Regourdou Redux, All Over Again.

Obi-Wan Kenobi was using a little Force-ful mind control there. Effective, in a fiction. But, in reality, I can't help thinking there's a history of transgenerational mind control in paleoanthropology. How else to explain the persistent fiction that Middle Paleolithic hominids buried their dead?

Everyone knows that to "assume" often results in making asses out of all who make an unwarranted assumption. That's why I'm forced to conclude that many of my peers are, to put it in the vernacular, inadvertent asses. Another way of putting it is that they "drank the Kool-Aid," and are therefore physically incapable of making informed, critical, decisions about even the most egregious examples of unwarranted inference making in the paleoanthropological canon.

Only someone who is thoroughly enchanted by the mind control that exists in paleoanthropology could be bamboozled by the claims that some of their peers have made. Indeed, it seems as if all critical ability flies out the window whenever someone makes a claim about something that Neanderthals could do. No inference is too shaky, or too insufficiently supported, or too preposterous, to go unquestioned.

Unbelievable flights of fancy emanated from La Grotte de Regourdou (Montignac, Dordogne, France) in the 1950s and '60s, thanks to Eugène Bonifay and Bernard Vandermeersch [with whom, by the way, I have, or had, a convivial relationship back in the 1980s]. These included a Neanderthal burial and—hold on to your hat—a purposefully buried bear!

Before you go and get all excited, let me assuage your fears. I'm not bringing this up again just to whine and piss on Grandma's grave . . . again. Rather, I have a scholarly purpose. Somehow or other I missed a recent article presenting a taphonomic examination of the carnivore bones from Regourdou. I'm a couple of years behind the curve here, but, in this business that's the blink of an eye. So, what's the story? Just wait. It's sweet.

"L’OURS QUI A VU L’HOMME ? Étude archéozoologique et taphonomique du site paléolithique moyen de Regourdou (Montignac, Dordogne, France)," by N. Cavanhié. PALEO 21: 39–64, 2009–2010.

So. Let's see. Bonifay and Vandermeersch excavated. Vandermeersch later creates a new journal PALEO in his own image. Cavanhié, decades on, sees a project in the Regourdou carnivore remains. Cavanhié needs access. Bonifay is one of the gods of French archaeology. Whom among the gods would one choose to cheese off if one wished to work on his fauna? Additionally, how near to finished, to say nothing of published, does Cavanhié get if Cavanhié so much as mentions the Subversive Archaeologist's early career attempt to show the discipline the error of Bonifay's ways? And where, if anywhere, would Cavanhié choose to publish? Right you are!

So, a few choice quotes to remind you of how mindless one can become when one's mind is controlled by the likes of Eugène-i-Wan Kenobi.

The excavators ascribed an anthropic origin to the presence of bears at the cave.

Like, bears couldn't get into caves themselves!

According to them, Mousterian people linked the bear to the belief in resurrection because of his capacity for hibernation, and consumed it in the cave during funeral meals.

Never heard that one before. Stunning, ain't it? So reasonable, and yet "Oh, so untestable!"

The Mousterian people would then deposit the skins, the head and the paws in structures (pits and tumuli [piles of rock]).

This is the first I've heard to suggest that the bear 'burial' wasn't a complete skeleton.

In the opinion of the excavators, the relationship between Mousterian people and bears was visible in the Neanderthal grave because two bear shin bones were placed in the same position as the Neandertal shin bones, which were absent.

That's some really, really arcane ritual stuff. O' course, if you look at the Neanderthal remains that were recovered from the putative grave, you'll see that the tibiae weren't the only missing bits. Indeed, most of the lower limbs are absent. Ironic, isn't it? No matter how hard those Neanderthals tried to "protect" the "corpses" of their "kin" they didn't always succeed. Somehow or other those pesky taphonomical thingies succeeded in scuppering their best intentions. Those taphonomicals are even more impressive in this case, since, as you'll see a little further down, they managed to wriggle their way into a "tumulus" forming the 'grave' [read: a collection of rocks containing the bones] and rubbish the skeleton—leaving only what you see in the image below. [By the way, the lower three rib fragment on the left of this image aren't hominid. But, who am I to use an ad hominem argument to discredit somebody who arranged these remains eons ago and took the only photo of them that I could find on the web?]

Regourdou 1. Putatively buried.

Back to the great quotes . . .

In addition, this grave . . . was associated with a pit . . . , which for the excavators, represented an inhumation of a bear after ritual consummation [sic] . . .. For these authors, the bear bone accumulations are wholly anthropic, but for others authors, a natural mortality (during hibernation) can be envisioned . . . .

Wow! That was a brave move—suggesting that there may have been a natural explanation for the bear remains. Alas! Although there was a reference to the proposed natural explanation, Cavanhié somehow overlooked Gargett 1989 [in which I thoroughly defused Bonifay's every claim, including that of bear burial], and instead cites a compatriot, Fosse 2002, of whom, of course, I'd never heard, nor of the paper. Obviously, my review copy of L’ours et l’homme: Colloque d’Auberives 1997 is missing in the mail, and lying in some 'dead letter' office in Mombassa [or similar].

Fosse, P., P. Morel, et J.-P. Brugal. "Taphonomie et éthologie des Ursidés Pléistocènes." In : Tillet, T. and L.R. Binford L.R. (éds), L’ours et l’homme: Colloque d’Auberives 1997, 79-101, 2002.

[Fosse, by the way, is French for hole in the ground—quite a career choice for M., Mlle, or Mme. Fosse!]

As for the natural vs Neanderthal cultural depositional circumstances of Regourdou 1, the image below was taken during its excavation. I can see what's most likely a Neanderthal humeral head and what's likely its dislocated diaphysis casting a shadow in the upper right, a bear's distal tibia poking out and also casting a shadow, and at the same level, what I think must be a partially exposed bear fibula. These remains are clearly disarticulated and disturbed. Ironic, as I mentioned above, considering the trouble Bonifay claims the Neanderthals went to to "protect" the "corpse," as you'll see in a moment.

I'm even more sceptical of Bonifay's claims, now that I've seen these two photo-documents of the remains and the one below showing the demolition excavation of the site.

Regourdou during Bonifay's demolition excavations. Notice the collapsed cave's proximity to the modern-day surface.

Now, let's have a look at Cavanhié's depiction of the pit and the pile that were said to have been the graves of a bear and a Neanderthal [actually this is one of Bonifay's original illustrations, with Cavanhié's embellishments]. 

The "Sépulture humaine" is the Neanderthal 'burial.' "Fosse 4 C" is subtitled "inhumation d'ours." "Inhumation" is a burial, and an "ours" is an bear.

Speaking of bears. Being a bear of little brain, can anyone explain to me how Bonifay  could have distinguished between the artificially darkened rocks he called the "Sépulture humaine" and the rocks of the "Mur Nord" [north wall]? Ouija board? Tarot? Crystal ball? And, just out of curiosity, where did all those rocks come from???

Kay, so, have another look at the demolition excavation photo, above. See the ground level? Regourdou is a collapsed cave. The excavated portion was beneath the final roof collapse, which formed the modern land surface. This is shown beautifully in Bonifay's diagram, below.

Bonifay 

The letter S in the profile above denotes the modern-day surface. The notation "ch" indicates that this infilled limestone feature was what geologists called a chimney—an opening to the surface through which outside sediments made their way into the cave proper. All of the rocks that look like parts of a brick wall are the rubble of repeated major and minor roof collapse that ultimately buried the 'archaeological' strata of this site. I've indicated various bits of cave breakdown material, from the small stuff that's clearly part of the chimney's breakdown, to the middling sized stuff interspersed with the gigantic blocks in the upper middle, to the elongated blocks that are lying conformably on the central talus cone—the slanting surface that's implied by their orientation, even thought there's no symbolic depiction of what they're resting on.

In the complex profile above, please note the scale, and the stratigraphic units labelled IVA, IVB, and IVC, respectively—indicating the Neanderthal burial tumulus [cairn or rock pile], the 'north wall,' shown here as an elongated lens, and the bear burial pit, looking like an empty space in a stratum overlain by IVB. [That, in itself, should set off alarms, since, in the profile below, IVC abuts IVB, which, stratigraphically speaking, indicates contemporaneity, not diachronic episodes—and, where, by the way, is the big flat rock that the bear was found under?] Also note, if you can, that these three features occur along the line between squares G3-4 and B3-4.

The image above is an enlarged cross-section that follows a line parallel to, and less than a metre closer to the observer than the more-complex cross-section above it—i.e. the section line spans G3 and C3. As you can also see, this close-up includes not only the Sépulture humaine—now a burial pit—but also the Mur nord, shown now as an unnatural, vertically oriented accumulation of boulders, and the gigantic [more than 2 tonne] Grande dalle, or 'big flat rock,' which the Neanderthals were said to have placed over the dead bear. Burly folk, the Neanderthals!

K. So, now we've seen the Neanderthal's final resting place depicted as a cairn and a rock-filled depression. Wait. What? Yep. The wall is either a very wall-like vertical structure or an elongated lens—take your pick. And the bear burial, more like a dolmen, really, rather than the lidless stratum depicted in the previous section, or a fosse.

Now have a look at the cross-section below. This one is at right angles to the two up above. IVA is once again shown as a cairn—it's a shape-shifter! Note also that there is no sign of IVB—the wall—or IVC—the bear burial. That's interesting all by itself, since in this view IVA—the lonely tumulus cum sépulture humaine—is depicted as a pile of rock beginning against the cave wall in Row 1, and ending somewhere in Row 3. In other words, not only is IVA shown here as a pile and not a basin, but it's also drawn in a completely different place than it's shown in the detailed profile above.

W.T.F? W.T.F., indeed!

Now for the really subversive bit.

Or, should I say, the really sensible bit.

All of the illustrative material I've shown you here attests to one gigantic reality that seems to have excaped not only Bonifay, but also Cavanhié and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE PALEOANTHROPOLOGICAL COMMUNITY WHO'S EVER REFERRED TO THIS CRAP AS BEING INFERENTIALLY SOUND!

This is a karst landform. This was a subterranean cave. It was developing along the lines of squillions of similar geomorphic formations across the globe. In such places the following can be said, UNEQUIVOCALLY

1. The breakdown products of the vertical and sub-vertical surfaces of the cave [colloquially called walls] will fall vertically and come to rest on the floor of the cave immediately below their previous location.

2. The breakdown products of the upper horizontal and sub-horizontal surfaces of the cave [colloquially called the ceiling] will come to rest on the floor of the cave immediately below their previous location.

UNLESS

The floor of the cave is sloping.

Now, Grasshopper, look at the detailed profiles again. More UNEQUIVOCAL reality.

1. Sediments entering through the chimney will form a cone of talus.

2. Breakdown products of vaults forming in the ceiling will tend to fall in a circumscribed area directly beneath the developing vaults, forming cones of talus, or in the near-term, piles.

3. The sloping surface on which the large flat rocks are resting near IVC are resting on a humungous talus cone that formed beneath a vault or a chimney not shown, at a time when the cave volume was more open.

THIS CAVE CONTAINS SLOPES VARYING FROM HORIZONTAL TO STEEP! 

In such circumstances, it can be stated UNEQUIVOCALLY that on a steep-enough slope

1. Any breakdown products that are sub-round will immediately roll to the bottom, forming murs, 'walls,' at the base of planar slopes, and sépultures in naturally formed basins.

2. Any breakdown products that are laminar will come to rest conformably on the slope, or bridging nearby naturally accumulated tumuli or murs. forming what might appear to be a lid over a fosse, or basin.

We can thus state, UNEQUIVOCALLY, that

1. The inferences of purposeful burial and constructed walls at Regourdou are a very large, steaming pile of . . . it.

Any QUESTIONS?

An Anthropology Of One's Self. Difficulty Focussing On More Than One Task At A Time

For quite a while now, every time I address the desktop computer on which I'm typing this sentence I am torn from three directions. Before I left Surf City the three comprised 1) you, the reader, 2) readying myself for the move north, and 3) trying to find a satisfying, well-paying job. Now that I'm finally back in the Pacific Northwest, where I belong, the three poles have changed. I think of you first, as always. Then comes looking for that job. Lastly, unpacking and making this a home.

I often feel like Jerry Lewis's hapless bellhop...


The sad truth is that I end up paralyzed. Or, more to the point: I'm unable to focus on any of the three activities. Worse, when I do manage to focus on one of the tasks I'm thinking about not doing the other two. That, of course, lessens the likelihood that I'll do anything like the best job I can on whichever of the three I'm working on.

As an anthropologist and archaeologist who knows all the ins and outs of optimal foraging, embedded activities in a seasonal round, rational decision-making, and so on. Despite that, the explanation for my inability to conform to such theoretical frameworks is a profoundly black, black box. I seem to be cognitively or behaviourally inept at apportioning my time. And, when I do manage to apportion my time to one of the three, I spend most of it worrying about giving short shrift to the other two. I think to myself, "Is multi-tasking a myth? Or am I just a misfit?" I have no answers. No compelling ones, at any rate. According to every cultural materialist tenet, as a human being I should have no difficulty doing what's needed, and in the right order of priority, exactly like a wolf would, or any modern humans worth their salt. Am I a freak of nature?

Hardly. [Used here in the sense of definition #5.]

The answer lies, I think, in the particular way in which my personality developed—through my acculturation in a milieu that was rife with contradictory [and mainly negative] responses to whatever it was I chose to do at any one time. I'll admit, that's more a psychological hypothesis than a purely anthropological one. Except, perhaps, that my early learning took place in a subset of western Canadian culture in the 1950s and early 60s. I can still hear my dead Dad reminding me that "A job worth doing is worth doing well." And, if the job I decided on was akin to colouring outside the lines he'd grumpily state that "If you give [him or 'em, I'm not sure which] and inch, he'll take a mile." Take-home lesson: be careful what you choose to do, lest you be punished for it.

I could come up with a thousand more vignettes to explain what goes on in my psyche, but it wouldn't change the reality. If I have to divide my attention, the result is a diminished finished product. [Aaaaaaaaaand we're back to "A job worth doing is worth doing well." It's vicious (sense 2), I tell you!]

So. Where does that leave you and me? Unfortunately you take a back seat to the other two. I have been working on a blurt about Jim Enloe's spatial analysis of La Grotte du Bison, at Arcy-sur-Cure in France. Bison is the little-known sibling cave phenomenon adjacent the more famous La Grotte du Renne—the La Grotte du Renne from which one of the few claimed "Châtelperronian" assemblages was recovered. While less well known, Jim Enloe's recent work on the taphonomy of Level I at the Cave of the Bison is consequential. So, while I'm dithering, why not give it a read? It's behind a paywall, of course. But I'm certain that you can find a way to procure a copy if you're exceptionally good at the Google.

Enloe, J. G. 2012 Middle Palaeolithic Cave Taphonomy: Discerning Humans from Hyenas at Arcy-sur-Cure, France. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 22: 591–602.

For the moment, then, it's back to the job of getting a job—perhaps the most work for least reward of almost any activity of which I'm aware. *sigh*

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.

Touchdown! Touchstone...er...Tuesday is Back: Sherwood Washburn's 'Australopithecines: the hunters or the hunted?'

For some time now I've been neglecting your higher education--can anyone remember the last Touchstone Thursday? Me, neither. Given the time elapsed since the last offering, I think it's ok if I'm a couple of days early. 
     After the flurry of questionable archaeological inferences I've dealt with lately, I was keen to present a work that epitomized the SA Dictum--always rule out natural processes before imputing your observations to bipedal apes. I was all set to champion C. K. 'Bob' Brain [again] for today's flashback. His work on the geology of Swartkrans Cave and his early actualistic studies of butchery among the San people of southern Africa are a perennial topic of undergraduate archaeology and physical anthropology classes because they put to rest Raymond Dart's hypothesis of Plio-Pleistocene australopithecines making and using bone, tooth, and horn tools--the so-called Osteodontokeratic Culture--in a convincing and elegant manner. 

The 'Brain' scenario for the punctured australopithecine skulls at Swartkrans (Source)

Thus, today's touchstone was to have been Brain's 1967 paper 'Bone weathering and the problem of pseudo-bone tools' (South African Journal of Science 63:97-99). HOWEVER, I happened upon the above-linked Wikipedia article on Dart's hypothesis, and discovered something I'd either long-since forgotten or was never actually aware of. Brain's work was motivated in large part by Sherwood L. 'Sherry' Washburn's 1957 'Australopithecines: the hunters or the hunted? (American Anthropologist 59:612–614). In fact, Brain's (1981) major work--Hunters or the Hunted?: An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy (University of Chicago Press: Chicago & London)--was obviously titled in that way to pay homage to Washburn's inspiration.
     So, on the basis of my latest 'live and learn' experience, I thought I'd put Sherwood Washburn up as this week's touchstone. It's short--just three pages--and pithy, as I think you'll agree. [Quelle surprise! It's behind a pay wall! Poke me if you're desperate to read it and don't have access through your institution.]
     Washburn begins by acknowledging the 'high frequency of jaws, skulls, and upper cervical vertebrae in the australopithecine deposits.' This is precisely what had led Dart to think that something odd was happening in the caverns he was excavating. Washburn, in contrast, notes that '[it] is not necessarily evidence for hunting, head hunting, or human activities, but may be due to selective eating by carnivores.' He continues

…it is clear from the description of the brown hyena den that normal eating and collection of bones by living carnivores produces accumulations which are peculiar, both in regard to the species of animals represented and the distribution of bones. A high frequency of skulls, jaws, and cervical vertebrae is the result of normal eating habits of carnivores. The brown hyenas in Kruger Park collected the heads of medium sized antelopes, baboons, and a few carnivores. This is the kind and distribution of bones found in the australopithecine deposits.'

Thus, on the basis of Washburn's intuition and an ad hoc survey of 35 animal carcasses he observed while looking for baboons to anthropologize, he was able to posit a plausible and parsimonious alternative explanation for the traces that Dart thought must have been the result of australopithecine hunting. If Bob Brain can be considered the English-speaking founder of the study of taphonomy, Washburn must therefore have been the Muse.

Spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta), adapted to eating bone, and bone collector extraordinaire (Source)

     In the end, Washburn focusses on hyaenas as one of the more prolific bone collectors, and notes that depending on the carcass size of any given species, a different pattern of skeletal parts will find its way into a hyaena den.

It should be stressed that a variety of animals may have been involved, and there is no reason that any particular animal should have been responsible for all the deposits. However, it seems to have been generally assumed that hyenas were the most likely candidates, but Hughes ... and Dart ... have questioned whether hyenas do in fact accumulate bones. I saw a spotted hyena carrying off the head of a medium sized antelope, and Colonel Stevenson-Hamilton, who was Warden of Kruger National Park for many years, gives an excellent account of a brown hyena den. 'The vicinity was littered with bones. ...The heads of fourteen full-grown impala rams, all quite recently killed, the skulls of several baboons, and of two chitas (one of them a full-grown animal) remains of guinea fowls, and a large tree snake ("boomslang") partly chewed, were among the exhibits' ... . This is the same den described by Maberly ... in his excellent guide to the 'Animals of Kruger National Park.'

The brown hyaena (Hyaena brunnea, formerly Parahyaena brunnea), another prodigious bone transport agent and accumulator (Source)

Returning, finally, to the Swartkrans deposits, Washburn summarizes by saying, 'Combined with the fact that hyena coprolites have been found in the deposits, this makes it probable that the australopithecines were themselves the game, rather than the hunters.'

Refreshingly brief, concise, insightful, with a hint of tropical fruit on the finish. Bon apetit!

Thanks for dropping by! If you like what you see, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, check out my publications at Academia, or connect on Linkedin. You can also subscribe to receive new posts by email or RSS [scroll to the top and look on the left]. I get a small commission for anything you purchase from Amazon.com if you go there using any link on this site. 

The Real Meaning of 'All Things Being Equal'

Over the past few days, and indeed months [and decades, if you want to know], I've been hammering, implicitly if not ex-, on a theme. That theme boils down to this: however much the Neanderthals 'R' Us crowd crows about raptor talon jewellery, black feathered stoles, ceremonial ochre use, bitumen hafts, birch tar hafts, the Levallois technique, and all the rest, they're falling prey to a presumption--that theirs is the only possible or likely interpretation of the observations they make and the objects they recover from Middle Palaeolithic archaeological sites. 
      They're perfecty within their right and within reason [most of the time] to make whatever inference they desire. 

 [Please excuse the shouting in the sentence that follows--it's done for emphasis, and because I'm constrained by the ability of the written word to convey one's tone of voice].

HOWEVER, we're under no obligation to accept their inferences, if only because they inevitably downplay or ignore the possibility that other processes are capable of producing the traces that they're using to make those inferences. The theme about which I've been harping can be encapsulated in a term well-known to philosophers of science [particularly those who seek to understand the epistemological underpinnings of the concept of uniformity, whence the term Uniformitarianism] and those in the business of understanding the taphonomy of animal bone from archaeological sites. That term is 'equifinality.' Succinctly, it refers to the ability of more than one process to result in the same outcome.

 I'll give you an example of what I'm talking about--one that's near and, as you know, dear to my ticker. The Levallouis technique, so called, is just one of the ways that widespread patterns in Middle Palaeolithic lithic assemblages can be interpreted. Just one way. Remember that it's predicated on the belief that the desired outcome is a flake of certain proportions, which are classified as follows. Note how each is presumed to be the result of deliberate choices made along the way so as to acheive a core of just the right shape to enable removal of the flake of the desired morphology. Notice that the cores appear as if their margins are pristine, as if, indeed, the purpose of the knapper was to prepare the core in just such a way that the desired end product could be acheived with a single, final blow.  

Bordes Levallois flake types, and the cores from which they're presumed to have been removed. (Bordes, François. 1980. Le débitage Levallois et ses variantes. Bulletin de la Société préhistorique française 77:45-49.)

Notwithstanding the confidence exuded by those who hold to this interpretation of these lithic assemblages, the standard story is easily shown to be just one of at least two possible processes. In fact, if you take away the inference that the so-called Levallois flake is a desired end product, you're left with the second interpretation, which has equal valence, philosophically speaking.
     That process amounts to the use of a block of raw material to remove useable flakes--i.e. as a core--and the inevitability that at some point the core will become marginally useful for that purpose. At that point the knapper has the choice of whether to discard the core or to prepare an uncrushable platform and attempt to rejuvenate the core by splitting it through the middle. Succeed and the knapper has two new cores from which to choose. Fail and the knapper produces a simple flake, or two [the Levallois flakes] and discards the exhausted core [the Levallois core].
     As you can see from the array of Levallois cores recovered from Douara Cave, Syria, the reality of the so-called Levallois flake repertoire is an idealized, indeed, reified category, and one that desparately needs to be taken down to size.

The so-called Levallois flake removals are outlined in red. Notice that in all cases the cores themselves are at a stage where the removal of useful flakes would be unrewarding at best. And, judging from the outlines of the flakes that were, as the story goes, the desired end product of the entire process, the standard story leaves a lot to be desired (Credit Akazawa in Suzuki and Takai 1974).

Thus, there's no necessary reason to infer the complex--and ultimately mystifying--process that the Bordesian lithic analysts have adhered to from the beginning, that of a knapper removing flake after flake with the sole purpose of creating a core of a certain shape from which to remove a flake of the desired morphology. And, other than tradition and a particularly well-established orthodoxy, there's no reason for archaeologists to accept this inference uncritically.
     Equifinality is a spectre that's with archaeologists at all stages in the recovery and interpretation of traces from the human/hominid past. It's the reality that underpins my stance on the reality of Middle Palaeolithic purposeful burial, the reality of the so-called handaxe [and cleavers, picks and choppers], and quite literally every one of my critiques of archaeological inference, whether in the 'pages' of the Subversive Archaeologist, in private, or in public. It was the impetus behind my Ph.D. research, and it remains the singular theoretical point of view that drives my passion for this subject.
      Equifinality isn't going away. And, although I'm pessimistic for the short term, equifinality will be an indispensable part of the theoretical framework for any 'final' interpretation of the archaeological record, from here 'til the cows come home [metaphorically speaking].

Thanks for dropping by! If you like what you see, follow me on Twitter, friend me on Facebook, check out my publications at Academia, or connect on Linkedin. You can also subscribe to receive new posts by email or RSS [scroll to the top and look on the left]. I get a small commission for anything you purchase from Amazon.com if you go there using any link on this site. 

Asses Wild: Böeda et al.'s (1999) Middle Palaeolithic Card Game

This lame duck has been waiting to be put out of its misery now for 13 years. It's called 'A Levallois point embedded in the vertebra of a wild ass (Equus africanus): hafting, projectiles and Mousterian hunting weapons,' and its thesis is that a Levallois point was driven into an ass's neck with such force that it breached the pedicle of its 3rd cervical vertebra and became lodged there for eternity (or close enough). 

Unfortunately, instead of its being a complete Levallois point, all that was left inside the vert was a small medial fragment of a larger flake. It's shown in two views above, one by itself, the other incorporated into the hypothesized Point. The two are drawings from the Böeda et al. publication. Notice that the flake's fairly small, and appears to be coming to a point--just what you'd expect from a Levallois Point. I'll get to the issue of hafting in a moment. There are a few matters to get out of the way first. This article requires me to take little bites. I think I'll call them Stages. For the first you'll need to refer to the two drawings and this, the only, photo of the flake that shows its true morphology [albeit from a lousy angle and badly lit].

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

STAGE ONE

The first thing you'll notice is that the two line drawings of the little fragment are different, so it's difficult to know which of them follows most closely the actual specimen's morphology. This isn't a major imperfection. But to my mind inconsistencies like this don't inspire confidence [I know. That's and argument ad hominem, and I don't hafta lower myself to that level--there are enough juicy, unwarranted inferences in this paper to preclude my needing to use fallacious argument]. For now, let's go with the two dissimilar renditions above, and the shape of the inferred original flake, shown the other way around in the illustration below. As it happens, the two inferred flake outlines aren't identical either, and in the figure below we see yet another version of the actual flake's marginal morphology. 

     Anyway, when I finally bothered to pick up this article the other day, after having been challenged to see what I could say about the 'evidence' for Middle Palaeolithic hafting, the first thing that crossed my mind was a question. WTF? Or words to that effect. I wasn't expecting there to be any possibility of doubt that the flake was a Levallois Point. Silly me.

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

How did Böeda et al. infer, from a small, medial fragment, that it had at one time been a Levallois point, and a hafted one, at that? With inabashed alacrity, I think you might say. The authors state, with what sounds like supreme confidence, that it's a Point, and that it must have been hafted, otherwise the Neanderthal that wanted to remove it from the bone couldn't have pried on the proximal portion of the flake with enough force to snap it in two. There's so much that's wrong with that line of thinking that I can hardly imagine how it was ever published in a refereed journal, much less the august, stiff-upper-lip British stalwart, Antiquity. But, Hey. That's the archaeology of the Neanderthals for you.

     So... Why do they think it must have been a Levallois Point? Böeda et al. point out [cough] that the dorsal flake scars are just like those on a Bordesian Levallois Point. That's true. But that's it? That's the only flake shape that could ever, in the whole long tenure of the Mousterian, have evinced a dorsal morphology such as this, anywhere along its length? Well, no. There is abundant evidence to contradict Böeda et al.'s assertion that their tiny ass pain of a flake fragment is, unequivocally, that of a Levallois Point. 

      To back up my assertion, I've put together a bunch of images from the 1980s excavations at Douara cave to show how precariously Boeda et al.'s interpretation clings to reality. [Profound gratitude needs to be extended to the Japanese team that worked at Douara. They illustrated (seemingly) everything they dug out of the ground, and not just the pretty bits--which is what one usually gets in a site report.] 

     Have a look at the various Levallois flakes shown below, none of which could reasonably be called a classic Levallois Point. [By showing you these images all in the same place, I know I risk spawning another round of raving about specialized Levallois blade industries. Please, Dear Reader, curb your urges in that direction.] 

     All of the Levallois flakes shown below are longer than they are wide, and yet a portion of each is analogous to the flake fragment that was allegedly such a pain in the ass. To help you see what I see, I've even outlined the relevant portion of each flake. Flakes such as these, that are longer than Points, would not be as difficult to snap in two as Böeda et al. aver would have been the case with a Point. 

All whole flake images are borrowed from Y. Nishiaki, 'CHAPTER 5: Middle Paleolithic Assemblages from the Douara Cave, 1984 Excavations,' in PALEOLITHIC SITE OF DOUARA CAVE AND PALEOGEOGRAPHY OF PALMYRA BASIN IN SYRIA, edited by T. Akazawa and Y. Sakaguchi, Bulletin No. 29, The University Museum, The University of Tokyo, 1987. 

After seeing the above I think you'll agree that there's literally no--NO--reason why anyone should accept Böeda et al.'s assertion that the fragment in the ass's vertebra was part of a Levallois Point.       None. Nada. Nil. Zip. Zilch. Squat.  The best part about each and every one of the examples above is that any of them could have been snapped off by the bare hands of even a septuagenarian Neanderthal without any need for hafting to increase leverage. 

STAGE TWO

How the flake fragment ended up inside the 3rd cervical vertebra of the ass seems to be a foregone conclusion to Böeda et al. Yet, even an ageing out-of-work archaeologist with an embittered heart can see, from the visual evidence they present, that Böeda et al. are missing some fairly important evidence on the bone that surrounded the little tyke of a flake.

     I can't forbear letting the authors speak for themselves. I couldn't possibly paraphrase their argument. Every line is packed with ore with which to forge a reasonable come-back to their facile fantasy. In their own words

...after having traversed the vertebra through the ... pedicle (the bony wall that connects the vertebral body to the neural arch) from the right side. It entered at a slightly oblique angle, from high to low ... 

Push the STOP button. At this point I must interject (something I can't imagine this flake/point ever did). Have a good look at the illustration below. 

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

In the right-hand image of the call-out we see a flake that's not the shape of the flake shown in the first three illustrations. [Now a total of four unique representations of the same flake in one brief article.] On the left, we see that the flake is oriented with the thickest (proximal) part to the left and the thinnest (distal) part to the right, just as you'd expect if the imagined whole flake had penetrated from the right hand side of the animal, as described by Böeda et al. Look again at the right side of the call-out. In this view the front of the horse is at the top. Thus, in this view the flake would have penetrated from the right. However, the marginal morphology given in this illustration makes it darned difficult to figure out the direction from which this version of the flake was pointing, and thus, from which side it would have entered. This really changes nothing. And, once again, how the authors depict the object is not as important as the reality. I'm just being picky, and losing confidence by the minute.
     The authors continue

... its presence in the bone cannot be the result of butchery activity. ... a considerable force was required ... to traverse the ... pedicle of the 3rd cervical vertebra of a wild ass (Equus africanus).

They'll get no argument from me on that [clears throat] point. Let's keep going, shall we?

The left edge of the lithic fragment presents traces of alteration. The most marked are observable at the base and present a scarring of the edge due to a strong pressure when the proximal end broke.

Press STOP again. I'm not familiar with the term scarring. It's probably one of those specialized lithic analyst words that we benighted non-flint-knappers don't know. So, we'll have to take their word for it that the proximal break indicates pressure exerted dorsally, something that isn't obvious in any of the four drawings or the one photo. You'd think, wouldn't you, that it would be a simple matter to determine in which direction the flake was bent with sufficient force to break it, based on the morphology of the break itself? In that case it does seem odd that the authors saw fit to mention this 'scarring' almost as if they wanted it to be evidence of the direction the force was applied. In a minute you'll read that the 'point' penetrated the vertebra without its point. Strange that there wouldn't have been more extensive marginal modification in that case. Oh well. I'm not a flintknapper. And Böeda most certainly is. I'll just take his word for it. To continue

Indeed, the base broke off when the fragmentary point was solidly embedded into the vertebra and could no longer move. This fracture was accompanied by a scarring of part of the edge. These accidents, the mesial/proximal fracture and the scarring of part of the fracture plane and the left edge, indicate that the non-embedded portion of the Levallois point exerted a strong, asymmetrical force on part of the fracture plane. However, for this to occur, the proximal part of the Levallois point must have been firmly hafted.

I'm afraid they've lost me here. So, the proximal break is 'accompanied' by the marginal 'scarring' on the 'fracture plane,' which I take to mean the flake's ventral surface, and on the edge. I wish they'd been a bit more specific about the 'scarring' on the ventral surface. Think about it. Pressure exerted upward proximally would produce pressure downward distally. The smooth ventral surface, in that case, would have been pressed against the inside of the vertebral foramen, also a smooth surface. One wonders what kind of damage that might inflict on a big, strong, rock like Levallois Point, and how one might describe it. Was the scarring some form of abrasion, which left fine striations? Why didn't they say so? Surely they don't mean that the rock was dented by the bone. I'm probably just dull-witted, but why didn't they come out and describe the morphology of this 'scarring,' to remove any possibility of ambiguity? I think you know what I'm thinking.

Other traces of alteration are observable on the dorsal face of the left edge. These consist of micro-denticulations formed by small, adjacent removals (1 to 2 mm in depth) which were detached following a violent contact of the edge with bone.

Thrilling stuff, eh wot? Such violent contact should have left some mark on the bone. Don't you think? Again, I'm sure Böeda et al. know best. Onward and ever forward.

The missing distal extremity of the point was not found in the medullary canal [sic] [vertebrae don't have medullae], and the reasons for this can have important implications. Did the point initially penetrate the vertebra and then break off in the medullary canal? Or, alternatively, was the point already broken before it penetrated ... the vertebral body? Several indices favour the second hypothesis. In effect, according to the reconstitution of the missing distal extremity, its length is estimated at 2.4 cm; however, the distance separating the distal extremity fixed in the bone and the opposing wall of the foramen is only 1 cm. Thus, if the distal extremity of the point had been in place at the time of penetration, there would forcibly have been a violent contact with the bone situated in its trajectory and there would be evidence in the form of impact traces. However, there are none. It is thus probable that the distal end of the Levallois point was broken off upon initial contact with soft tissue, or with bone, and only the mesial part penetrated into the vertebra.

OK. I think Böeda et al. just shot themselves in their collective foot. So, the pointy part of the putative Point broke off either when it contacted the firm, juddering flesh of the ass's neck or broke off when it contacted the bone, leaving the distinctly un-pointy remainder to crash through the vertebral pedicle and become lodged inside. Chew on that for a while. Seems a bit of a reach, to me. And where, pray tell, is the portion of the vertebra that was displaced when the putative point putatively penetrated the vertebral pedicle? Was it differentially preserved? Unfortunately bioturbated in the direction of elsewhere? Again, hardly seems likely. But we'll take them at their word. Böeda et al. are winding up for the big finish here.

In order for such an object to penetrate ... a vertebral body, a strong force is necessary, thus requiring a very strong grip. Such a grip cannot be achieved by holding the object directly in the hand, even with some sort of protection. Moreover, independent of the fact that a considerable force was necessary to penetrate the bone, the object also needed to traverse the intermediate soft tissues. It thus seems evident that this Levallois point was hafted onto a shaft that extended the long axis of the triangular object.

This last bit is so full of unwarranted assumptions as to be, honestly, laughable. To summarize. A blunt flake of some indeterminate length was somehow thrust through several centimetres of soft tissue and horse hide, broke through solid bone without shattering, and left no trace of the bone from the part of the vertebra it blasted through. Then an individual with two hands and two feet grabbed the near end of the flake/hafted flake and snapped it in two just inside the vertebra, causing tiny pressure flakes to be removed on the distal left flake margin. This is really starting to hurt my brain. 

     But we're not done here.

STAGE THREE

Look closely at the (really rather nice) line drawing of the vertebra of interest, below. See all those Swiss cheesy areas? The authors, curiously, have nothing to say about them. Perhaps they weren't aware that they weren't looking at an unaltered skeletal element (except for the part where they say the point penetrated). In fact, this piece of bone has been quite thoroughly gnawed by (most likely) a canid. Hyaenas would have made short work of breaking up such an object, and would simply have swallowed and digested the bone (which is, as many of you know, what Hyaenas are particularly adept at doing). The horizontal Swiss-cheesy area in the middle is what's left of the spinous process. Based on this and the photographic illustrations it appears that the cranial end of the centrum has been removed. Likewise the other breached areas of this specimen. Note also the four missing zygapophyses. 

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

Now have a look at this photograph taken from the side where the flake is said to have broken through. I've circled the area in question. The horizontal, midline breaks that enabled the archaeologists to take the vert apart are way-post-mortem. They are columnar, which cannot occur in green (i.e. fresh) bone. 

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

For comparison, I include below an illustration of a complete equid 3rd cervical vertebra. A sort of After and Before. Both the photo above and the drawing below are viewed from the same side and are oriented with the head end to the right.

Now that you know what's missing from the archaeological specimen, in the closeup below have a look at the area described by the yellow ellipse in the photo above.

Click on this to see it larger. From Böeda et al. (1999) 

Look at the margin of the cortical (smooth) bone visible in the foreground at the bottom of this view. Do you see how rounded and shiny the edge looks? That's not what bone looks like when it's freshly broken, and it doesn't happen naturally while buried. In the absence of other rounding and polishing that might indicate rolling in a flowing stream, a break margin will only begin to look like that (and in short order) when a canid works away at the piece of bone with its rasping tongue, trying to lap up the yummy fat contained in those bubbles you see there, which have been exposed, almost certainly, by the same canid when it levered off the piece of cortical bone that previously encased all that lovely, fat-filled, bubbly bone.

     Look, too, and the break margin above the area where the flake is supposed to have penetrated this specimen (i.e. the plano-convex really dark area in the lower centre of the image. It's nicely rounded too. And, is it just me? The concave portion of the opening--the opening that was putatively produced by a flake with a trapezoidal cross section--isn't trapezoidal. It's distinctly arcuate. I suppose it's possible that the canid simple enlarged the hole that the forcefully driven flake made, and in so doing transformed the opening from quasi-trapezoidal to smoothy concave. But that seems like a leap, considering what canids are capable of doing to skeletal elements of this size, and the manner in which the lower breach would have been achieved by the carnivore's attentions. So, how did that flake get in there?

From Böeda et al. (1999) 

In fact, any number of peri- or post-depositional processes could have created the juxtaposition of the flake and the bone. But what the heck, it's at least theoretically possible that an elongated Levallois flake penetrated the vertebra. Maybe a steel-gripped Neanderthal snapped said putative flake in two. Only then, maybe, did the canid wander by to have a nosh. Either way, Böeda et al.'s argument for hafting in the Middle Palaeolithic has gone, in my estimation, from a Neanderthals-R-Us Hero to a Zero (or close enough). 

EPILOGUE

I've been told by reputable, flint-knapping, lithic analyzing archaeologists that if a body doesn't know how to replicate stone tools they have no business doing archaeology.

I hope you'll forgive me for proposing this equally arrogant corollary, only half-facetiously. Any archaeologist that can't recognize bone modification caused by non-human actors has no right pontificating on the cognitive or technical abilities of the Neanderthals.

I hope I've made my point. *cough...cough*        

     ;-)

     Have a nice day.

Of Birch-Tar Hafts and Caribou-Tibia Fleshers: Campitello Quarry and Old Crow Flats

All would-be subversives take note, regardless of your area or epoch of specialization. This article is about sedimentary context--association--and only nominally about the Middle Palaeolithic. Even if you're not someone who gets a kick out of interpreting site sediments, and prefers to leave that to the 'experts,' you'd be far better off sticking with this post because one day, sure as shootin', you'll need to have these skills under your belt lest you fall for the oldest geomorphological trick in Mother Nature's book.

     In 2001 Mazza et al. (2004) discovered some very interesting lithic artifacts in a galaxy far, far away the Campitello sand and gravel quarry, near Bucine, in Italy. One was half encased in birch tar, and bore the unmistakable negative impressions of the haft. Cool enough, you might say. Trouble is, the claim is that it's Middle to early-Late Pleistocene in age. More Neanderthal chemical engineering? Wait and see. 

[May I say that Marco Langbroek has been very kind in directing my attention to this find. The trouble with my having been inactive for so many years is that I've been unable to keep up with the primary literature. It means, simply, that I am reliant on my friends and friendly acquaintances to bring such material to my attention. In this case, Marco has set me something of a challenge, and has goaded me into trying to, as he puts it, 'explain this one away.' All I can say in response is, 'With pleasure!']

A tip of the hat to Marco Langbroek for making this image available to us.

Thus, the gauntlet is thrown down (a lot like the gloves in a hockey game, in actual fact, which is, as you know, the national sport of my home and native land, but which I never played). This'll be most difficult trial in the short tenure of the Subversive Archaeologist. 

     After sowing the seeds of doubt with respect to claims of Middle- to Late-Pleistocene birch tar from Inden-Altdorf, Germany (Pawlik and Thissen 2011), I should say at the outset that I've no quarrel whatsoever with the chemical characterization of the Campitello Quarry mastic as being that of birch tar. Mostly it's because the same chemist that organized the real chemical characterization of birch tar is a co-author on the Campitello Quarry paper. So, where does that leave the subversive? If ya can't fault the evidence, you might be able ta find fault with the context.

[In fact, the contrast between this claim from Italy and the one from Inden-Altdorf has made me realize that there are really only two primary ways that archaeologists can 'get it wrong.' First is in the interpretation of their observations, as I've argued was the case at Inden-Altdorf. The other is the context of the evidence. In the Campitello case, it's the context--the association of the artifacts with the surrounding sediments--with which I have a problem.] 

     I think the Italians were expecting a little flak on the matter of context. In the following quote from their introduction, you'll notice that they are quick to point out their biostratigraphic evidence, which they aver will corroborate the putative age of these objects.  

Elephant and rodent remains were exposed in November 2001 in a clay pit, Campitello Quarry, in the outskirts of Bucine, a small village in the southern part of the Upper Valdarno basin, on the left hydrographic side of the Arno River. … The bones were entombed in fluvial gravels and sands stratigraphically dated to the Middle Pleistocene. A more clear-cut chronological indication is given by the rodents which prove that the finds date back to a moment of the late Middle Pleistocene [emphasis added].

As I was reading along, as I'm sure you will, too, I noticed that the artifacts and Elephas remains were found in sediments first described as a 'clay pit,' then as 'fluvial gravels and sands,' and finally as the fluviatile, 'massive, grey-green sand' of the latest stratigraphic unit, the Monticello Succession of the Valdarno Basin. Here's a schematic cross-section of the Arno River Valley from the article.

I want to go here. Look at the name of the mountain range in the south!

This sedimentary context is one in which chronostratigraphic 'mixing' is not just possible, but likely. In this case, the most recent sediments are identified as 'flood-plain' and these form a terrace, capping the older sediments in a recently formed, deeply dissected valley system. These recent erosional features are illustrated by the narrow U-shaped voids that have exposed the stratigraphic sequence to varying depths across the Valdarno Basin.

     Such erosional gulleys and valleys are notorious in  archaeological lore because they're places where younger clasts can easily be introduced into older sediments, and be unrecognized as such by the excavators. In this case, the excavators arrived after some of the Elephas bones were discovered (presumably by workers quarrying for sand and gravel--a common enough occurrence in such geological formations), which means that, at least for those objects discovered during quarrying, ALL of the overburden had already been removed. The authors do not say whether or not the portion they actually excavated was taken from beneath 15 or so metres of more recent sediments. But you'd think they might have mentioned it if they did. 

     So, there's at least a possibility that the sand in which they excavated was not the sand that had lain undisturbed for upwards of several hundreds of thousands of years. Take a closer look at the Valdarno cross-section, which I've pumped up in the illustration below. Here you can see these U-shaped erosional gulleys, and you don't need much of an imagination to see how it's possible for items of any age to be introduced into what are much older sediments as these features evolve. Couple that possibility with the absence of any real contextual evidence (or published description) for what lay stratigraphically superior to the bone and stone remains, and you have a recipe for, at a minimum, serious questions about their true provenience(s).

By the way. The notation with respect to the Acheulean is only meant to convey the presumed age of the oldest artifacts found terrace-top. Everything up to and including yesterday is up there, too. 

     Luckily for us, the Mazza et al. article provides several clues that the bones and lithics were indeed introduced from younger sediments. The first of these is the grain size of the enclosing sediments, which is described as fluviatile sand in a point bar context. Any stream that is depositing nothing but sand at some point in its journey has long since lost the energy to transport larger and heavier clasts, such as Elephas bones and the relatively massive lumps of stone and tar. That said, a river laying down sand at a point bar still has considerable speed and transport capacity, even if it's bedload is well-sorted sand, which leads me to the second observation.

     The second clue that the tar-wrapped artifact may have been introduced from more-recent times involves its   preservation condition. According to Mazza et al. the bones and stones do not appear to have been entrained for long (i.e. no signs of rounding that would rapidly occur in an ongoing point bar context). How is it possible, then, that they were buried without any signs of having been entrained in such a fluvial context? Not very possible is the definitive answer. [I would hasten to add that it's just possible that they were purposefully buried in a river point bar by some obsessive-compulsive Mid- to Late-Pleistocene hominid. But I doubt it.]

     The third clue given in Mazza et al. is that the lithic artifacts are patinated. This implies a considerable time spent in the open (ask anyone). Again, this isn't what you'd expect on a point bar.

     The fourth clue that all is not as it should be is the context of the microtine fauna, described in this way.

[the microfauna were found] in a layer of fine sand, silty clay and thin laminae of organic debris, that coated the sand bed which contained the stone implements and the elephant skeleton [emphasis added].

Such sediments could NOT have been deposited in a point bar. Full stop. Unless, that is, the river suddenly turned into a basin in which water stood still long enough for the fines (i.e. clay and silt-sized particles) to settle out. Something just isn't right about the archaeologists' interpretation of the sedimentary context of these objects. There can be no doubt of that.

     Notwithstanding the fine work done by the faunal specialists in identifying the Mid-Pleistocene microfauna, or the chemical characterization of the birch tar, or the taphonomic study of the Elephas bones, there is nothing coherent about the archaeological context of these finds. Every aspect of the archaeologists' description contributes to the strong suspicion that the substantive finds are not all from the same time.

     To give you an example of how easy it is to get fooled by the complex depositional processes in geomorphic contexts like the Valdarno Basin, one need only recall the famous 'Old Crow Flats caribou flesher' that caused a big stir amongst Paleo-Indian archaeologists in North America and abroad in the late 1960s and on into the 80s. Discovered in a point bar of the Old Crow River, this caribou bone artifact was found associated with 25,000 year old animal bones. 

The same type of caribou tibia artifact as that found at Old Crow Flats (Illustration credit).

The following is a snippet of a synopsis of North American archaeology that appeared in Archaeology magazine in 1999.

In the summer of 1966, a paleontologist collecting fossils from along the Old Crow River in arctic Canada found amidst a jumble of bones from now-extinct Pleistocene animals a caribou tibia, its end carved into a toothed spatula. The mammoth remains found with the flesher appeared to have been flaked and fractured, like artifacts. The specimens were more than 25,000 years old, far older than anything then known from the western hemisphere. ...redated in the 1980s the caribou tibia flesher proved to be only 1,350 years old.

from David J. Meltzer, 'North America's Vast Legacy,' Archaeology 52(1), January/February 1999.

Those with long enough memories will bear me out on this matter.

     In closing, I'd like to offer a challenge of my own: that Mazza et al. subject a minute sample of the birch tar for radiometric dating--specifically radiocarbon. I'll bet my well-worn Marshalltown that it doesn't exceed the limit of radiocarbon dating, which, as most of you know, is (at the extreme end of extreme) not above 75,000 years, and is normally cited as give or take 50,000. Definitely not Middle Pleistocene, but could be Late. My guess is that it's no more than terminal Pleistocene or Holocene in age.

     *puff of smoke*