that the first sharp stone flake removed intentionally from a block of raw material was used to cut or scrape something that couldn't be cut or scraped using fingernails or teeth. [It matters little to this discussion which of those two activities was primary in hominid evolution.] What matters is the result: one sharp fragment and one block of raw material from which it was removed.

     By now you're prolly wondering what any of this has to do with soap. I'm getting there. Be patient.
     If the entire archaeological record consisted of a sharp-edged fragment of rock--i.e. a flake--and the lump of raw material from which it was detached--i.e. a core--do you think archaeologists should ignore the flake and try to figger out what the lump might have been used for? Would that same archaeologist look at a used bar of soap and ignore the material that had been removed to wash somebody's hands? They might if they had no idea that any material had been removed in its creation. So, under such circumstances we could forgive the soap analysts if they focussed on the bar and not the lather, and dubbed the used bar a work of art or, well you can see what I'm up to. In the next chapter I'm going to argue that this is just what the earliest palaeolithic archaeologists did, and for much the same reason--at the very beginning the flakes--the lather, if you will, of a lump of rock--were very likely not in the picture.
     For now, I'll just foreshadow that next installment with an example from recent palaeoanthropology. Have a look at the illustration below. These are some of the oldest stone artifacts, from Kada Gona, Ethiopia, at around 2.65 Ma. These were reported in a 2000 Journal of Archaeological Science publication by Sileshi Semaw, "The World’s Oldest Stone Artefacts from Gona, Ethiopia: Their Implications for Understanding Stone Technology and Patterns of Human Evolution Between 2·6–1·5 Million Years Ago." The typological paradigm that's in play in these descriptions is a direct descendent of the first discoveries of Pleistocene stone artifacts in Europe, including those that were described from the very beginning as hand axes. The Kada Gona archaeologists are obviously reluctant to suggest that any of the objects shown are handaxes (although number 2 would be a good candidate for what the Qesem Cave and Kathu Pan 1 teams have described as a "handaxe roughout"--a pre-form, in other words). How number 2 escaped such a claim, and indeed, how the Kada Gona archaeologist missed his chance at claiming the earliest handaxe, is beyond the ability of this little brain of mine to understand. Unless, of course, said archaeologist had been brought up to think that handaxes weren't even invented until the Acheulean stone industry appeared, at about 1.5 Ma.

As you can see in the caption above, the archaeologist makes every effort to downplay the flakes, and to ascribe a meaningful function to the lumps from which the flakes were removed. Number 1 is a "unifacial chopper," while number 2 is inscrutably identified as a "discoid." Number 3 isn't just another unifacial chopper, it's a unifacial side chopper. [Explain that one!] Number 4 is a unifacial end chopper. Doesn't it look like 1 and 3? It does to me. But, then again, I'm not a lithic analyst. The fifth is a 'partial' discoid, presumably because it's not really discoidal at all. So it's an irregular discoid! Criminy! 6 and 7 are called the same thing as 3. UNBELIEVABLE! It's the flake, Stupid! [Recalling the Clinton campaign strategy: "It's the economy, Stupid!"] These so-called choppers prolly couldn't chop a pound of butter without smearing it all over Olduvai! Choppers, my ass. Are we to believe that these Ur-flintknappers, who had just learned to walk for gawd's sake, could possibly conceive of a chopper, or an axe? Good luck with that one.
     On the basis of the foregoing evidence courtesy of the Kada Gona archaeologist, I'm gonna guess that any lumps of stone with fewer than a half-dozen flake removals were simply not considered worthy of discussion [much less illustration in an august refereed journal]. But you and I know that they're there in the assemblage, disguised as 'mere' cores, and giving lie to this preposterous labelling of more heavily used lumps as 'choppers' and 'discoids.' What a load of crap. And I'm talkin' poop of pachydermical proportions.

I'm outa here.

SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.