Leading Lam to the Laughter--Her Teachers, Not Me!

From the AAAS web site

There is no way I'm gonna let this go without a response. Mimi Lam, graduate student at one of my alma maters, UBC, has been much in the news of late. She purports to argue that the 'handaxe' was the 'first commodity,' and that its persistence in the archaeological record was due to meaning with which it came to be imbued, including what she calls 'cultural power,' whatever that is. Lam's brand of scholarship is the kind that makes me squirm in my seat when I hear it in person, and makes me scream out loud when I'm reading it in private. It's at least twice removed from the reality of actual Lower and Middle Palaeolithic scholarship, and makes so many perilous leaps of faith as to take one's breath away.
     Although I 'published' this a few minutes ago, it occurred to me as I was walking away that none of this is, strictly speaking, Ms. Lam's fault. In fact, this is about the best 'object lesson' I could think of to illustrate what the Subversive Archaeologist is all about. Ms. Lam bases her entire argument on 'knowledge' that she, no doubt, received from her anthropology instructors--perhaps even her own advisor. That 'knowledge' has led Ms. Lam to construct an elaborate argument that, were any of its assumptions in reality true, she may (maybe) have a cogent argument. I'm talking about the notion that there is a thing called a handaxe that was the desired end-product of a lithic reduction sequence performed by, in the earliest times, by Homo erectus (and variations thereof), and later by Homo neanderthalensis. She would also have been taught, unequivocally, that the 'handaxe' was the product of a mental template in the mind of the maker. That mind may well have been capable of language, and 'culture' and so on.
     So, in what follows, please keep in mind that, but for the occasional grammatical issue (which can easily be forgiven in a conference abstract), the problems that I point out in Ms. Lam's presentation are, on the whole, the fault of her teachers and mentors, and those whose work she has read, and that she is in no way culpable for having constructed this argument on that basis. As such, her paper is an example of just what happens if you let your anthropology babies grow up to be carbon copies of people who peddle conventional wisdom using hackneyed course notes and stenographic repetition of mantra-like presumptions about the hominid past.
     So far the only published version of her oral presentation at the 2012 AAAS Annual Meeting is the abstract that's published on the conference web page. I think it contains quite enough grist for my mill. Enough, at least, to obviate the need to read any longer version that might (improbable though it seems to me) make it into print. Lam's words are shown in white. Mine will be subversive yellow. In her own words: 

I argue that the ability to build

'Build' is not an accurate description of making a stone artifact. It is a subtractive process, and can in no way be considered a 'construction' or something that is 'built.'

portable,

This is hardly a useful addition to this sentence, given that portability was not a question for about a million and a half years. For portability to make any sense at all there must be an alternative, and as far as we know, with the possible exception of nests made in trees or refuges that were used repeatedly, there was no alternative to portability.

durable

The durability is likewise of no relevance here--we're talking about 'tools' made of stone, not, presumably, the ability to choose between making a 'handaxe' out of stone vs. malleable or perishable material. 

artefacts may trace the evolution of human cognition.

This almost goes without saying. 

Hominins evolved a complex suite

In the whole history of Hominidae (or Hominini, if you prefer) this may be true. But for the first 2 million years the 'complexity' of stone tool making amounted to smacking one rock against another such that a sharp chip was removed. True 'complexity' came much later, and depending on whom you canvass, might have occurred during the tenure of Neanderthals and their contemporaries, or not until the advent of modern humans. 

of stone tools, which reflected both emerging individual cognition

I am at a loss to know what is meant by 'individual' cognition? I was unaware of any other kind. 

and embodied knowledge.

To say that 'knowledge' was involved in this acitivity is to presume a level of cognitive ability on a par with our own, which is by no means a secure position. 

The manufacture of robust,

again, meaningless against a backdrop of stone, stone, and more stone.

standardized

This is where Lam starts to stray into areas she ought not to have strayed into. While it's true that many, many archaeoalogists have historically held to the idea that the handaxe represented a 'standardized' form, there is by no means a consensus on the question, and indeed very good reason to doubt the assertion. Those who've been visiting the Subversive Archaeologist since its inception will remember this, and this, and this, where I attempt to take apart the idea that there is anything standard, or even purposeful, about the shapes of bifacial cores in the archaeological record until the Upper Palaeolithic.

artefacts may have enabled their trade

Creation of whatever is implied by the 'handaxe' 'may' also have enabled their use as door stops, but that would entail the further inference that doors existed in those times--hardly a reasonable assertion. To say that there would or could have been 'trade' at that time depth is speculative, at best, and cannot be considered a serious hypothesis, much less a well-warranted assumption. Also, whether or not the artifacts were robust or standardized they would nonetheless be tradable. So, this statement is either really ambiguous or truly nonsensical. You choose.

and imbued them,

This is purely a pedantic observation. As the sentence is constructed, the 'manufacture imbued the biface with cultural meaning.' I think not.  

over time, with cultural meaning within hominin social groups.

Again, the 'meaning' of an object or of its manufacture is something that you and I are quite able to grasp, because we give meaning to everything in our world. Whether or not previous hominid forms were capable of having this conversation, and thus able to give an arbitrary meaning or meanings to a given object is still a very open question.

Here, the longevity,

The persistence through time and space of the 'handaxe' can be explained by hominid cognition or the absence thereof, and is therefore a non-question. 

ubiquity,

The wide distribution of 'handaxes' can only be explained by the ubiquity of the hominids, and not the intrinsic or semiotic attributes of the things themselves. 

durability,

The preservation of handaxes cannot be explained by anything other than that they are made of extremely durable material. It's a crying shame that all of the wood handaxes didn't preserve. But that's the archaeological record for you! 

and stability in design

There is nothing stable about the 'design' of a handaxe other than the stability of the paradigm with which archaeologists have viewed them through time and in distinguishing the 'handaxe' from other bifacially flaked pieces that do not conform to the mental template in the mind of those archaeologists. 

of Acheulean handaxes is explained by viewing handaxe construction in three temporal phases, co-evolving with the human niche:

More pedantry, I'm afraid. I fail to see how 'handaxe construction' could 'co-evolve' with the 'human niche.' According to Lam the construction and shape both remained static over immense time and space, and in fact did not 'evolve.' 

first, as iconic

To label the 'handaxe' 'iconic' presumes that their hominid creators had the cognitive ability to 'see' such things as other than lumps of hard stuff. 

multipurpose

The function of the handaxe has always been and continues to be the subject of endless speculation, and it is by no means a certainty that it had any purpose beyond that of a source for sharp chips of stone with which to cut or scrape. 

functional tools,

I believe this is a straightforward redundancy. 

fashioned by ancestral hominins

Finally a well-warranted assumption! 

; second, as standard

Ditto on the whole 'standard' thing. 

indexical commodities

Again, this presumes the hominids that left the 'handaxes' had the ability to conceive of such things, which is by no means a given, especially amongst what Lam goes on to label as 'pre-linguistic' hominids. 

exchanged in social relationships, perhaps as a paleocurrency among pre-linguistic hominins; and third, as symbolic of cultural power, carried and exchanged as gifts by modern humans within socially constructed niches, now filled with shared meanings and language.

I hope that Lam is describing the circumstances that would surround, say, one of my friends getting a hold of a real archaeological 'handaxe,' knowing that I'm a palaeoanthropologist and archaeologist, and giving it to me as a gift, whereupon I would display it on my mantle. Ascribing such behaviour to any 'hominid' other than cognitively modern humans is a huge leap of faith. In fact, the entire abstract, and no doubt the entire paper is no more than a giant leap of faith. In no way does it represent the level of scholarship, even, in the matters about which it claims to have something to say.

An Apology: The Lagoa Santa Petroglyph is Real

Earlier today Anonymous left a comment on my response to Neves et al.'s 'Rock Art at the Pleistocene/Holocene Boundary in Eastern South America,' published in PLoS ONE on February 22, 2012. Recall that it dealt with the dates from Lapa do Santo Rock shelter, in the Lagoa Santa karst, near  Belo Horizonte, in Central-Eastern Brazil. Specifically, it reported a very old date for what they reported as rock art. Unfortunately my 'take' on Neves et al. was based on the only illustration of their rock art that was to be found in the downloaded pdf that I saw. It's their Figure 1, and it's reproduced above. 
     I was not just skeptical of the claim that this was rock art--I was dismissive, and in a derogatory tone. To my eye this 'figure' looked like anything but a human male with an oversized phallus, as it's described in the paper. And I made a 'rush to judgement.' And, like OJ's prosecution, I come out smelling like a fart. It appears that I missed the fine print in the article that referred to other localities where such 'figures' are recorded--C-shaped heads and all.
     Here is the comment from Anonymous

An extremely negative piece that fails to mention the fundamental differences between pecked or hammered rock-art and non-anthropic markings created by natural processes. A cursory glance at the images strongly suggests a pecking or hammering process involved, though it would take an in-person visitation and examination to be absolutely sure. Given the similarity between the Lagoa Santa image and nearby rock-art...it stands to reason that the archaeologists have made an appropriate identification.
You offer no evidence at all for your position and it comes across as simply having go at both PLoS ONE and the archaeologists who worked at Lagoa Santa. The former may be fair enough, but the latter?

The mention of 'nearby rock-art' sent me scurrying back to the paper, and sure enough, there they were. I reproduce Neves et al.'s Figure S3 below, which depicts a selection of petroglyphs from Lapa do Santo, Lapa do Ballet and Lapa das Caieiras, also in the Lagoa Santa karst.

Clearly I was wrong. There is obviously a well-established pictorial tradition in that part of the world wherein humans have three fingers, C-shaped heads, and exposed and exaggerated (one would have to think) genitals, often tumescent. Mind you, the Lapa do Santo Rock shelter petroglyph that started all this is nowhere near as precise as these other examples in its depiction of the lower reaches of the body. The meandering peck marks that form the ?lower limbs and phallus? are, forgive me for saying so, rather coarse when compared with the figures from the other localities. I'm still wrong. But I hope I can be forgiven for treating the claim of an oversized phallus as 'a bit of a reach.'


At this time, I'd like to apologize to the authors for my original blog post, which I will not take down, but to which I've attached a note explaining where to go for the true story. 
     I'd also like to thank Anonymous for having the temerity to upbraid me for my failings. 
     I choose not, at this time, to let PLoS ONE and its referees off the hook. In my defense, images of the other, validating, petroglyphs were published only as supplementary material, and your's truly missed them. Given the very distant, unique, and regional tradition from which the Lagoa Santa petroglyph arose, they should never have let the authors publish the comparative material as supplementary material. For that matter, what is PLoS ONE doing publishing anything as supplementary? They're all electronic. Supplementary material is something that traditionally print-based journals do in addition to the print paper. On that basis I still maintain that the referees were asleep at the wheel, since they obviously didn't think the other examples of C-headed, three-fingered, pecked stick figures were important enough to be included in the paper, proper. 
     That's cold comfort for me, unfortunately. It's a bloody good thing I had no credibility in the discipline before I began this blog. Otherwise I might be worried that such gaffes as this one would erode my readers' confidence to such an extent that they'd stop visiting. It's my fervent hope that the possibility of such an outcome is just my own, personal, cauchemar.

Australia's GOA 2012: Science and Archaeology

I can't resist commenting on the multiple and ramified ironies that struck me the moment I saw today's announcement of the Australian Archaeological Association's (AAA) Call for Sessions for the 9-13 December 2012 annual conference at the University of Wollongong. Each year the AAA meetings focus on a theme. This year's is Science & Archaeology. That theme intersects my life and circumstances in so many ways I feel a little like one of those 'lovely assistants' at the magic show who steps into a box and the magician shoves swords through the box from every angle. The good news is that the 'assistant' is never harmed. Lucky for me! But I still feel the pinch of the swords, because the greatest irony is that I won't be there. And I should be.
     Science & Archaeology. Where should I start? Why not start at the beginning. I call myself a scientist. Yet, I chose to be a student of archaeology. And, as anybody knows, most of the world's so-called hard scientists laugh at the notion that archaeology could be anything but speculative fluff. They're wrong, of course. Nonetheless, as an archaeology undergraduate I was made aware of the wrenching efforts to 'scientize' archaeology. I was weaned on Binford, who, regardless of how you view him, was perhaps the greatest champion of a scientific archaeology.
     More than a little ironic, if you're talking about science, archaeology, and me, is that as a grad student at Berkeley, I was introduced to a philosophy of science that discredited Binford's (and Hempel's) positivism at the same time as it replaced the logical empiricist formulation of science with one that more closely resembles the way science is actually done. It's called Scientific Realism. And it has staked a very real claim as the pre-eminent philosophy of science for the 21st century. 
     Perhaps some day I'll bore you with a more extensive treatment of the clash of the two philosophies of science. For now, just know that in my 'Berkeley' period I had my faith in the scientific project validated and reinvigorated at the same time as I learned how profoundly mistaken was the so-called radical critique of science that is commonly associated with post-modernism. 
     With that history behind me, and knowing as you do that 2012 has meant a rebirth, of sorts, for me and for my commitment to science and archaeology, you can imagine how ironic it is that my one time national organization is holding a conference later this year on the subject of science and archaeology. It's true. I'm a lapsed member of the AAA. Six months after arriving in Australia I was at my first 'triple A' meeting, Adelaide '96. There, I found more irony. I was surprised and pleased to discover that my Ph.D. supervisor and mentor, Meg Conkey, had been invited to be the keynote speaker. It was like a homecoming, and more than a little comforting for me, the newest foreign transplant in the Australian academic community. I also re-connected with Jo Kaminga, who rarely attended the AAA, and whom I'd met in the field in B.C. while working with Brian Hayden, an old friend of Jo's, and who had been my 'patron' at Simon Fraser while I was a graduate student. Fairly ironic, I'd say. At that meeting my university was tapped to organize the '97 meeting, and as the new kid I was eventually asked to team with Wendy Beck to organize it. 
     The '97 meetings were held at the Boambee Bay Resort, at Toormina, near Coff's Harbour, on the east coast. I came to realize that the highway running up and down the Pacific Coast of Australia is designated Highway 1. And they call it the Pacific Highway. Those of you familiar with California's road system will immediately recognize the identity of the two roads, an ocean apart. I had lived in California for almost a decade before I emigrated to Australia. More irony.
     All up, I attended three triple As while in Australia. In 1998 it was held at Valla, an inexpensive resort on the east coast. It had been the site of a legendary meeting a decade or so earlier at which the, then, much younger and friskier Australian archaeological community had debauched for three days and three nights. Iain Davidson puts it this way: 'Indiscretion was the better part of Valla.'     
     Truly, I've led an 'interesting' life. That, in itself, is an irony, because much of the time I feel as if I'm cut off from the very people I want nothing more in the world than to be with, and to be accepted, and to feel as if I belong. There, I belonged. There I should be.
     Perhaps the biggest irony of all is my many-layered relationship with science and its use and abuse in archaeology. For example, anyone who reads the Subversive Archaeologist will know that its ethos is exposing the misuse and abuse of 'science' in archaeology. Would you call it irony or simply coincidence that this blog has blossomed in the early part of 2012, and that the theme of 2012's AAA conference is Science & Archaeology?
     More irony. You've heard me gnashing my teeth repeatedly over what I see as a systemic dating issue in the southern African MSA. When I looked to see the members of the AAA 2012 conference the first name on the list is that of Richard 'Bert' Roberts, who happens to be the geophysicist who presided over all those dates. If there is a 'systemic' problem with those dates, he's the nexus. No offense intended, Bert. Just ironic, is all.
     Is there a point to all this, Rob? Now that you mention it, yes. It only just occurred to me. With only a small change in the time-stream I'd be attending. And it would be my 16th triple A. Wouldn't it be ironic if a few brave souls scattered across the globe were to get together and propose a session for the 2012 triple A, and it promised to be so amusing and so full of just the insights the conference organizers had dreamed of, and on that basis they decided it would be appropriate to pay to bring them all to Wollongong for the week? Wouldn't that be ironic? I happen to think it would be magic!
     You should make plans to attend. You'll never regret it! 

    

Absence of Evidence. Evidence of Absence?

At any point does absence of evidence stand as evidence of absence? This question has bothered me since the first time I heard it used in relation to the archaeology of former times. Well, the answer, realistically, is that there is a point. There is a point beyond which this aphorism no longer applies, in practical terms as much as in scientific terms! Furthermore, never accepting absence of evidence as evidence of absence, has, I believe, led many, many scholars to accept what amount to myths about past people and our hominid relatives and progenitors.
     First consider the Sasquatch. Ignoring the hoaxes and attempted hoaxes, most reasonable people consider the absence of evidence to be as good as evidence of absence. Likewise the Loch Ness monster. Likewise the allegedly dead Paul. Likewise Russell's teapot. The great 20th century philosopher Bertrand Russell once attempted to explain his atheism with a similar argument:

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. 

Despite Russell's confidence, it's still the case that, with capable investigative techniques it may well be possible to confirm the absence of the teapot. So, I much prefer the following crystalization, because it not only illustrates my point, but also goes beyond the informal logic to the place we get to IF we persist in rejecting the absence of evidence as evidence of absence.

It's one of the reasons we can pretty much make the assertion, "There Is No Santa Claus" with quite a high degree of reliability, despite it being a negative. For it to be otherwise leads to a whole host of rather unlikely conclusions about the real world. --Wikipedia

And that's my point. When we believe, for example, that purposeful burial occurred in the Middle Palaeolithic, instead of treating it like the open empirical question is truly is, it almost always leads to 'a whole host' of ampliative inferences about the belief systems and cognitive abilities of the hominids that were putatively responsible. Belief in that activity among the Neanderthals almost certainly emboldened the excavators of the Sima de los Huesos to claim, blithely, that the deadfall trap in which they found Homo antecessor was a place of ritual disposal of that hominds' dead--hundreds of thousands of years before the emergence of H. neanderthalensis and the Mousterian archaeological record.     

     Sure, in purely objective terms, purely logical terms, it's impossible to say that absence of evidence will ALWAYS be evidence of absence. But in the real world, highly probable usually suits us as enough to conclude that something either exists or doesn't. For gawd's sake the sun just might not rise tomorrow! Who's to say? But, to all intents and purposes, it's a fairly safe bet. Why is it never the case in archaeology? When I ask, 'Where are the Middle Palaeolithic cave paintings? Where are the pre-Clovis sites?' I might as well be asking 'Where are the Leprechaun remains? Where the Fairy cities?' And yet, someone will always repeat the mantra: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 

     I hope I've managed to puncture, or at least to create a slow leak, in that argumentative balloon. Now you know that the absence of evidence is often taken as proof of absence. To persist in believing otherwise can easily lead to fanciful constructions of past reality, something I would hope we'd all prefer to avoid.
     

Is This Wild? Or What?

I'll admit it. I miss things. But this is not the sort of thing you want to miss. 
     Dude! I've lived in Surf City, California (A.K.A. Santa Cruz) for 13 years. For most of that time I was aware that there was a surfing spot a little way up the coast called Mavericks. But until yesterday I had NO IDEA that it was, well. Unbelievable. The wave you see below (if you can call it that, and not a watery armageddon) is not in Hawai'i.

It's off the southern cape of Half Moon Bay, midway between San Francisco and Santa Cruz. 

But, get this. It's TWO EFFING MILES (3 effing km) OFF THE EFFING COAST! These monster waves just...happen...in the middle of ['scuse me] effing nowhere!

     Apparently there's a unique [no poop!] landform beneath the sea just at that place that concentrates wave power and creates a break point in the middle of the [effing] ocean! And, clearly, it's not just ANY break.

Here's a better image of the bathymetry.

Interesting. No?
      See you at Mavericks!

Iain Davidson Guest Comment: Seafaring Neanderthals?

I'm very pleased on this Friday to introduce the Subversive Archaeologist's good friend, Iain Davidson. He has a few words to say about the just-announced claim that Neanderthals were paddling around the Ionian islands in boats even before boats were invented. 
     But before I turn you over to Professor Davidson, I think it only host-worthy of me to give you a little bit of his background and, I suppose, his credentials for commenting on Ferentinos, et al.'s 'Early seafaring activity in the southern Ionian Islands, Mediterranean Sea', the latest bit of real archaeological science from the Journal of Archaeological Science's Very Serious Referees and Editors.
     Since before he and I became acquainted in about 1988, Iain and I have shared what I facetiously refer to as an 'intellectual pathology.' We both think that a lot of the claims for modern-human behaviour in the Middle Palaeolithic are misguided at best, misinterpretations for the most part, and, at worst, mythical.

Iain Davidson

     Iain has recently retired from his Professorial duties at the University of New England, in Armidale, New South Wales, where he plied his trade for several decades. His research and fieldwork have spanned the length and breadth of Australia, from the dream time to the European occupation. He has expertise in, among other fields, animal bone archaeology, taphonomy, lithic replication and lithic analysis (including having to do with the Near Eastern Middle Palaeolithic). He has published a good number of books, including a ground-breaking treatment of cooperative ties with Aboriginal groups. But the ones that are most closely connected with our favorite subject are one on the evolution of cognition and language and another on the relationship between lithic 'technology' and how we became human. [By the way, Iain, I had to put technology in inverted commas, because technology is a word that implies mindedness, and as you know, it's still an open question whether it existed throughout the history of stone artifact production.] If you check out the Subversive Archaeologist's Emporium, you'll see Stone Tools and the Evolution of Human Cognition, and a 'little' volume titled Human Evolution, Language, and Mind, which has been virtually ignored by all the wrong people, who seem disposed only to listen to Very Serious linguists like Steve Mithen. Iain and co-author William Noble got it right--I won't say the same for the competition. So, as you read Iain's comments, keep in mind that he's seen more lithics in situ, and studied the archaeology of Europe and Australia for more years than you and I've had hot dinners [that last bit might have been a slight hyperbole]. 


I received this from Iain this afternoon, after what was surprisingly little prodding. 

This is a very careful study of the bathymetry by a team well qualified to do that. I am less certain that the authors are on top of the issues about archaeology. But we are used to that by now. What can possibly be difficult about archaeology? So let us ask some questions.

Where are the artefacts? One of the island sites is said to be Lower Palaeolithic. My antennae immediately send me a signal. How are these artefacts being attributed? It is, by now, well established that it is not as straightforward as it once seemed to attribute surface finds to any of the subdivisions of the palaeolithic. What is needed is well-stratified finds from well-dated strata before we can go from 'There are some flakes here which do not look like Upper Palaeolithic blades' to 'These are Mousterian artefacts' to 'These artefacts date to the same date as Mousterian artefacts on the mainland' to 'These artefacts were made by Neandertals.'  In each case there is an inferential leap that is not substantiated. 

My question would be 'Are there no artefacts that look like these in any of the Upper Palaeolithic assemblages?' My guess is that there are, but that, as elsewhere, they have been ignored because of the dominant expectation that Upper Palaeolithic industries consist of blades. In the absence of even one illustration of artefacts it is impossible for anyone to know whether the attribution is reasonable. Even if the authors are qualified to be wedded to the inevitability of the Lower, Middle, Upper Paleolithic sequence, they need to establish the veracity of their claim that the occupation was genuinely a) Mousterian and b) of the same date as the Mousterian on the mainland and c) that only Neandertals made Mousterian assemblages (well, at least we know the answer to that--skeletally modern humans made Mousterian assemblages at Qafzeh in the east Mediterranean).

Finally, because this has been an exhausting week for silly claims about archaeology by people unqualified to make them, the maps are disturbing.    Figure 8 looks as if the short crossing between Lefkada and Kefallinia when sea-level was -120m was in the order of 2-3km.

Fig. 8. Palaeoshoreline reconstruction when the sea level was at —80 and
–120 m showing the most likely used short range route crossings to the islands from Middle Palaeolithic to Mesolithic. P: Peloponnesos, AA: Aetolo-Akarnania, IZ: Zakynthos Island, IK: Kefallinia Island, IL: Lefkada Island. [From Ferentinos, G., et al., 'Early seafaring activity in the southern Ionian Islands, Mediterranean Sea,' Journal of Archaeological Science (2012), doi:10.1016/j.jas.2012.01.032]

 The question we need to be asking is: what sorts of water crossing were possible for hominins at different times. I have always championed the importance of the sea-crossings that brought people to Australia. (And forgive me a moment's rage--there are some quite good sources about this published by people who actually know something about Australia. Why do European scholars think that the only good source is a European one?) But the point is that to make those crossings, watercraft did need to be constructed, because to get to Australia several crossings were needed and one of them was more than 70km. But the point I have tended to neglect is that there were also rivers to be crossed on the way: at very least the Nile, the Euphrates/Tigris and the Ganges. How wide were these crossings and how were they made? If we accept all of the other unsubstantiated assumptions involved in this paper, we may simply be looking at crossings that must have been commonplace at the time modern humans were moving out of Africa.

Iain Davidson, March 3, 2012.

He's wired into the comments, so fire away. And may the best paradigm win!

Cap in Hand, Last Ditch Effort... Can You Help Me Get to Pod Hradem Cave?

If this post feels uncannily like an experience of déjà vu, I apologize in advance.  

My profile at Academia.edu reads 'Independent Researcher,' and gives no institutional affiliation. Even worse than having no academic edifice to call home, I'm an archaeologist without a field project. As most of you know it's like being a duck without a pond. Moreover, I've been out of the game for more than 10 years. That spells 'Hell' for me, and I suspect it would for most of you, too! 

[I would ask you to put away any thoughts of pity--I'm not asking for it. I am, however, asking for your empathy, and your charity. I hope that's not too... precious.]

     As many of you are already aware, I've received an invitation to take part in the 2012 excavations at Pod hradem Cave, near Brno, in the Czech Republic. That's the good news. The bad news is that, as with last year's field campaign, this year's funding has no wiggle room, and I'm being asked to cover most of my expenses. I'm happy enough with those constraints, because I'm very pleased that I can make a significant contribution.
     Pod hradem was the source of a collection of fauna recovered in the 1950s, and on which I based my Ph.D. dissertation. Because the 1950's investigation was archaeological, the site had been excavated with square and level provenience. To the disappointment of the excavators, Karl Valoch and Rudolf Musil, there was a very feeble record of human or hominid activity. Some levels were bereft of archaeological traces and were, to all intents and purposes, palaeontological in nature. That suited my needs perfectly, because I was looking for evidence of non-random spatial patterning that could be attributed to large mammals other than hominids. The preponderance of skeletal remains were those of the cave bear (Ursus spelaeus). 

Ursus spelaeus

Some of you'll also remember that I visited the project briefly in the summer of 2011. It was the first time I'd been to Pod hradem itself, and only my second time in that part of the world--known as the Moravské kras (or Moravian karst). I was one of only three active scholars [in the world] who had any close knowledge of the cave and its contents. The project's leader, Ladislav (Lad) Nejman, was kind enough to invite me to visit and take part if I chose to. Lad is an Australian, but is fluent in the Czech language and a citizen of the Czech Republic, thanks to his emigré parents. Lad had apparently canvassed the Australian archaeological community to locate me. As it turned out Alice Gorman remembered me from my brief academic career spent at the University of New England, in Armidale, NSW, and alerted Lad to my whereabouts. 

Lad Nejman outside Pod hradem Cave

     I took two weeks off and joined the project, although I did no digging in the cave. By the time I arrived the project had turned to full-time processing of the hundreds of 10-L buckets of site sediments (minus the larger bedrock breakdown products) that had been transported down the precipitous slope by makeshift cable-car to the roadway, and from there to a small cabin that served as the laboratory. All of the excavated sediments were then 'floated' before being wet-sieved in the ice-cold Punkva River. 

Backlog of site sediments waiting

to be processed

Without giving away the family jewels, let's just say that my expertise was useful and helpful, and Lad was as glad as I was that I'd been able to take part. In fact, I was so excited to have been invited that I took the time off without pay, and maxed out the credit card on airfare and accommodation. I can't do that again. Unfortunately, 'independent researcher' doesn't denote 'independently wealthy.' I'm able to get the time off to take part in this year's fieldwork, but it'll be mostly without pay. I have rent and other bills to cover, and the plastic is still nudging the upper limit of my credit. [Probably sounds familiar to many of you!] So, if I'm to go, I'm compelled to get creative.

Wet sieving in the Punkva River

     The first of my efforts to augment my income was to advertise my considerable writing, editing, and proof-reading skill for hire. That 'add' has resided near the top of sidebar for months. Not. So. Much. As. A. Nibble. Surely some of you can use an itinerant scholar now and again to help when a deadline looms! So, I'll ask you to keep me in mind and, please, recommend my services to anyone you come in contact with who could use some help. Thanks.       
     My first call for ideas provoked someone to suggest a Paypal 'Donor' button, where anyone with a few spare bucks could drop them directly into my Paypal account. Some old friends of mine were kind enough to contribute, and I'm very thankful to them. I hope I won't need to refund their gifts at the end of the day. However, time is short, and the 'goal' is still far from attainment. So, among other things, out of a feeling of mild desperation, I'm putting up the donor button once again in the hope that some of my new 'friends' will have the means and the grace to push it.

     I'm also actively [you mean you didn't notice?] promoting the use of my 'online store' for any of you who're planning to purchase ANYTHING at all on Amazon.com (i.e. in addition to those items I've chosen to highlight in the Subversive Archaeologist's Emporium, also on the sidebar). Amazon rewards the likes of me with a small percentage of your total expenditure if you click through to their web site and carry on to complete a purchase transaction at that time. So, if you're in need of (literally almost) anything at a discount, with free shipping (only for some, I presume, if your total purchase exceeds $25), I'd recommend Amazon. You'll never be disappointed. And I might just get closer to my goal of visiting Pod hradem again in 2012.
     Finally, I'm selling off prized possessions, like the 1929 2nd edition of Blossfeldt's classic Urformen der Kunst, which is showcase on the sidebar [where else?].

     Thank you for your continued fellowship, patronage, and inspiration. This subversive archaeologist never had such good and loyal friends.

Commenting System Back Up!

I'm very pleased to say that you are now able, once again, to comment on the stellar content that you encounter on the Subversive Archaeologist. I'm way too embarrassed to tell you what was wrong. Suffice it to say that I made a few missteps, I've now retraced those missteps, and you're free to comment at Will [so, Shapiro, duck!].    

The 'MSA' and Modern Humans: It's Only a Matter of Time

What counts is not what sounds plausible, not what we would like to believe, not what one or two witnesses claim, but only what is supported by hard evidence rigorously and skeptically examined. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.  — Carl Sagan 

BBC: Blombos Cave PPC: Pinnacle Point Caves KRM: Klasies River Mouth Cave

The southern African publishing machinery is in high gear when it comes to the so-called Middle Stone Age (MSA). It feels like there's a new claim every week. In this case, similar claims've been made before. But this time it's for ... are you ready for this? It's a big surprise, I know. But this example is...wait for it...Yes! The oldest piece of worked ochre ever reported! A-bloody-mazing! Those MSA people were modern humans for sure! And they were damned good at it, too, if I'm any judge! More on the ochre after I tell you why I'm telling you this.

     All the evidence points to these discoveries being the work of people like us--the skeletal remains from Klasies River Mouth at 75 to 125 kya (modern human, chins and all!), the Howieson's Poort stone artifacts at Bombos Cave and elsewhere from about 65 to about 60 kya (to all intents and purposes like the Mesolithic of Europe with its backed blades), the beads, the ochre, pigment grinding tools, and more. 
     The MSA of southern Africa is nothing like the Middle Palaeolithic of most other regions. Quite simply, while the Neanderthals and skeletally modern humans in Europe, southwestern Asia and northern Africa were still hacking flakes off 'Mousterian' bifacial cores [or handaxes, if you prefer], sometimes taking smaller flakes off the edges to keep them sharp, and trying to rejuvenated their bifacial cores with a prepared platform and a might whack intended to split the core in two (often only resulting in the removal of just a final flake--a 'Levallois' flake [if you prefer]), the MSA people of SA were acting just like you and I would have (minus all of the industrial culture accoutrements like white wine [most likely] and Saturday morning cartoons on TV).

Howieson's Poort lithics (Image credit)

    What to make of all this really early 'industry?' It's not a trivial point. As far as the archaeological record of the rest of the world goes, these people, at 100 ka and more, were upwards of 60 ka ahead of the cultural curve of the rest of the world. So it's an untrivial, and still open, question what kept people like us from doing, in the first 60 ka of modern human history, what members of the same species evidently did in an instant of geological time once we stepped outside of Africa. Let's face it, after about 40 to 50 ka ago it was like modern humans were shot out of a cannon. Australia was reached in the blink of a geological eye. Europe? Same story. Eastern Asia? The same. And during an ice age, no less. Eat your hearts out, Homo erectus! Homo sapiens rules!

     As you might imagine, I'm troubled by all this precocious behaviour on the part of antipodean Late Pleistocene southern Africans. It's a conundrum that I can't get out of my head. And every time a new claim comes down the 'pike I get more irked by my inability to explain it, or even to conjure up a plausible scenario. Believe me, this enigma is nothing like the other stuff that irks me [of which you're all aware by now]. This is us--unequivocally modern--but it's us when we shouldn't be there. I know. I know. That's not scientific, Rob. You should have an open mind. [That's all well and good, but an open mind isn't the same thing as an empty one--I need an answer, not a reminder of my shortcomings!]
     I'm confused, too, about use of the term Middle Stone Age for what is obviously the work of both skeletally and behaviorally (and cognitively) modern humans. Someone in the know might be able to help me here [if I could get the bleeping comments to work again!]. Is it called MSA because it's older than a certain arbitrary cut-off on the geological time scale? Why don't they just call it 'Earliest Upper Palaeolithic' or something like that? Somebody please explain!
     All of this very early modern human evidence from southern Africa reminds me a bit of the myriad claims for Pre-Clovis occupation of the Americas that have been erected, assailed, and finally collapsed under the weight of skepticism that usually accompanies such assertions. The artifacts are real. The dirt's real. But something's always wrong with the dates [except, perhaps, Calico Hills, where the eye of the beholder was just too clouded by its infatuation with broken rocks to see the forest for the trees]. That's the way it always ends, with a dying fall. The claims, one after another, are justifiably questioned. No resolution. But the claims fall by the wayside, and no one makes an effort to get them back in the mainstream. It's happened over and over and over again. My strong suspicion is that it's happening in South Africa, but without the questions, without the doubt. And that, alone, worries me, and suggests that there's a systemic problem.
     I have a fearless prediction. One day either the late dates for everything outside of Africa are going to be shown to be too young, or the inverse will prove to be the case. I think you know where my money is.
     One final thought. For years it's been the orthodoxy to think of the human lineage as having been on a slow march from ape-dom to humanity. You've heard it. Sure you have. For '99% of human history we were egalitarian hunter-gatherers.' [Stan: I remember you saying that in Old World back in '86--no shame implied. It has been the mantra for decades.] Then agriculture happened and we all went to Hell in a hand-basket and we ended up (some of us) Capitalists, and look where that's gotten us! [Ruth: I've always had a bone to pick with that one!]
     What if we weren't human until recently? In a way I think it lets us off the hook. After all, the first stone artifacts are 2.5 MILLION years old. If we've been thinking like we do now for 2.5 million years, I'd say we probably don't deserve to survive as a species, given the mess we seem to have made of things in just a few tens of thousands of years. BUT, if we only became human give or take 40,000 years ago, and if the first 30 of those were spent coping with an ice age, that means we've only had about 10,000 years to figure things out. I like that better. Because I think we're better than the long chronology paints us. I like to think that we've come a LONG way in 10 ka.   
     Think of it. Domestication at give or take 10. Cities and monumental architecture, art, writing, by, say, 8 or so. Philosophy, drama, mathematics, geometry, science, by 4 or so. I mean, if you look at it from the short chronology point of view, we look a lot better. I'd hate to think that we'd been at this whole human thing for 100,000 years.
     We'd seem REALLY pathetic.


Back to the ochre that persuaded me to write the above. With all due respect to Francesco d’Errico, Renata García Moreno, and Riaan F. Rifkin, authors of 'Technological, elemental and colorimetric analysis of an engraved ochre fragment from the Middle Stone Age levels of Klasies River Cave 1, South Africa' (Journal of Archaeological Science, 39, 942–952, 2012), I fail to see why this publication is so effing important. Imagine someone in Europe publishing this: 'Ooh, ooh, another piece of ochre from the Upper Palaeolithic of France!' They'd be laughed out of the academy--even if it were the oldest such artifact ever found. So, forgive me if I'm less than fired up about this amazingly complex and scholarly article about a lump of iron oxide with a bunch of scratches on it. Mind you, if the scratches spelled out the first five verses of Genesis, there might be a story there. Otherwise...yawn.

From d'Errico, Moreno and Rifkin 2012

I hope this, my attempt to explain more of my mystification with the MSA of southern Africa, hasn't kept any of you from your naps!
     Be well. Have a good weekend. Thanks for dropping by.
     

Blossfeldt's Photography For Sale

Urformen der Kunst : photographische Pflanzenbilder, 2. Aufl, von Professor Karl Blossfeldt; Hrsg. mit einer Einleitung von Karl Nierendorf (Berlin : E. Wasmuth), 1929, xvii p. 120 leaves of plates: 32 x 25 cm [in German]. $3,500 or nearest reasonable offer.

This is the 2nd edition of Blossfeldt's classic work. It still has the cover box, which has seen better days. However the volume itself is in very good shape. Its cover has been protected for many decades by a paper cover, hand-drawn and coloured in the style of Frank Lloyd Wright, made by the original owner, marine engineer/architect/historian Fritz Matthews. The two images below are just a couple of examples from the 120 photogravures that are individually mounted on every other page in this amazing, extremely rare, book.

     If you want to make an offer on this historic volume, or simply want more information, please leave your contact information in the comments. I'll get right back to you. I'm on facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and twitter. So if you have a presence on any of those, you won't have to give away any personal information that you may not wish to.

See more images from this volume? Click here.

The Scoop On 'Mousterian' Bitumen Hafting Adhesive from Romania

As unaccustomed to using hyperbole as I am, it's with great effort that I must label this latest claim for hafting in the Middle Palaeolithic as the biggest aggregate of meadow muffins in the history of the Journal of Archaeological Science. Whom do they get to referee this stuff? George W. Bush? Anyhow. My friend Iain Davidson, once again, lobbed this my way earlier today. And then I find that this new claim is in the spotlight at A Very Remote Period Indeed, Julien Riel-Salvatore's blog. Of course, J. R.-S. simply acts as the stenographer, with NO critical appraisal whatsoever. Anyway. 
     Ripped from the (soon to be published) headlines: 

'New evidence of adhesive as hafting material on Middle and Upper Palaeolithic artefacts from Gura Cheii-Raşnov Cave (Romania),' by M. Cârciumaru, R.-M. Ion, E.-C. Niţu, and R. Ştefanescu. Journal of Archaeological Science, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2012.02.016.

In this case the adhesive is bitumen. As with previous well-identified sticky stuff, I have no quarrel with the chemical characterization. I must, however, point out some red flags in the manuscript. 
     By the way, for those of you unfamiliar with what used to be behind the 'Iron Curtain,' Romania is the country that encompasses the N45 lat-long marker in the map below.

Romania is one of those places where you might expect a lot of great archaeology. In this case, not so great.
     The authors report one bitumen-spattered piece from the Upper Palaeolithic, and one from what they deem to be a Mousterian stratum (i.e. Middle Palaeolithic). The MP article is pictured below, straight from the in-press manuscript.

Aside from being non-descript, this piece could easily have been produced at any time since Mousterian times. That leads me to the major criticism of this claim, which, don't forget, made it into the JAS, no doubt after having been closely scrutinized by some Very Serious archaeologists! Here is how the authors describe the archaeological context of the putative MP flake.

The ... item belongs to the Mousterian layer, characterised by a rather poor lithic industry.

They aver that the industry was 'poor' because of the quality of the raw material, which was quartzite. Poor, indeed. If this bitumen-stained artifact is any example of the 'Mousterian' at this site, one wonders how the authors and their predecessors ever managed to characterize the assemblage as Mousterian, in the first place! Actually, if the original excavators hadn't been using an old and now thoroughly discredited means of guessing at the age of the 'Mousterian' layers--that which assessed the granulometry of the éboulis (the exfoliated bedrock that naturally builds up in the stratigraphic column)--they probably wouldn't have given the assemblage another thought. And, in all likelihood they wouldn't have called it Mousterian, and in all likelihood neither would the more recent excavators, the authors of today's cannon fodder JAS article. So, 

     Next, the dates. Again, straight from the horse's mouth.

... the hearth in the lower area of the Mousterian level – GrN 13,009: 33,300 ± 900 BP; the upper hearth that marks the end of the Mousterian habitation – GrN 11,619: 29,700 + 1700 / - 1400 BP and GrN 14,620: 28,900 + 2400 / - 1800 BP. A bone sample in between the two hearths, obviously belonging to the Mousterian layer, was dated back to 30,450 ± 300 BP (GrN 13,008). 

I don't know about you. But if I had dates on what was, IN FACT, a Mousterian (read Neanderthal) (read Middle Palaeolithic) occupation that were this young, I wouldn't be wasting my time blathering on about some bitumen stains of a single artifact! I'd be screaming at the top of my voice that here is the latest evidence for Neanderthals anywhere! And that's where I think this article falls on its face.
     There's no solid (or any even good) evidence that the so-called Mousterian flake couldn't have been made by a modern human. The other flake they describe in this article is, they say, from the UP. Have a look at it. Hmm.

I dunno about you, but I don't see a lot of difference between the two artifacts. That means little in absolute terms. But if all the authors are going on is someone's intuition that a non-descript assemblage is Mousterian, why is this getting into the JAS? I hafta tell ya, palaeoanthropology today is one whacky business!

Touchstone Thursday: Mary Sellers's The Secret Notebook For The Practicing Archaeologist: With Preliminary Notes Toward An Ethno-Science Of Archaeology

My Dad used to say, 'Many a true word is spoken in jest.' I'd have to say that 'Never a truer word was spoke.' Today's excursion to yesteryear exemplifies the adage. Mary Sellers penned a tongue-in-cheek paper for the ages in 1973. However ironic this piece may be, I believe she's speaking from the heart in this sketch of our discipline as it was and (for the most part still) is practiced in North America. 

The Plains Anthropologist, 18:140-148, 1973

I've long since forgotten whether it was Brian Hayden or Meg Conkey who introduced me to this Thursday's touchstone. So I'll tip my hat to both of them, hoping that the party responsible will forgive me for being such a sieve-brain.

If you thought Horace Miner's ethnography of the Nacirema was fun, and it you thought Kent Flannery's vignettes in the The Early Mesoamerican Village were a hoot, you'll get a great big kick in the pants when you read Mary Sellers's history-making treatise. Nothing. Repeat. Nothing has changed since this was written. And Mary Sellers, now deceased, was (as the Brits would say) 'spot on' with this exposé of Us. That's a good and bad news story, since there's much in this paper that shows the discipline and its practitioners in a harsh light, even by 1970's standards. I could get all moralistic and huffy. But I'd rather you just went and grabbed this wonderful work and read it forward and backward. 

     Having spent some of the best times of my life in the field and at the GOA (sensu Ms. Sellers), I have a permanent soft spot for her insights. They're too numerous for me even to begin to brief you on them here. So, find it, read it, and love it. I (still) do.

     You will, too.

[For anyone without the resources to gain access, please leave a note in the comments on facebook.]

The wit and wisdom of Mary Sellers