Oldest cheese? What a stink...

Anyone's who's worth their biscuit knows how well a good piece of cheese goes with a cream cracker. Unless you're lactose intolerant of course, which before the domestication of livestock most humans appear to have been, and in many parts of the world still are.  But here, despite this and coming up to Christmas, it seems inevitable that the old fashioned cheeseboard will once again make its lovely ripe rounds on the dining table. But exactly how old is cheese? And not just the moldy old Stinking Bishop at the back of the fridge - but the "invention", or more accurately the creation of the process, of making cheese?

Evidence of lipids on ceramic archaeological evidence from 7th millennium BC north-western Anatolia has been around for a while now, but up til now no-one has been entirely sure the use of the substance. Early Neolithic 6th millennium BC potsherds with straining holes have also been found in number in temperate Europe, but no-one could prove their useage as cheese strainers. But two days ago a paper published by Nature journal by a team from the University of Bristol made of Melanie Salque, Peter Bogucki and others has made claims for the earliest evidence of cheese production.  How can they know it was cheese when no evidence of cheese can/has been found?

Simply, chemistry. By analysing the δ¹³C and  ∆¹³C values in the organic residues on these strainer vessels it appears that the sheer abundance of milk fats is conclusive evidence for the process of cheese making in the separation of fat-rich milk from lactose-rich whey. This also explains why cheese is more readily digestible by lactose-intolerant stomachs than pure milk, as it contains less lactose.  They hypothesize that dairy products in the form of cheese would therefore have been more popular among earlier farmers as it would preserve as well as being more tolerable to digest. 

The analysis of Linear Pottery, some of which had been deemed 'cheese strainers' by Bogucki previously (1984), had also been debated as being flame covers, honey strainers of a part in the beer-making process.  However, the team used gas-chromographic, spectrometric and the good ol' isotopic analysis methods on the organic remains of Linear potsherd remains from Kuyavia, Poland and compared the results with other types of pottery (coarse/ 'cookingware' potsherds from Ludwinowo from early, classic and late periods of Linear Pottery in Kuyavia (about 5,400 - 4,800 calibrated BC).  

The results were pretty cool. About 40% of the sieve sherds contained lipid residue, similar to food processing vessels at other sites. But the cool thing is that triacylglycerides (I did Chemistry at A Level, so I'm secretly a bit of a science geek) and the products from their degradation were found in 90% of the animal fats showing a high preservation of residues, and this was different to the levels in the cooking pots, indicating a specialisation of vessel.  That's the first evidence of vessel specialisation in the early Neolithic.  Beeswax was also found in 3 sieves, which could have helped in waterproofing the ceramic, whilst making it kind of 'non-stick'.  All this with the evidence of such ceramic holes perfect for cheese making? Sounds like cheese to me. Additionally, they say their data is concordant with lactase persistence in Europe too to boot. Here's a snippet from the article:

"The evidence for the specialized use of Linear Pottery sieves in association with milk is important for three main reasons:

(1) the typology of the sieves and the presence of dairy fats are consistent with milk processing, providing the earliest evidence of cheese making, which is notable because the manufacture of cheese increases the ease of handling of milk and allows the nutritional properties of milk to be
readily available through the year; 

(2) the processing of milk to manufacture low-lactose-content cheese is consistent with the predicted low
level of lactase persistence in northern Europe in the early Neolithic, and 

(3) the evidence of milk use by the people of the Linear Pottery culture is consistent with the predicted increase in frequency of the 213,910*T allele associated with lactase persistence among prehistoric northern Europeans in this region." (Salque et al. 2012: 4)

Seems like cheese really can kick up a stink after all this time. You can read the full article here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11698.html

'Homo Evolutis' and neo-evolution

The idea that humans evolved from an evolutionary phylogeny is widespread and the best-represented theory by known evidence.  But have you ever thought that we are still evolving - and with technological advances being around now for a while, doesn't it seem that we live a very different lifestyle which we may have adapted to, compared to people in earlier history? Juan Enriquez has a great talk on TED on 'Homo Evolutis'. He's funny too, and makes the case that we are continually 'upgrading', as seen in the archaeological evidence of the human evolutionary tree. Are we the 'be-all, end-all' sole purpose of creation? Or is it more likely that we are continually evolving to our environments? In our evolutionary history, there have been multiple species existing at the same time. Why should we be alone as a singular species, when some individuals may have adapted to become Homo Evolutis - a newer, better-adapted (to our current societies respectively), species?



I love TED talks as they make procrastination feel like work. They're also inspirational and really make you think.  Here's another on neo-evolution by Harvey Fineberg:



Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before a new species does emerge, but I think it will be among our existing Homo sapiens species. Cultural diversity in tandem with technological advances taking effect within certain areas and groups of people will, like Darwin's finches, inevitably lead to a diversity that will create species difference. Are we mid-upgrade? Will we be able to use technology to change our bodies and adapt to lifestyles? Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory thinks he's 'clearly too evolved for driving'. Hmm... I'm not convinced...

Tattoos, mummies and the internet

Remember Oetzi the Iceman? Mummified by the cold, lactose intolerant and tattooed on Brad Pitt's arm? (Click this link if you don't: http://diggingandgigging.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/otzis-oldest-blood.html)
Well, get this: you can get up close and personal with Oetzi over the internet. And I'm not talking about a dating website, that would be weird. The Iceman Photoscan is a website launched in 2009 which allows you to see high definition images of Oetzi - it is possible to zoom in to see details down to 1mm small on his body. If that wasn't good enough, you can also view him in UV, pinpoint his tattoos and zoom into them (preserved beautifully), and you can even see him in 3D if you own a pair of old style red-and-cyan glasses.
Here is the website: http://iceman.eurac.edu/

I have not been this excited about the internet being able to transmit such a high level of photographic detail since I found out about Google Art Project, which I subsequently used in a talk about science and art when I was at school. Something about being able to see an object in such detail without actually being there amazes me, and that you can access this kind of information resource for free is brilliant. Even better, it allows the viewer to see Oetzi without interfering with the very sensitive conditions that preserve his body.

Some may question the right to use photos of Oetzi like this, but so long as people remember to respect Oetzi he lends a huge hand in developing educational resources, and scientific methods too, whilst of course finding out more about himself.

If you want to find out more about Oetzi beyond the pictures, you can watch videos about his wax model reconstruction and interviews with the people who have been studying him here: http://www.youtube.com/user/OetziTheIceman?feature=relchannel (he's got his own channel on Youtube!)

Oetzi isn't the only mummy with tattoos, though. The 'Siberian Ice Maiden' made the news last month as she went back to the Altai Republic where she was found on the Ukok Plateau 2500m in the mountains in 1993 by Natalia Polosmak. The body has been dated to around 2500 years old and she is thought to have died aged 25. Preserved by the permafrost, they found her in a burial chamber dressed in Chinese silk and wearing a horsehair wig, alongside jewellery, a mirror, and six saddled horses amongst other things. But her tattoos are the things have have preserved the best. Thought to belong to the nomadic Pazyryk people, their tattoos are according to Dr Polosmak 'most complicated, and the most beautiful' among mummies in the archaeological record. Here's a drawing of a mummified soldier's tattoos from the same plateau:

Drawings by Elena Shumakova, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, 

Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science

To quote from this wonderful little online booklet about the findings (http://www.scribd.com/doc/96350466/Tombs-of-Altai-Mountains), in Altai art there appears to be 4 main motifs; "the horned horse, the flying“beaked” deer, the crested griffin and the elk with lobed antlers." (p36)

The cool thing is that all of these images are rooted in "common steppe tradition", a purely local Altai art that only incorporated other cultural influences during the 5th and 4th centuries AD, when the nomads would have exchanged objects, and ideas, with the Chinese and Greek. But don't think it was a one-way transfer; some of the main motifs that came out of north Western China was inspired by the Altai, seen in the reversed back legs of this elk from a belt plaque which carried into China but is also seen in some of the Altai tattoos.

©Mission Archéologique Françaiseen Asie Centrale (CNRS-MAE) H.-P.Francfort.

If we compare this spread of iconic motifs to the present day, has much really changed? As populations migrated, so did their ideas. In the same sense, tattoos help to spread these ideas, as well as represent part of the person's identity with its meaning and its connotations. Think about the internet today; this is like a virtual net of migrations, when ideas can spread at the touch of a button. You go on Google images, and one will pop up from the other side of the world. So before anyone says that some modern tattoos (say, a little Hello Kitty or something) are pointless or meaningless, maybe these are the iconic motifs of the present day - well, in the world of the internet anyway. As such, why should I have been surprised that Brad Pitt had a tattoo of Oetzi on his arm? Oetzi, all over the internet, books and journals, has become an icon. And tattoo useage still has its roots in its most basic functions; self-beautification, identity and beliefs. It appears none of these factors for having one have changed over time - only the images themselves.

Kent Caverns and the story of a jawbone

I went to Kent Caverns today in Torquay with my family. We've been on holiday in Devon and I've been keen to visit the caves since I found out that they are home to the oldest archaeological remains of anatomically modern humans in Europe. Apparently that's how geeky I can be.

Photo of inside the cavern system

In 1927, a piece of human jawbone with teeth was found that dated between 44,200 - 41,500 years old.  It was identified as being Homo sapiens sapiens, anatomically modern human, and not Neanderthal despite Neanderthals existing at the same time on the European continent. But there's a little back story about dating the maxilla (upper jaw). It was dated in Oxford in 1989 as younger - 31,000 years old - but because the jawbone had traces of glue on it that held it together, they weren't sure whether they had an accurate date for the jawbone. So, a recent study by Prof. Thomas Higham (Oxford) and Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in 2011 has confirmed the jawbone isn't Neanderthal.  How do you do that? By creating a 3D model of the jawbone, of course, and distinguishing AMH characteristics against Neanderthal ones. It was further dated by radiocarbon dating animal bone in the immediate layers around where the jawbone was found.  Using Bayesian statistic modelling (which I find just a bit bamboozling) they narrowed the dates to 44,500 - 41,500 years old. 

The implications for modern humans at the time so far north in Europe are incredible. Firstly, it confirms that Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans co-existed in time, but secondly that spatially AMH dispersed perhaps different than we previously assumed. 

Quoting Professor Higham (you can see his profile here: http://www.arch.ox.ac.uk/TH1.html):

"We believe this piece of jawbone is the earliest direct evidence we have of modern humans in northwestern Europe, at a site at the very outermost limits of the initial dispersal of our species. It confirms the presence of modern humans at the time of the earliest Aurignacian culture, and tells us a great deal about how rapidly our species dispersed across Europe during the last Ice Age."

Which is pretty wicked in the Upper Paleolithic world.

So off we went today on a cave tour, led by the lovely Alan and his Mag-lite, who explained the history of the archaeological digs in the 19th and 20th century. Willian Pengelly led the excavations pre-1900, and his team found flint tools and animal bones, including hyena and woolly mammoth remains. Alan showed  examples of one of each tooth, or 'tuth', as Alan says. Pengelly was good in that he brought order to the archaeological excavation techniques, excavating by a set area and depth.  Unfortunately,  Pengelly destroyed a chunk of the material debris in the cave by blowing it up. Woops.

We also saw some pretty cool stalagmites, stalactites, pillars and flowstone which looked like it came straight from Alien. Alan also decided to ask me if I knew what creature Diego was in Ice Age, and then put a saber tooth next to my face and said to everyone that it suited me. Alan, you charmer. But here is evidence of Smilodontini (small Smilodons) found in the caves, as well as bears (vegetarian and carnivorous) and other species. It's just their speculation, but it may've been one of these creatures that killed the poor person whose jawbone was found.

Some of the animal species remains found at the Kent Caverns

All in all, a great geeky day out - I even bought a Cavog the Caveman pencil.

You can read more about the jawbone in this Nature article here: http://blogs.nature.com/news/2011/11/who_ere_europes_first_humans.html

And on the Kents Cavern website here:

http://www.kents-cavern.co.uk/sub.cfm?main=242&sub=448  

Summer diggin'... Part 2

So, one day back home to wash and re-pack my case, and I was on my plane to Spain...

I stayed for 3 weeks in total around Catalonia, originally to dig on a site with the University of Barcelona. This was also part of the fieldwork requirements for my course.  First day, I travelled to Sants Station and found the hostel where I spent the night.  However, I ran into a bit of a pickle on my second day in Barcelona; as soon as I met the dig supervisor, he told me as we drove north that due to the Spain's current economy and the knock-on effects, the Uni had run out of money for the site funding and the dig was cut to 1 and a half weeks. Oops. Bad for my requirements, and also meant I had nowhere to stay for a week and a half.  But I was in a Zen mood and decided that stuff would figure itself out.

Montlleó (France in the background)

The site is thought to have been a key crossing point in the Pyrenees 15,000 years ago in the early and middle Upper Paleolithic, here called the Magdalenian. In fact, the site was initially dated by the Oxford Radiocarbon Lab. What really attracted me to this site was the prospect of finding such old evidence of human occupation in this area, like the perforated shells that they've previously found here. So I was very happy when a perforated shell was found when we were excavating.  We also found a cut straight snail shell (caracol, en español), animal bone and worked flint, and what may be evidence of a hearth.  However, we'll have to wait til the results are published to find what it all means (and I'm not allowed to say too much here!).  What I can say is that the site is a very curious mixture; it is 1130m above sea level but an open site - extremely hot but with a breeze; it's also on a slope, making it hard to excavate evenly!

Team photo

Ger, Cerdanya, where our hotel was near the excavation

The site!

Eve with one of the shells

Unfortunately, I felt ill after about a week, collapsed on the lobby floor and was in bed for a day and a half. By this time, the dig finished and I found myself by the grace of the wonderful students there being put up by Silvia, a lovely student who lives in an apartment in Badalona. Thank goodness they're so nice! The original plan was that I was going to work in the Uni labs for the next week and a half doing post-excavation work, but this was abandoned since a) they'd finished all the work there and b) it was closed. El problema segunda. Nevermind - instead, I hung out with Silvia and her boyfriend and we went sight-seeing and shopping (perhaps a kind of cultural anthropological study, no?) in Barcelona and Badalona.
Olé olé olé!

Chillin' with Silvia and Marta at Badalona beach

La Sagrada Familia

Parc Guell

Oh, and we visited Port Aventura. What can I say? I like to make the best of a bad situation...!

Us at Shambala!

I also met up with my godparents who happen to live close to Barcelona. They showed me the botanic gardens and the Olympic Stadium for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, all this while the Olympics were going on back in England.

Part of the Olympic park

Silvia took me clubbing in Barcelona too - different, but amazingly fun! I could say it was an anthropological experience too, but I had probably drunk enough calimocho that my amount of dancing far outweighed any critical observations I could have made. However, there is apparently (I say this because I googled it) an anthropologist at the New University of Lisbon whose post-Ph.d work explores "seduction techniques" in nightclubs. And you thought I made up these things. You can read one of her papers here: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/lamygpaper.pdf 

At the end of my trip, I was very reluctant to leave Spain, its glorious sunniness and its wonderful people and its interesting past, but I was glad to stop living out of a suitcase... well, for a little while anyway!

You can read about the site of Montlleó here: http://www20.gencat.cat/docs/CulturaDepartament/DGPC/Documents/Arxiu/Trib03-04.pdf p.23-44 (It's in Catalan so copy and paste it into an internet translator if you can't understand it!)

Summer diggin'... Part I

As you can see by the date of my last post, I've been away lately, so sorry to anyone who actually follows this - there are lots of new updates to come, promise...

What's been happening:

• Last term I was revising for my end of year exams (Hon Mods) whilst training for Summer Eights.  Our crew survived Eights (with some funky stash and some blesséd weather), unfortunately dropping 2 or 3 places but had a brilliant time overall - despite breaking the front of our bow(!) Exam-wise, after a week and a half of living in the library and wondering if I would make it out alive of the exam halls, I passed!

• For my course I went on a 2-week training excavation at Dorchester-on-Thames, near Oxford.  On the Roman site, at the end of an allotment, the most important find was a Saxon coin discovered by my friend (who received a bottle of bubbly for it!). Digging a cross-section of a ditch we could map the curvature of the ditch, and intersecting ditches with it by identifying what and how much of what we found in it.  For example, different levels of animal bone, its size, and how the bone stuck out of the ground gave a good indication of where the lines could be drawn, as it were. 

Team photo

Unfortunately, our group didn't get to excavate much of the Neolithic site - a great shame for me! We were taught to use total stations, about identifying different pottery (and there was a lot) and how to photo sites.  I also learnt that bathing in a lake isn't so bad (if a bit chilly) since our campsite had no showers, but the pub dinners definitely made up for it.

The Roman site

In all, Dorchester-on-Thames has a lot more history than I thought, and I found some pretty funky stuff; copper coins, nails (all shapes and sizes), Oxford faux-Samianware, and some huge animal jaws. 

Vampires in Bulgaria

Two Medieval human skeletons found at Sozopol, near the Black Sea in Bulgaria, have been excavated and found to have an iron rod piercing them through the chest.  A little odd, no?

The plot (or should I say clot) thickens: this phenomenon has been found in about 100 other skeletons from the Balkans.  Archaeologist Petar Balabanov in 2004 found six nailed-down skeletons at a site near the eastern Bulgarian town of Debelt according to BBC News.

Bozhidar Dimitrov, from the Bulgarian National History Museum, said "These skeletons stabbed with rods illustrate a practice which was common in some Bulgarian villages up until the first decade of the 20th Century".

According to her, it was pagan practice as a rite to 'pin down' these dead so they would not come back and terrorise the living, in accordance with vampire folklore it seems.

Image courtesy of the National History Museum of Bulgaria/HO/EPA

Well, it's a great coincidence then that a Victorian vampire-slaying kit is going on auction in Yorkshire, isn't it?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-18367300

Whether or not they were actually thought of as vampires is probably just a media hype.  But I can't wait to get my teeth into the findings when they're published. 

Bipedalism, rigging, and gigging

I haven't updated for a while because I've actually been ill for about a month now.  Somehow, I've managed to perform at two gigs in that time.  However, my pesky cough seems to be shifting as well as my cold, just in time for Summer Eights rowing race which starts today! I'm rowing for the college W2 team, and our stash looks great (Hertford stag with golden sunglasses yes please).  Hopefully we'll go bumpity-bump up the table, and the weather looks grand.

My last essay was on the origins of bipedalism.  Having a human bones practical class in the University Museum really helped, and we got to examine real human skulls. I think that's pretty cool, some might say it's creepy. Potato, potaato. One thing I've learnt is the placement of the foramen magnum, the hole which your spinal cord attaches to, on the base of your skull.  If it's anterior (forwardly) placed, it's indicative of bipedalism as the angle shows the person would be standing upright.  However, if it's posteriorly placed, it is likely to belong to a quadruped.  Logical stuff.

The main difference between the walking of human and chimpanzees is that we do it habitually and with a striding gait.  Our walking is formed of the 'swing phase', and the 'stance phase'.

We can 'toe off' using our big toe, which is aligned with the rest of our toes, to push off in the stance phase.  However, chimps have opposable toes, and can't do this.  Their valgus angle of the thigh bone to lower leg bone is also straight.  Our is curved, allowed us to shift the weight of a leg to the other side.

This diagram shows the predicted angle of the australopithecine leg, as a sort of midway between chimp and human angles. However, although it used to be assumed that we can from quadrupeds who strode out into the savannah to see over long grasses, this illusion has been disproved from recent fossil finds.  The contexts of A. afarensis, for example, show that it dies in a heavily wooded area, and not an open grassy savannah at all!  Similarly, research on orang-utans show that bipedalism in an arboreal contexts mostly occurs when trying to maneuver slender, multiple branches.  In fact, it appears that our bipedal ancestors may not have been quadrupeds after all.  Some evidence suggests that adaptations towards bipedalism, because of whichever selective pressures, such as thermoregulation or for food resource attainment, may have actually evolved more than once.  This might explain why some older specimens, such as Orrorin tungensis (6-7 Ma), may like more human like than more younger species like Australopithecines (3.5 Ma).

Being ill, I decided to watch some arch and anth (related-ish) videos... Here's one by Armstrong and Miller on the 'Origin of Teenagers'.  It made me feel a little better.

Ötzi's oldest blood

Do you think blood could last 5,300 years on a body? When you're Ötzi the Iceman, it can.
The preserved body of "Ötzi" was found frozen in ice up in the Italian Alps. You might have heard that analysis of the body could determine his sex, his last meal, even the fact he was lactose intolerant. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v3/n2/full/ncomms1701.html

But now, at the University of Darmstadt, Germany, in the Center for Smart Interfaces a professor and his team are using atomic force microscopy on little slices of skin from an area on Ötzi surrounding the arrow wound which killed him.

How does it work? The BBC summarises it well:
"The technique works using a tiny metal tip with a point just a few atoms across, dragged along the surface of a sample. The tip's movement is tracked, and results in a 3-D map at extraordinary resolution."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17909396

They can now reopen the question as to whether Ötzi dies immediately from his wound or days afterwards.

Incredible.

Oh, and apparently, Brad Pitt has a tattoo of Ötzi's outline on his forearm. I wonder if it will survive as long as Ötzi did. I just hope he's not going to get his blood next, because goodness knows what he'll do with that.

I'm going to dig in Spain! (Plus questions on hominins)

As you can see from the title, I'm been confirmed a place at a dig in Montlleó open-air site in the summer.  The site is about 2 hours from Barcelona.  It's Magdalenian - about 15,000 years old - and I'll be excavating and digging at the site and analysing lithic remains in the lab for three weeks, all with SERP (http://www.ub.edu/SERP/index.htm). All in all I'm very excited, and even better I'll only be paying for the flight and hopefully the sun will come out! A dig and a tan. What could be better for an Arch and Anth student?

I finished my first piece of work of this term yesterday (excluding my collections and their anxiously-anticipated results) on African Plio-Pleistocene hominins and their characteristics.  We complied a fact-file of hominins from Ardipithecus ramidus (Late Miocene/Early Pliocene - about 5.7 mya (million years ago) to Homo ergaster (African erectus) which is thought to have lived 1.9 million mya.  We also had to draw a lineage of these species and multiple genus, so I got to use my colouring pencils...at last!  I used this phylogeny as my basis, which I first saw from Mike Petraglia's lectures on human evolution.

So I was reassured by my tutor today he uses the same one too (I think it's from the Smithsonian Institute).  So many changes have occurred morphologically in such a 'small' amount of time.  At first I questioned the amount of catergories paleoarchaeologists had 'split' the fossils into; however, this approach is opposed to 'lumping', where you bung a lot of similar-featured fossils together in one group.  There's a lot of debate as to which group some fossils belong to, as you can imagine.  I'm really enjoying learning about my very, very old roots, and still have a lot of questions to ask; what behavioural changes have happened apart from physical ones? Which species did we descend from? Why do I feel so old right now? But questions are good. A recent article in Nature argues against the assumption that Homo habilis was the first to use tools; instead, it might have been Australopithecus afarensis, a gracile Australopithecus found in sites in East Africa.  You can read it here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7308/full/nature09248.html

It just shows there are many questions about out evolutionary past that are still unanswered. I'd like to answer some of these one day.

Rap Guide To Evolution

I'm supposed to be revising for my anthropology paper at the beginning of next term for my collections, but I can't help but admire when someone coincidentally puts any part of my course into a rap.

This is what Baba Brinkman, that dude who rapped Caterbury Tales, is rapping about on his website.  Mark Pallen, the man who writes this blog: http://roughguidetoevolution.blogspot.co.uk/ persuaded him to rap about Darwin too.  I actually really appreciate this, since I'm going to be studying human evolution and biological anthropology next term.  Cheers, guys!

As a bit of a music fan, I also love it when I can revise by singing.  Safe to say I'll be singing this for my Honour Moderations at the end of next term! My favourite one on the website http://rapguidetoevolution.co.uk/ is 'I'm A African', influenced from the original song 'I'm A African' by Dead Prez.  The animation is pretty groovy too in the video (see below).

Next term I'll hopefully be getting more involved in the Oxford University Archaeological Society; maybe we should try to get Baba Brinkman to come give a talk and give us a spin...

Red Deer Cave People

As you may have heard in the news, it is thought that a new species prehistoric human has been identified from fossilised skeletal remains in south-west Asia.  A skull dug up in 1979 in Longlin Cave, Guangxi Province has only now been fully analysed, and its anatomy appears to be unique in its form against other skeletal evidence of other human ancestors.

This comes from Darren Curnoe at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.  The skull appears to show a hash of some very 'primitive' features, but also some very modern ones.  Quoting Curnoe,

"They have rounded braincases with prominent brow ridges, thick skull bones, short and flat faces, tucked under the front part of the brain, a broad nose, jutting jaws that lack a human-like chin, brains moderate in size with a modern looking frontal lobe, but primitively short parietal lobes, and they have large molar teeth."
(Source: FAQs on the Red Deer Cave People: http://www.darrencurnoe.net/documents/QA_RedDeerCavePeople.pdf )

Photo by Curnoe

This is extremely exciting, not in the least because evidence of this hominin has apparently appeared also at Mula Cave in Yunnan Province, according to Curnoe and Ji Xueping of Yunnan University.  Curnoe explains that they are hesitant to put this species in with Homo sapiens, mainly because the species H. sapiens is still under question as to what classifies as an example of one! As such, Curnoe says these people could present a 'new evolutionary line' or a 'previously unknown prehistoric population'. (See FAQs page above).

It's also exciting because as Curnoe says:
"...dated to between about 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, the Red Deer Cave people are the youngest population to be found anywhere in the world whose anatomy doesnʼt comfortably fit within the range of modern humans: whether they be modern humans from 150 or 150,000 years ago." (See FAQs page again).

That's very special indeed.  This furthers the view of a very diverse 'human' population at the end of the Ice Age, through which the Red Deer Cave people must have survived.  Christ Stringer, a British anthropologist, suggests that these Red Deer Cave people may have been related to the Denisovian people, whilst one of my lecturers last term Mike Petraglia agrees that a diverse population of 'humans' might have existed at the end of the Ice Age, more broad than we thought.

All in all, this is a very cool discovery, and I can't wait to see if the DNA of the bones from Red Deer Cave can be properly analysed.

For more information and as one of my sources, you can read the simple but meaty article from New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21586-chinese-human-fossils-unlike-any-known-species.html.  Curnoe's FAQ page is also great as a quick summary of his report.  You can read the original PLoS article here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031918.

Racing and the Rom

Came back very early this morning from racing the Thames at the Women's Head of the River Race (WeHORR) yesterday - a 7km course of endurance! Both Hertford College teams did well, and our novice team (W2) finished 2 places above our start, and beat the likes of St. Edmund's Hall College 1st crew.  We were also lucky enough to have been coxed by the Captain of Coxes, who was also ace despite his cox box breaking just at the start!

Having recovered (ish), I'm now reading the ethnography 'The Time of Gypsies' by Michael Stewart.  I have to write a critical essay on an ethnography of choice, and prepare a 15-minute oral presentation.  It's a very compelling read,  and because Stewart in unique in having learnt the language of the Rom, a group of Gypsies who live in Hungary, his account seems all the more intimate.

However, analysing it as an ethnography is very tricky.  Some anthropologists say that ethnographic accounts should be analysed as a piece of writing and using literary theory (Clifford 1973); some say that ethnography is as much a way of working as writing (Spencer 1989).  As such, I have my work cut out for me.  Let's hope I'll be as victorious as the rowing team in my essay!

Santa Claus and gift exchange

Only 2 essays to go! I've just finished writing my essay on gift exchange and what it can tell us about society.

After reading (parts) of Marcel Mauss' 'The Gift', Malinowski's infamous ethnography on the Trobriand Islanders, 'Argonauts of the Western Pacific', works of John Davis and the deconstruction of Christmas by various anthropologists (I will never see Christmas in the same way), I hope I've done a good job of the subject that is routinely explored by every anthropology student.

The funny thing is that my tutor asked us to exercise an example of gift-exchange, make notes on it, and bring it to the tutorial. By chance, a childhood friend visited the other day while he was in town, and as a guest I'd bought him dinner and ice-cream. I didn't see this as a gift because I didn't expect or want anything in return; it was, anthropologically an act of 'charity' (though I obviously didn't see him as a charity case!) How surprised I was to find he'd left for my at the lodge a bunch of flowers! As part of the gift-exchange system, this was a reciprocation of the 'gift' of dinner and ice-cream he'd accepted.

The basis of the gift exchange system is that it is a universal activity, and occurs according to Marcel Mauss' 3 obligations:

1. The giving of a gift
2. The acceptance of a gift
3. Reciprocity of a gift

Building on this, you have to distinguish between 'gift' and 'commodity' exchange. A commodity is traded for monetary value, and according to Mauss, 'to make a gift of something to someone is to make a present of some part of oneself.' (Mauss [1925]1990:12) i.e. you have to transfer part of your identity with the gift, otherwise it's just an object or a commodity without any meaning. It's this meaning that makes it the gift.

Malinowski describes the kula, which is the gift-exchange of necklaces and bracelets, each going a certain direction around the Trobriand islands in a circular circuit (Mauss translates 'kula' as circle). (If you wanted to know, the necklaces are called soulava and are made from red shell; the bracelets are called mwali and made of white shell). This process is reserved for men, in particular nobles.  Kula members have temporary possession of these prized items. But in the end, after a year or so at most, they have to pass them on. This is obligatory, because otherwise conflict and warfare could emerge, according to Malinowski and Mauss.

The Maori of Samoa, according to Mauss, believe objects like this contain a spiritual power, the hau, which arises from previous possessions of the object, and it's this symbolic force that means people fear it that they oblige to reciprocity. I likened examples like these to contemporary capitalist societies, like American society at Christmas. Although many buy commodities as gifts, the act of transforming it by altering it, or wrapping it up, means we can convey a sense of our identity through the object, like the hau in Maori. The fact we've specially selected this item from a homogenised mass of objects in a shop also signifies that the object is special. In fact, in the time you bought it, wrapped it and given it, you've had temporary possession of that object, familiarising yourself with it. (Carrier, in Miller's 'Unwrapping Christmas 1993). The act of Christmas shopping is a ritual, as is wrapping, much like the ritual of kula or potlatch.

Potlatch is a gift-exchange in North America where exchanged and prized objects are destroyed to show power, but the point is that the act helps one to form a social status or hierarchy, as in the case of the Tlingit and Haida. It's an act of class struggle. You could argue the same is true in other societies, where buying objects for others actually just conceals the desire for material wealth.

The desire for material wealth can arise from conspicuous consumption. This is the idea that objects display your material wealth and thus a status of being economically better off, which is perceived in desirable in a capitalist society. I found evidence for this in Japan, where Tiffany jewellery in the 1990s was the epitome of showing your love romantically. The fact it's recognisable and visual is arguably an act of conspicuous consumption, or even insidious consumption (to provoke envy). Even temporarily possessing these items as intended gifts for someone else, satisfies the temptation of actually having bought the gift yourself, Belk might argue. (Belk, in Miller's 'Unwrapping Christmas', as before). Belk says that at Christmas, adults take over from their parents as Santa, becoming this figure as an excuse to buy themselves things that they desire.

But that's a pretty cynical view of Christmas and dismisses sentiment as the reason for giving gifts, and the example of a Trinidadian Christmas by Miller later in the book shows that materialism doesn't solely prevail in all societies in festivals. Ritual and symbolism can account for a lot, as the Trinidadian custom of giving your house a good ol' clean and paint is one what a lot of money goes towards at Christmas. Besides, gift exchange is just one aspect of Christmas.

I do like what David Mitchell has to say on British gift exchange. He's very funny, very aware of social "awkwardness", and gets himself into a tizz at the end, just like I first did trying to structure my essay.

Trains, aboriginals and rocks (space and landscape)

I haven't been updating for a few days because I've just had to study for and write two essays in a very busy week of rowing preparation. It's Torpids week at the river Isis, which means I've been racing 'bumps' today and will be everyday til Saturday; then I can relax... until the Women's Head of the River Race (WeHORR) next weekend in London. Busy busy busy!

All this rowing doesn't mean to say I haven't enjoyed reading and writing for the essays. I just got one back on space, place, and landscape for anthropology - was so pleased to see my tutor really liked it! The question was whether space and landscape were cultural constructions. I argued that they shouldn't be dichotomised as either 'cultural' or 'natural' (a very debated topic in the "nature-culture debate"). Instead, after reading the books and articles, and being especially influenced by Corsin Jiménez's article on space in Antofagasta in Chile, I argued that space is a temporal pathway in relation to social relationships. If this sounds a bit crazy, it's probably because it is, but after reading theories written in the 1990s on space, place and landscape like Tilley, Bender, Hirsch and O'Hanlon, it probably won't sound so silly!

The idea is that space and landscape are not merely geographical locations. We see the world around us as how we perceive it, and create our own spaces (like houses, churches) which create, and are simultaneously created by, social relationships. A lot of people see landscape as an idyllic, picturesque rural scene, and it's not hard to see why: the word 'landscape' originates from the word 'landshap'(Dutch) via 'landskip'(English) used in Dutch paintings in the 17th century. It's been passed down over time, and is still used today when people say they're a 'landscape painter' or a 'landscape photographer' and produce idealised scenes. Barbara Bender used the example of a British Rail intercity poster, which likened English landscape art to the view out of a train window.

Now if you take the train regularly into any major town or city in Britain, you will have probably noticed that not everything you see is aesthetically pleasing. In fact, the space of the train compartment may not be either. Someone talking on the phone, the seats are a bit grotty... But the train itself is a landscape. The seats have been worn down by the passage of other human beings; you're travelling the same route as many other people. You could compare this to an Aboriginal landscape, where parts of the rocks and ground have been worn away by the passage of other people; you're walking in a pathway your ancestors made. The relations you make along this past with living, or past, peoples arguably creates the landscape at the same time as you create it. It's this pathway you travel that becomes the space or landscape; it's not entirely physical, as it occurs through time too. I proposed that the more you travel on this pathway, the more landscape is created, and the more it creates your social relations.

Obviously, you could say I'm being too airy-fairy, and that a rock is a rock. That's it; no more. But Aboriginal Australians certainly don't think Ayers rock is just a rock! They and anthropologists might ask: But doesn't this rock change over time? Does your view of this rock change over time? It's a very interesting question. I think I'll wrap it up; I've spent too long writing, and the space I've created is far too long.

Cognitive archaeology and clever chimps

The archaeology of human thought and intelligence was the subject of my lecture this morning.  Moving on from the functionalist processual approach of Binford in the 1960s (sort of a mathematic, scientific approach to archaeology), people started to consider how to reconstruct the ancient mind.  We looked at Paleolithic toolkit developments, cognitive evolution, and Mithen's theory of cognitive 'modularity', which suggests that at one point in time our brains switched from thinking from modular thinking (i.e. like a monkey seeing a 
python as dangerous, but not linking fresh python tracks to the possibility of danger), to our brains being an information processor.

Mithen's idea has since been refuted by archaeologists, but it's a very good question: how did our brains come into being today, and are they similar to our ancient people's brains? In what respects did they think like us, and how did it differ? A few days ago I saw this programme on iplayer:


In the video, Ayumu the chimpanzee is challenged to memory tests that get as hard as memorising a set of number faster than the blink of an eye.  This got me wondering; how can a chimpanzee have the ability to do this more successfully than the average human? Is it a physical difference in brain function (such as being able to see the numbers for longer because of neural passage from the eye to the brain being wired differently or 
being more adept than ours); or was a cultural difference, such as the fact that for us numbers are associated with meaning - Ayumu may see the numbers as shapes, and so can process the numbers without the associations our minds have with them?

There is the question of training to the programme, but in such a short space of time I doubt many humans or chimpanzees would be able to improve from practise, and if there is an element of luck to Ayumu's success, it is probably minimal in comparison with skill. Either way, I feel very forgetful in comparison. Perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to think ourselves as more clever than our hominidae fellas that share a large percentage of our DNA.

Paleolithic cave art lecture

Very excited when I got to my lecture today to find it was on Paleolithic cave art. I studied it a little bit for my art A level, which involved me meticulously etching this Trois-Frères cave scene:

At this site, the painting of 'The Sorcerer' can be found. You can see the original, below on the left, and Henry Breuil's (somewhat elaborated) drawing of it on the right.

Henri Breuil was influenced by Spencer and Gillan's study of the Arunta of central Australia, and formed his theories of Paleolithic cave art from them. He emphasised their possible function as ensuring hunting success, and that this figure of 'The Sorcerer' was therefore a shaman, forming his magic hunting hypothesis that lasted into much of the 20th century.

There are criticisms of this view, like the rarity of actual hunting scenes, and that in the Upper Paleolithic, southwestern France was probably 'a human desert stocked full of animals' (Bordes), and so hunting magic wasn't actually needed.

Our view of cave art's moved on from the attitude it was art for art's sake in the 19th century. From the structuralist approaches of the 1960s influenced by Levi-Strauss, such as Leroi-Gourham's quantification and interpretation of cave art and the male/female symbolic oppositions, to structuralist and feminist approaches (Cokey's matrifocal view), ecological perspectives about fish and things (Jochim 1983), and ecology and initiation rituals (Mithen 1988). It appears it's not as easy as saying it's 'just a painting'...

One of the most interesting approaches I found was Lewis William's nueropyschology and trance interpretation. It's all about entoptic and iconic images seen in trance states being reflected in paintings, like dots and zig-zags.

The funniest explanation was the post-entoptic approach of Guthrie (2006), who argues that the art was made by adolescent boys who were a bit testosterone-fuelled and made 'Venus' figurines to represent their fantasies. It's one explanation, but my lecturer was a bit awkward trying to phrase this part...! (Hence it's hilarity, not because it's a bad theory).

I'd really like to research this more, and will hopefully get to see some of these caves up close for myself. I always wonder if there's some simpler explanation... I think this comic did too! (Courtesy of SMBC - pardon the language in the comic):

Looking 'under the wraps' of an Egyptian mummy

As of today, a new exhibition had opened at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, of Egyptian 'treasures'. I'm intrigued by the new technology that allows researchers to look 'under the wraps' and see what's beneath without unveiling and damaging the mummy.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-16983960

It's always fascinating to see people's attraction to the slightly macabre. There's always the ethical debate as to whether human remains should be on display, and while I believe it is wrongful to use fairly recent remains out of respect to those related to them and the deceased themselves, with ancient remains the case is slightly different. If treated with respect, as in this case, I see the harm to be minimal. Instead, I think it's an opportunity to learn more about the Ancient Egyptians' culture and practices.

My friend's got an internship at the British Museum!

As this post says in the title, my friend has just got an internship at the British Museum for this summer.  How brilliant is that? Trés cool. Obviously, I'm very jealous, but she definitely deserves it as she's thinking of planning on working there one day.  You go girl.

Hearing about the British Museum made me think of when I visited to see the exhibition 'A History of the World in 100 Objects.' I loved it so much I bought the book, having not had the chance to listen to it all on BBC Radio 4.  I enjoyed the hands-on activities (my inner child was smiling very widely), and one of my favourite pieces was the Olduvai handaxe from Olduvai gorge, Tanzania.

At first, it really doesn't look like much, just a bit of old stone in a nice teardrop shape.  But it's actually approximately 1.2 million years old, and made of volcanic phonolite.  It's been knapped alternately around the edges to form a bifacial tool, and by its size its function was probably a handaxe.

If you're interested, you can look at the website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/, listen to the podcasts, or buy the book.

My friend will get a chance to have a look at some of these objects in much closer detail.  I think I'll overcome my jealousy and buy her a drink tonight to celebrate.

Upper Paleolithic and Neanderthals lecture (and a bit of 'Horrible Histories')

Just had a lecture from Prof Nick Barton, one of my college tutors, about the Upper Paleolithic and the 'extinction' of Neanderthals.  It's really interesting to see how evidence and artefacts from sites can be interpreted, reinterpreted, and re-dated to prove and also disprove the theory that Neanderthal and Anatomically Modern Humans co-existed, or even interbred.  I did like the recent European genome evidence that suggests that 1-4% of modern European genomes are derived from Neanderthals; so we all have a little bit of Neanderthal in us!  If you want a very general, jazzy, overview of the Stone Age, I can suggest no better one than the 'Stoneage Song' from the BBC television series 'Horrible Histories'.  I refuse to call it a children's programme because I actually find it pretty hilarious, and generally accurate (with a few dramatic licenses here and there...).  I also love the fact they're able to make musical in-jokes with history.  (Okay, language wasn't just 'invented' etc., but you get the picture!)

Ritual, liminality, communitas and hippies

Just finished writing my essay on ritual, "How can we explain ritual?" It's an open question, and I had to filter through multiple definitions before using Tambiah's definition as the basis of my essay:

"Ritual is a culturally constructed system of symbolic communication. It is constituted of patterned and ordered sequences of words and acts." (Tambiah 1985:128).

In my essay, I looked at Arnold van Genneps's theory of rites de passage and liminality - basically, that ritual is a process through 3 stages from one 'world' to the next; the preliminal (rite of separation), the liminal phase (transition phase), then the post-liminal phase (rite of aggregation), where the process can be from a stage in someone's life, a mental threshold or a physical place (Gennep [1909] 1960). The liminal is a kind of 'limbo', where status, identity, rank and gender are suspended as if it is an 'other world'.

Turner (1969) builds on Gennep's idea, and believes that in the liminal phase, individuals are in a structure-less community - he calls this 'communitas'. Although for most people, this is a temporary phase, such as in the ethnographic example of royal Swazi ritual where a hut represents the liminal and the royal member stays inside for less than a week, some adopt it as a permanent state. I used the example of monks as used by Tambiah and others, and Turner uses the example of hippies (who he delicately describes as "bums"! I disagree on this...) that these people live in a community of no ranking, and where gender is indistinguishable.

There is also matter that ritual gives power to the weak, and strips it from the poor in ceremonies. This is seen in both Swazi royal ritual and Zambian Ndembu installation ritual of the Kanongesha (Beidelman 1966), (Gennep [1909] 1960). I also identified the relationship being 'performative' aspects of ritual and their symbolic power in highlighting the participants' (also known in anthropology as actors) beliefs.

As you can see, I actually really enjoyed writing this essay. I might have also included a Joni Mitchell lyrics in relation to Gennep's "hippie" example. Let's hope my tutors don't mind. I love this song, so here it is:

The musings of Alan Moore on magic, art, language and shamanism in the technological world

Alan Moore, writer and graphic novelist, explains his thoughts on language, art, 'magick', and the power of language in the technological world.  A very interesting viewpoint, and clearly explained.  Moore gives a great interpretation of 'magick' as harnessing the power of language and its effect on us.  So, he believes "the artist or writer in the contemporary world is the closest thing to a shaman".  He goes on to explain the presence of shamanism and magic in the media, like advertising, so everyone thinks the same thoughts and are 'opiat[ed]' psychologically.  Personally, I think Moore's books should be on the reading list for Arch & Anth.  I wonder what my tutors would make of 'Watchmen' as suggested reading; though saying that, they've probably read it already. 

Mitchell and Webb on the Bronze Age

My lecturer today showed us this video to show the awkwardness of the 'Three Age' transitions.  I had to laugh; only a few days ago I had actually watched this while procrastinating looking at Mitchell and Webb clips.  Brilliant.

Travel pictures #2

I spent a week in Wales with friends, where we were lucky enough to have unpredictably fine weather.

I've just finished my essay on kinship; a very interesting subject!

Travel pictures #1

I've been a little ill recently, and haven't found time to update. As I'm catching up on work (studying the concept of kinship at the moment), I've decided to upload some photos of mine from my travels.  This first set is from Devon. Please do not reproduce them without my permission.

Practical on bugs, seeds and... latrines.

Had a practical today in the lab which involved looking at a "Medieval turd" alongside other things.  Also got to look at the Museum of Natural History's beetle and bug collection, and from a soil sample pick out insect and charred seed remains under the microscope.

Chinese New Year and the search for 'food identity'

With Chinese New Year coming up, I've been thinking about all the yummy Chinese food I'd be asking my mum for back home. This had me thinking about what we class as 'Chinese' food; or in fact, any nationality's food. It's a big part of their cultural identity, and it seems they're happy to maintain it as long as it's got a good image. Why shouldn't they? Wonton soup is an example of (for me anyway) an amazing invention...Yum... but I digress.

It seems in Britain that our culture lacks a 'food identity' beyond fish and chips and tea.  It's a shame, because there are some great culinary combinations that British chefs have put forward and really excelled at creating (see the copious amount of foody programmes on TV, and some of the best (recognised) restaurants in the world are arguably are at home in Britain).

However, many of these dishes might use ingredients not native to England. Say aniseed for example.  Or cinnamon (one of my favourite spices!). Or even pak choi (bok choy). Does that mean a dish that uses these can't be British? Or if a dish in India uses English apples - does that make it 'un-Indian'? Of course not - from the days of the empire, 'chicken tikka' is now recognised as an British invention (according to QI at any rate!), combining a readily available British meat and the spices of the Far East.

But safe to say if a dish has 'grown up' in a country, it is believed to belong to that country - a bit like people's identities. The difference is that someone who grows up in one country may feel more connected to another country by blood or culture - even if they've never lived there. But on the whole, your 'home' is where you grew up, even if you moved country later on and adopted a different culture. I think this is true of food and 'food identity', too.  Aside, everyone has a food they grew up with which they call their 'home food'!

So this Chinese New Year, I think I'll pop down the road and get myself some noodles. After all, it's a refreshing taste of our culture's take on a long-established 'exotic' culture; a blend of British and Chinese - nothing could better suit someone of the same mix of heritage.

'Human safaris'

I saw this story in the media the other day.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/14/andaman-jarawa-india-human-safari

This term, my first essay was on modern perspectives of 'primitive society'. I learnt about the origin of the theory of 'primitive society', and how now we shouldn't think of any society as 'primitive' or primeval, but as different societies and not in the sense that 'complex societies' are at the end of an evolutionary line from fictional 'primitive' ones. Yet, watching this video made me realise that in many parts of the world the quest for the image of 'primitive society' still occurs. Obviously, in this video the Jarawa people are not dancing in this instance as a tradition; they are doing it for food at the amusement of tourists. Any culturally aware tourist should learn to respect the culture that surrounds them, and it seems all too frequent that the 'human safari' approach is taken when looking at other cultures. Let's hope India takes some actions to protect the Jarawa's rights from these 'safaris', and that more progress in made in making people more culturally courteous.

It also reminded me of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16295827

The prevalence of human zoos in the mid-1880s based on racial stereotyping. While modern anthropology has left all this behind, it appears the portrayal of other cultures and societies in the media and public thinking has some catching up to do.

The effect of attractive women on skateboards

Since being introduced to arch and anth in popular science, I've grown to love Dr Alice Roberts.  Her book 'The Incredible Human Journey' is well worth a good read as an introduction to human origins, basic archaeological principle and examples of dips into cultures around the world.  This is a great little video explaining the effect of attractive women on skateboards. Although it's not exactly scientifically accurate, it demonstrates her point very well visually. And with skateboards.

New blog!

Welcome to Digging and Gigging. :-)
I'm an undergraduate studying BA Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Oxford. I decided to create a blog to help those interested to discover more about these subjects, and to showcase the interesting things I come across related to the world of Arch and Anth.
This blog will also be of interest to anyone wishing to learn a little more about human culture, origins and practices.  If you're a fan of Digging For Britain, Human Planet, or are just a little curious about our species (and their ancestors) - why not give this a read and dig up something new?