A Faith in Archaeological Science: Reflections on a Life [1 ed.] 9781784913021, 9781784913014

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A Faith in Archaeological Science: Reflections on a Life Don Brothwell

A Faith in Archaeological Science: Reflections on a Life Don Brothwell

Archaeopress

Archaeopress Publishing Ltd Gordon House 276 Banbury Road Oxford OX2 7ED

www.archaeopress.com Archaeological Lives ISBN 978 1 78491 301 4 ISBN 978 1 78491 302 1 (e-Pdf)

© Archaeopress and D Brothwell 2016 Cover illustration: Study No 1 Forms on tables with lamps. Acrylic and Charcoal by John Creighton

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This book is available direct from Archaeopress or from our website www.archaeopress.com

For my children, Jane, Shona, Nina, Morag, Judith and Jamie, with love

Contents Acknowledgments

v

Introducing a Life

1

Childhood, Family and Education

7

Widening Horizons in Education, Teaching and Research������������������������������������������������� 16 The Natural History Museum������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 21 The Institute of Archaeology in London������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 24 The University of York������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 26 Writing and Editing, the Final Education������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 26

War, Peace and Prison

28

The Prison Episode������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 32 Suez, politics and people���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 34

On the Science of Art

39

Controversies with Fossils

53

Forensic Interludes

59

Kosovo���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 64

Bog People and Other Friends

70

Bog Bodies���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 72 The Neolithic Iceman��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 75 Ancient Yemenis������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 77 Salted People������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 78 Egyptian mummies and dried bodies������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 79

From Rocks to Protons

84

Grave soils���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 87 Harnessing X-rays, Electrons and Protons���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 89 A Hair of the Dog��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 91

Bones, Teeth and People

94

Glue and Data: the Value of Bones���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 94 Teeth and Time: Reflections on Dental Archaeology���������������������������������������������������������� 98 Population Studies : Beyond the Individual������������������������������������������������������������������������ 102 Of Mice and Mammoths������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 107

i

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

110

In search of syphilis����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������114 Epidemiology and our past���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 117 Food and Health in the Past�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 118 Animal Health and Husbandry���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 122

Peoples and Places

127

The Viking Experience����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 128 The Siege of Avebury�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������130 Fromelles, France���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������133 Entering the Islamic World���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 134 Greenland��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 140 Travels in Mongolia�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������141 The Americas��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 144

Character Parts in a History

151

Theory, Language and Culture

163

My doubtful place in human culture������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 169 Language����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 171

Aspects of the Emotions

173

Evolving Beyond Religions���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 173 Love, the Ultimate Chimera��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 177 The Identification of Humour���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 183

Traversing the mindfield which is life

186

Imprinting, the ultimate deterrent to independent thought��������������������������������������������� 190 Crowd Behaviour���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������191 Mind and Malfunction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 193 Evolution, mind and reality���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 193 Psychological archaeology emerges�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 196 Pondering mind and reality���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 197 Socio-economic changes and mental stability��������������������������������������������������������������������� 197 Mind and conflict��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������199 Psychopathology and archaeology���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 199

Conclusions on a Life

203

On the Possible Scenario for my Descendents Long in the Future�������������������������������� 209

Bibliography212 Index227

ii

List of Figures Figure 1. My class at Beeston Primary School, about 1942. ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 9 Figure 2. The Hickingbotham family. .����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 12 Figure 3. My journey begins; the Trent gravel bones which stimulated my interest. ���������������������������� 15 Figure 4. My teenage ‘rescue’ dig at Breedon-on-the-Hill. ������������������������������������������������������������������������ 17 Figure 5. Staff and research visitors to the British Museum of Natural History, early 1960s. .����������� 22 Figure 6. The new serology laboratory, British Museum of Natural History, in 1972 .������������������������� 23 Figure 7. The new boy, Chris Stringer on the right, at the British Museum of Natural History.���������� 23 Figure 8. Geoffrey Dimbleby, environmental archaeologist at The Institute of Archaeology ������������� 24 Figure 9. Probable head injuries (arrowed) in Pleistocene skulls.��������������������������������������������������������������� 29 Figure 10. Art and war. The author’s mid-teenage response, produced for A Levels. Pencil.�������������� 31 Figure 11. A nineteenth century depiction of a horse-drawn black maria, c.1860.��������������������������������� 33 Figure 12. Wharram Percy medieval cemetery under rain covers. .���������������������������������������������������������� 37 Figure 13. An example of Palaeolithic precision art. Les Eyzies (Dordogne).��������������������������������������� 41 Figure 14. Part of the famine scene, Saqqara. c. 2350 BC. .������������������������������������������������������������������������ 42 Figure 15 Satirical ostracon of limestone. Deir el-Madina, Egypt.����������������������������������������������������������� 42 Figure 16. Highly contrasting figure styles in the Palaeolithic.������������������������������������������������������������������� 45 Figure 17. Part of the complex art work of the Mayans at Palenque, Mexico..��������������������������������������� 47 Figure 18. Hair viewed under the SEM.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 50 Figure 19.Variation in the response to visual art in a group of Liverpool viewers (264)����������������������� 51 Figure 20. Early modern form of skull compared to a ‘classic’ neanderthaler���������������������������������������� 54 Figure 21. The 40,000 year old Niah skull, completely modern in form.������������������������������������������������� 54 Figure 22. The affinities of the Galilee skull fragment ������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 56 Figure 23. The Singa skull and evidence of abnormality. .�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 57 Figure 24. Evidence of frontal deformation.������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 58 Figure 25. The so-called ‘primary’ burial at Maiden Castle. .���������������������������������������������������������������������� 60 Figure 26. Louise Arbour of the UN meeting with members of the Bosnian forensic team.�������������� 62 Figure 27. A surprise in the clothing of a Bosnian body. A booby trap?������������������������������������������������ 63 Figure 28. Norwegian army clearing ground������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 65 Figure 29. The guanche mummy now in Cambridge. �������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 71 Figure 30. Lindow Man, still within peat at the British Museum conservation laboratory. ����������������� 73 Figure 31. Huldremose woman showing ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 74 Figure 32. Superb preservation of the Iceman, as seen in his face.����������������������������������������������������������� 76 Figure 33. Iceman hair chemistry (sulphur, copper and arsenic)��������������������������������������������������������������� 77 Figure 34. In Yemen; a) viewing cliff faces for possible crevice burials.������������������������������������������������� 78 Figure 35. Participants in the symposium on the Population Biology of the Ancient Egyptians������� 80 Figure 36. XVIIIth Dynasty pig skull from Tell el-Amarna, displaying a partial trephination.������������ 81 Figure 37. The three mummies seen in 2002 in the side chamber of KV35������������������������������������������ 82 Figure 38. Joking about mummification, cartoon sent to me from Sardinia������������������������������������������� 83 Figure 39. Seven rock samples from Scottish vitrified forts���������������������������������������������������������������������� 86 Figure 40. CT scanning of ancient bodies.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 88 Figure 42. SEM detail of human calculus����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 90 Figure 41. Working with the first scanning electron microscope (SEM) ������������������������������������������������ 90 Figure 43. Spectrophotometric data on ancient hair.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 91 Figure 44. Copper (Cu) and arsenic (As) in the Iceman hair��������������������������������������������������������������������� 93 Figure 45. Multivariate statistical analysis of Etruscans ���������������������������������������������������������������������������� 95 Figure 46. Human population change in Britain from the Neolithic to later medieval times ������������� 96 Figure 47. Variation in New World dogs, as indicated by two skull indices.��������������������������������������������� 97

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Figure 48. Child mortality in three cemeteries���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 97 Figure 49. Caries frequencies through time, in three European areas (both sexes)��������������������������������� 99 Figure 50. Ancient Nubian foot, showing massive changes and some bone fusion����������������������������� 106 Figure 51. Surviving brain trauma? Nubian skull showing healed injuries�������������������������������������������� 106 Figure 52. Peruvian woman selling cooked guinea pigs as a snack food. Bus station, Peru. 1980.��� 108 Figure 53. Evidence of a large soft tissue tumour in a Neolithic male from Slagslunde, Denmark. .111 Figure 54. Facial leprosy in a Dark Age skeleton from the Scilly Isles���������������������������������������������������� 112 Figure 55. Small trephinations in a Bronze Age skull from Jericho. There is some healing.�������������� 112 Figure 56. Probable healed amputations.�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������113 Figure 57. A medieval skull from York, displaying unique surgery along an extensive sword cut������ 114 Figure 58. Post-medieval skull from London, showing treponemal infection �������������������������������������� 115 Figure 59. Suggested evolutionary tree for the pathogenic treponemes������������������������������������������������� 117 Figure 60. Assyrian art evidence of locusts being used as food.�������������������������������������������������������������� 120 Figure 61. Neolithic figurines showing obese individuals. Was fatness the new aesthetic? ��������������� 121 Figure 62. The spread of viral condition avian osteopetrosis in England.��������������������������������������������� 123 Figure 63. Chicken skulls��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������125 Figure 64. Newark Bay, Orkney.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������129 Figure 65. Newark Bay, Okney; plan and section of a souterrain at the chapel site.���������������������������� 129 Figure 66. Unexpected Avebury ‘art’ in the form of vandalised stones�������������������������������������������������� 132 Figure 67. Map of western Yemen, and the area which may yield more leather covered bodies.������� 135 Figure 68. Viewing the results of digital X-ray imaging in tomb KV35������������������������������������������������� 137 Figure 69. Experiments with pigs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������138 Figure 70. A kestrel mummy.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������139 Figure 71. Looking like Homo erectus in general form, a lateral view of the skull ����������������������������� 141 Figure 72. My visit to the site of Kharakhorum, Ghengis Khan’s city��������������������������������������������������� 143 Figure 73. Dan Morse, TB specialist and palaeopathologist��������������������������������������������������������������������� 145 Figure 74. Dickson Mound Museum as I viewed it in Illinois in 1966.��������������������������������������������������� 146 Figure 75. Kurukabaru, my brief base in the interior of Guyana������������������������������������������������������������ 147 Figure 76. Partly excavated site of Iximche, at the time of my visit.������������������������������������������������������� 148 Figure 77. Part of the massive construction at Saccsaihuaman fortress near Cuzco, Peru.����������������� 148 Figure 78. Gordon Childe, as I remember him in seminars.��������������������������������������������������������������������� 152 Figure 79. Nigel Barnicot and an innocent young Brothwell at the Etruscan conference in 1958.��� 154 Figure 80. Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum of Natural History������������������������������������������������ 156 Figure 81. Vilhelm Moller-Christenson discussing specimens with me in 1964.����������������������������������� 159 Figure 82. Leo Biek, friend and archaeological scientist.��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 161 Figure 83. The enigma of the Flores skull.��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������164 Figure 84. Normal and iodine deficient lambs��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������166 Figure 85. Severe stress brought on by attending a TAG meeting����������������������������������������������������������� 168 Figure 86. How essential was language in our distant past?���������������������������������������������������������������������� 172 Figure 87. Ruins of St. Polyeuktos church in Istanbul������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 176 Figure 88. ‘Shamanism’ comes back into archaeological vogue; or does it?������������������������������������������� 177 Figure 89. Is inter-species sex the next world controversy?���������������������������������������������������������������������� 184 Figure 90. Evidence of ancient terrorism; impaled captives at a city besieged by Assyrians.�������������� 188 Figure 91. Design crazes or specific symbolism?.���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������192 Figure 92. Calmer times, with my parents at Mablethorpe, 1934.������������������������������������������������������������ 204 Figure 93. The departure of the Kong Techi expedition, March, 1953.������������������������������������������������� 204 Figure 94. God eating a carrot; the child’s creative mind. ����������������������������������������������������������������������� 207 Figure 95. Protest art, seen on the Berlin Wall in March, 1986, when at a symposium.����������������������� 208 Figure 96. Humankind; to be, or not to be, that is the question.������������������������������������������������������������� 210 Figure 97. At King’s Manor, York, recently.�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������211

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Acknowledgments Life is shaped by many people, not only too numerous to recall, but also part of ones forgotten history. The various teachers who bounced me from art into science A Levels were formative. The teachers at University College, London, especially Gordon Childe and Nigel Barnicot, were an immense influence. Jack Trevor in Cambridge, Kenneth Oakley in the British Museum (Natural History), Geoff Dimbleby of the Institute of Archaeology, and Martin Carver in York, all supported my moves in the academic world. I owe them much. To my two wives, whatever our problems, I owe them my children, who have been my lifelong pleasure and education. The Neolithic specialist, Isobel Smith, was an inspiration in her scholarship, humility and simplicity. In all the countries visited, there have been individuals who have been inspiring, creative, friendly, and truly ‘the salt of the earth’. At a technical level, especially in relation to this book, I have had kind assistance from photographic units in Cambridge, London and York. Long suffering secretarial assistance for this book has been provided by Kathryn Cripwell. My humble, no nonsense, parents provided a strong foundation on which to grow. I am sorry that they are not around to see this finished. Last, but very far from least, a number of funding bodies have provided me with support. They are the Henry Mellish Trustees, the British Museum (Natural History), the Medical Research Council, The British Academy, The Royal Society, The Galton Foundation, Historic Scotland, Science and Engineering Research Council, and the European Research Council. Without their sympathetic support, my work would have been significantly curtailed.

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Chapter 1

Introducing a Life I suppose one could say that this is a limited record of the life and thought of one member of the human species. It is not written because I regard myself as an important individual, special in some way which demands consideration in history. I don’t fit in as a leader of any group, political or religious. I have had no distinguished schooling or university record. No, the only reason for writing this memoir or reflection on life is that I feel driven to do so. And I believe this is because few in academic archaeology give an account of themselves in this ever changing field of research, and especially from the point of view of the impact of the sciences on archaeology. Perhaps it should be noted from the very beginning that, to me, archaeology can’t really be separated from the broader field of anthropology, and indeed probably from aspects of psychology. Divisions into mind and body, culture and evolutionary biology, past and present, may be convenient in order to arrange data on our species, but we are all the sum total of all of this. I have lived a life influenced by evolution and the environment, of my need for survival, and of social influences on my behaviour. Added to this the myriad of events into which each of us is placed during life. For me, birth in the 1930s, war, poor schooling, the London scene, marriage and children, interaction with academic colleagues (both bad and good), and of course the stimulation of a life which encouraged questioning and exploration, all set the stage. Looking back, I think I spent too much time in some research aspects and not enough in others, but nevertheless I have always enjoyed a broad base to my work, and thankfully have not been obstructed in the enquiries I wanted to make. Given my time again, I would want to ponder human genetics and demographic aspects more, as well as the potential links between archaeology and chemistry and social psychology. We are a species with limited perception and a tendency to extend into mental abnormality, whether the milder states of depression, hedonism and narcissism or the more destructive forms 1

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of neurosis or psychosis. The past, as well as the present, is not free of this rainbow of mental states, yet archaeology has viewed human society as being in a continuous state of normality, except for group conflicts of course. But even in the case of warfare, the social and mental impact on people has not been discussed in the depth it has deserved. Neither have health aspects in general been discussed. The reason for this is really because although archaeology has a history extending back and linking to geology, it has been generally treated as a history of ancient monuments and of material culture. Over the years, the sciences have been involved more and more in answering questions posed by finds or excavations of the past, and I have been lucky enough to have been drawn into a range of research of a scientific nature, first on human remains but extending into other aspects of what has become ‘archaeological science’. In my old age, I have come to realise that all of archaeology is science, as we are simply brainy primates. Of course we are better at tool making than our relatives, and have more complex societies (although parliament sounds like a troop of baboons at times). The fact that we have songs rather than gibbon tree calls should not put us off the similarities. And if chimpanzee culture is not as elaborate as our own, then again, we should not think them so very different. Darwin, I’m sure, would agree with me on this point, but whether the great and the good of archaeological history would agree with me is another matter! I am aware that there must be bias in all biographic accounts, even with recourse to diaries, notes and the varieties of reference memorabilia which can accumulate in life. My concern has been not to intrude into the lives of others more than really necessary. In particular, my critical feelings about others who have detrimentally impacted on my life are best passed over with a minimum of comment. Their actions, linked perhaps to poor judgment or some other state of mind, are difficult for anyone else to truly understand. For that reason, the least said the better. Surely, in the end, all lives are a mixture of humdrum, tragicomic and, with a little bit of luck, inspiration. I have certainly felt pleasantly driven at various times, although how productively only history will tell. Nothing as wonderful as the discovery of oxygen or the theory of evolution has come my way, but in the field of archaeological science, I have nibbled away with satisfaction. And that is all most of us can hope for, contributing a sand grain to building a history. Some topics, such as human conflict and war, have occupied me for my whole adult life, although this has resulted in personal action at only particular points in time. My children have occupied a very considerable amount of time and thought, but actual comment here is relatively brief, as for the most part their lives are beyond my personal life and must be protected and respected as such. Similarly, my wives and other female friends I consider to be beyond this review of my life. It can be accepted that these were intimate relationships of a kind which some would include in a work about themselves, but it seems to me that it can’t be done without revealing aspects of relationships which are not my personal property.

Introducing a Life

Finally, I should say that I have given emphasis in the book title to the fact that my career has been strongly influenced by the sciences and their growing importance within archaeology. In particular, much of my research effort has been directed to bioarchaeological problems, related to humans and certain other species. It has been my luck and privilege to be employed in this field of archaeological science for fifty years. And at the moment of writing this, I find it as stimulating and enjoyable as when I first set out to study ancient remains. It has also been a great pleasure during this time to see a significant expansion in academic posts, teaching and research in archaeological science during this half century. Particularly gratifying personally, is to see old students who are academic survivors, and now in key positions both in universities and museums. To my knowledge, this is the first memoir written by an archaeological scientist. The discipline of archaeology has spawned a range of autobiographies of various forms, from Mortimer Wheeler, Max Mallowan, Philip Rahtz and Leslie Grinsell to Glyn Daniel, all field archaeologists to a great degree. It would have been very interesting to have had available to me the archaeological lives of my own teachers, Gordon Childe, Frederick Zeuner and Kathleen Kenyon, especially as I suspect that their private lives would have revealed a lot more about them and their private thoughts than we will now ever know. But they didn’t write and I suspect that a lot of information is now lost forever. The life of Childe has been well covered by others, and I shall return to him later. Zeuner was of course one of the early archaeological scientists, particularly concerned with chronology and environmental archaeology. Few know that he was also a specialist on fossil insects, although he never developed entomology as a field within archaeology. In fact so far, the developing impact of archaeological science within the field as a whole, and of the scientists themselves, are stories largely untold. Having passed my allotted three score years and ten, the time has come for some personal reflections on where I have been in this history. I confess that while writing this, I have failed to find a catchy title to the work, something funny or eye-catching, perhaps supported on the front cover by a piece of ancient pornographic pottery. I am reminded of some of the titles which occasionally appear in literature which one would have loved to have thought of oneself. ‘Loose Bodies in Joints’ could have been a perfect title for a book on syphilis and prostitution. In fact it referred to a learned study by a Cambridge professor of surgery in 1888, to structures of the knee-joint. Similarly, for me ‘The Baboon in Medical Research’ conjures up dubious individuals of the kind so well portrayed by the cartoonist Thomas Rowlandson. All who write about their lives and thoughts are also presented with the problem of how to arrange the incidents in their lives. To some extent this can be achieved by a chronological ordering, but some aspects may demand the bringing together of work of a similar kind, even though relevant experiences are scattered over many

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years of life. I have erred on the side of pragmatism, finding that various parts of my life follow on sensibly, but with reflective diversions of a less chronological kind inserted where they seemed most appropriate. In the end, it all adds up to my life as a scientist puzzling and enthusing over things archaeological, but linked intimately with family, and cooking, and nappy changing, and all the simple diversions which in fact make life worth living – but seem to be so briefly mentioned in an autobiography. And perhaps that is where biography fails, for it is simply impossible to record adequately as a part of ones life the enormous and warm pleasure of feeling a little hand trustingly holding ones own, or sitting on a warm beach handing out ice-creams. Similarly, the uplifting intimacy of a girlfriend or wife, the special bonding and closeness which occur but a few times, yet mean more than position and honours can ever do. Are our thoughts about ourselves and others always correct, and to what extent do distorted views influence our lives? Moreover, when eventually sitting down to write an autobiography, can we hope to give a truthful account of our lives or is it likely to be distorted by failing to appreciate subconscious motives and emotions? Of course, our histories include many concrete facts, and therefore there is a core of hard information not to be disputed, but our interpretations of some details, and what we may see as correct emotional responses in our lives, may be dominated by final conscious interpretations of the truth, which may cover up and even avoid what has been debated at a subconscious level. This problem of trying to truly know ourselves is well discussed by the psychologist Timothy Wilson in his book ‘Strangers to Ourselves’ (269). He points out that we have different levels of mental processes, including what he terms the ‘adaptive unconscious’, which categorizes and evaluates people. This is summed up well by E.S. Dallas in 1866 (quoted by Wilson) who said ‘Outside consciousness there rolls a vast tide of life which is perhaps more important to us than the little isle of our thoughts which lies within our ken.’ So I hope this account will reveal something of the minute place I have in history and particularly in archaeological science. While history in general is concerned about peoples and populations, of behavioural and cultural change, the autobiography is a snapshot of one persons’ life as recorded by himself. Bias is inevitable, but I will argue here that a reasonable judgement can be made of a person based on the hard historic facts of work, writings and reactions by others, and to a lesser extent by his own personal interpretations. At the same time, I recognise that others, ex-wives, children, friends and associates may have a fairly good, but different grasp of what makes me tick. The one area of me which is not easy for others to invade and evaluate is concerned with my deeper emotions and feelings, which we tend to hide. Language can hardly do justice to how we feel, but I have tried, as honestly as my conscious mind allows, to expand on my emotions to happenings, even though the language is a very subdued response to how I originally felt. In a healthy state of mind, why would anyone really want to write their life story? Looking at so many autobiographies today, they seem to be explainable in a number

Introducing a Life

of ways. To the celebrity, it is a way of improving profits and spreading publicity. To the politician or sportsman, such a life in the public eye is not only financially useful, but explains to a general public, their competence to lead or play well on the world stage. And there may be a genuine interest in encouraging the young to consider ‘public service’ or sporting potential as a worthwhile career. Famous actors or singers may similarly be driven to outline their lives as an encouragement to younger members of society to persevere with their hopes for success in these media. Inevitably, I suppose, it also reveals something of their egos, their view that they have something worthy of telling, even if history may eventually doubt the value of such accounts. In a somewhat different league are the accounts of academics, which appeal to a different and more contracted audience. Many famous names such as Newton and Darwin had lives which are well discussed, but mainly by others not themselves. And perhaps anything worth saying about them is best assessed by others, who can attempt a sober and balanced evaluation of them, without the biases and distortions of personal egoism. So why am I, a very, very minor scientist, attempting some account of my life as I see it? The fact is that we all have a story to tell and some of us have contributed to the early development of a subject. There is another reason which has driven me to write, and I guess many others too, and that is the need to try and understand their lives and actions, and perhaps even come to terms with events or changing beliefs which may or may not have been as happy or acceptable as one might have wished. There is also the fact that it enables a personal evaluation of myself within archaeology at 70 or 50 or 30 years ago, and which I now find to represent quite different people in some respects. I have subtitled this account ‘Reflections on a Life’ because part of living is not action but thinking about, pondering, perhaps even making the wrong decisions. Since boyhood, I have certainly observed and thought plenty: about family, neighbours, politicians, the world scene, and I think that gradually this has improved my ability to discern things more acutely and accurately. But those reading this account may disagree. Also, there is no doubt that I have realised more and more over the decades that my early assumptions that most people are intelligent, perceptive, courageous and truly ethical may not be correct. I realise now that we are all varyingly defective, that academics can be nincompoops, politicians unperceptive, administrators uncompassionate, and the ‘man in the street’ not fit to make judgements which can have serious repercussions for the future of our planet. The majority of the world population are religious and superstitious and impose grotesque moralities and pain on others, and perhaps I have contributed to these absurdities. All our lives have something to say in this respect, but few ruminate in this way, and set pen to paper. I am of course very aware that what seems to be the truth to me, may be seen in a very different light by some of my family or colleagues. All one can do is to try and get the facts right, and describe ones emotions and attitudes in appropriate words which don’t mislead others. However, speaking what one feels is the truth without hurting others, is extremely difficult to do, and sometimes impossible. My conscience, whatever that is, has prevented any temptation I might have had to be

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over-critical or scornful of old colleagues or others who have entered my life. We all have our problems, and if some act jealously or malignantly towards others, they are failing themselves. The extent of the truth given should then be tempered by the extent of the pain and hurt it can potentially give to others and I hope that my accounts are free of any such personal destructiveness to others. So I have entitled this work ‘A Faith in Archaeological Science’, because I think that is what I have been concerned with for much of my life. To some extent ‘anthropologist’ or even ‘applied biologist’ would equally explain much but not all of my labours, but ultimately my passion has been to see the sciences applied to answering archaeological problems, and also to establish that archaeology is to a large degree applied science. Like many of my colleagues, there have been periods of frustration when grants did not materialise, and it must be a common feeling that with better financial support, far more could have been achieved in research. But we have to live with these limitations, and in so many ways luck has been on my side. A variety of interesting sites and discoveries have come my way, and I have also been stimulated to take up various editing work in the field of archaeological science, plus book projects and research opportunities over the years. It has demanded commitment and time, but it has been a pleasure. So what follows is an account, but also an experiment in how to describe one life in the midst of many, and with the backdrop of the world of excavations, museums and universities, as well as family and friends. In particular, I hope it will show the variety, the challenges, and the fun of working in the ever growing field of archaeological science.

Chapter 2

Childhood, Family and Education The years of immaturity are a highly formative time for us all, but are only just beginning to be discussed in relation to archaeology and history (for example, Sally Crawford on Saxon children, Nicholas Orme on medieval ones, and Mary Lewis on their biology (126,181,219). The reason for the developmental slowing down during childhood, which has occurred in our own evolution, is still far from understood. Is it really an adaptive advantage to delay our maturity for over 15 years? And the child’s world is so unlike that of the adult. Relationships with nuclear and extended families are so different to what they seem to be as an adult. I found my relatives in general rather separated emotionally from me and a little frightening. There was also the question of time and space. To me the Boer War seemed a millennium away, even though my father’s half brother Charles served in it. And what I now see as short distances, say from Nottingham to the Lincolnshire coast, a mere 70 miles away, were as a child like a trek to Everest. So viewing my childhood and education now, over sixty years on, is literally to move into history, and indeed in many ways into a foreign world. As a girl, my mother suffered from a thyroid problem, probably of a tuberculous nature, and as a result submitted to surgery at home, not unusual I believe at the end of the nineteenth century. I suspect that this resulted in retarded skeletal growth which became a critical factor from the point of view of birth canal size in pregnancy. Conception for her was a serious problem, and only at the age of 36 did she manage to become pregnant. The labour was protracted and dangerous, and when I finally arrived – with the aid of forceps and a struggle – my head was in a bad shape and I was in serious shock. Without doubt, this should have been a Caesarean event, and 7

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the reason why it wasn’t will remain part of the vast unknown history of the human population. This was certainly a very bad time for me, the birth trauma caused me not to feed for a week, and only in the final hours did I seem to realise that feeding was a vital part of the game of life. So I just avoided death. This birth event probably dogged me for perhaps a decade or more to come, with swings in body weight and dyslexic problems as regards reading and writing, leading to a reticence in relation to others, either children or adults. Being an only child probably exacerbated the problem, but at the same time I developed a reflective and particularly independent view of what happened around me. These early formative years are a period when survival is most challenged, and natural selection has a major impact on a community. Surviving birth trauma, there is then the microbial world to adapt to. With increasing cultural complexity, language has evolved, the early years of life being the critical period for learning this range of sound symbols. Languages have never been easy for me, and while passable in English and a complete flop in French and Italian, I survived in Latin simply because it opened up to me the fascinating world of Caesar and the poetry of Catullus, which I enjoyed. So what do any of us really remember of our early childhood experiences? Some may be able to recall many incidents, but my own are trifles indeed. And even then are spread over a few years. I can remember running by jagged broken glass in the garden next door, and being taken to the local chemist for antiseptic dressing. The scar even now remains large and open on my left leg, and should have been stitched to reduce the gape of the wound. The man of the house next door, on another occasion, told us wide eyed boys of his tank experiences in the First World War, and of retreating out of the back when it was knocked out of action. I can remember the attraction of a small girl, perhaps like myself, no more than five or six. Who says that pubertal hormones are needed? There were occasions of ‘scrumping’, and of being told off for playing cricket in the road with my young friends and invading gardens to recover balls. As a seven year old, there was the air raid shelter, and local bombing, as well as the guns and searchlights. My father brought me shrapnel, which only now I realise would have created anatomical havoc had the pieces entered a human body. We didn’t always retreat to the air raid shelter with the siren warning, and on one occasion a bomb whistled down perilously close and I was quickly pushed under a strong table, which acted as a temporary shelter. Gas masks were daily taken to school and the boxes they were in became increasingly bent and bumped. I can’t remember being fearful at all. Boyhood for my father was in a part of Nottingham called ‘Narrow Marsh’, then a poor and rough neighbourhood where drunken violence was not uncommon. Yet in his old age, my father recalled that his boyhood before the First World War was preferable to later times, for it was a time of compassion and help, where neighbours struggled equally, and were aware of this fact. The First World War saw my father and his brother in the newly formed RAF, but at least two of the Brothwells were in the army and were killed on the Somme. Learning the skills of aircraft maintenance

Childhood, Family and Education

Figure 1. My class at Beeston Primary School, about 1942. I am in the second row, third from the right.

gave my father a chance to display his technical abilities and after the war he eventually joined the Beeston branch of Ericsons, now a major electronics firm. While always very quiet about his work, my mother was told on his retirement that he was a very conscientious worker and a good instructor to those joining his section. For all his faults, and he was anti-social and ‘difficult’ to live with, I knew him to be as straight as a die in his dealings with people. In some contrast, my mother was more friendly and sociable, but in the 30s and 40s when I saw her most, there was little opportunity in working class Beeston society to be socially interactive. My maternal and paternal families did not mix, and indeed our families rarely met. Looking back, I suspect that this was because there was considerable incompatibility between them, and I equally confess to having had no inclination to keep up with cousins and their children. Being myself a single child, a situation never to be recommended, one learns to cope with loneliness and the social distance with others in the family. I began at the local primary school, a catchment mainly for the working class kids of Beeston, whose fathers worked mainly at Ericsons, Boots pharmaceutical plant, a local foundry, the railway and a nearby army ordnance depot. The teachers, to me, looked ancient, and their names have long gone from my memory. One school photograph (Figure 1) provides a flavour of the place, with an unmended broken window allowed to be in the picture. My classmates included an epileptic whose fits at unexpected times were impressive and made me think of the, at times, thin line between health and sickness. Another boy remains in my memory for having ‘pushy’ parents who arranged, through the headmaster, extra tuition so that he could compete successfully for a Nottingham High School place. In my young mind even

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then, it seemed wrong to pick out a person for special tuition, when others could also have benefited from more classwork. This view of an egalitarian educational system, homogenised and without private and privileged schools, remains with me today. This does not mean that individuals with special needs, in terms of both disabilities or special abilities, should not be attended to, but this should be as part of one state system, paid for by the taxation of us all. I doubt now that this will ever happen, owing to the defective and selfish nature of humans. So I remained at the school with my dyslexic tendencies undiscovered. I was seen as a poor reader and speller, introverted and uninspired, as indeed I was by the mediocre classwork. War came to Britain, as indeed did epidemic childhood hepatitis, known to us all as ‘yellow jaundice’. I was severely affected, losing considerable weight and turning an interesting yellow. When the time came, I failed my 11+ examination for a grammar school, and although an appeal was made by the headmaster to the education authorities, the decision remained. My parents did not believe in preferential treatment of any kind, and it was even clear to me that had I been bullied, the order of the day was to defend myself and not run to them. If this seems harsh, I believe their policy was – as I was an only child – to make me as strong minded and independent as possible. Classes have all faded in my memory, and the only thing that remains vivid is of the school friend with epilepsy. The headmaster at the secondary school, a Mr Cousins, was not inspiring, but his DNA must have been reasonably well combined, as he sired a son who eventually became Director of the Science Museum in London. But by a stroke of luck, the art teacher greatly supported my interest in drawing and painting, and helped to move me on into a new experimental school in Nottingham with an emphasis on art. The school was affiliated with the Art College (which produced Dame Laura Knight, amongst others), and for the first time I enjoyed school. But there were still changes ahead, and although I had at first wished to become an art teacher, I had started to read anthropological literature. Primitive art books were available in the college library to tempt me, but I had also been intrigued, since the age of about eleven, in the bones being dredged up in the local river gravel works. Doubting now my career in art, I was advised to start work and study part-time for some science A Levels, and by good fortune, a laboratory assistant was needed at the local technical college (now Trent University). So I began work in the chemistry department, both cleaning and servicing the undergraduate labs as well as a research facility. By day release and night courses, I studied geology, zoology and chemistry, as well as art. Success in these subjects then enabled me to apply for university and one of my zoology teachers strongly urged me to apply for University College London, rather than Cambridge. Her advice was wise, and at that point in time, I could not have been taught anywhere else by such an unusual range of academics. I was then in my late teens and there was something of a cloud on the horizon, although looking back I now believe that it was one of the most formative periods in my life. With UCL prepared to take me, I was first to receive my call up papers. By then, with the influence of Quakerism, and wide reading on Gandhi, Tolstoy and

Childhood, Family and Education

others, there was nothing for it but to declare my pacifism and decline the army. It was with sorrow that I had to do this against the wishes of my parents. I was called before a tribunal, turned down, and taken to court. After a night in the ‘cooler’, I faced the court and was fined. I was not prepared to pay, but my father did, and I was released. Call up came again, and I declined. I faced up to a year in prison, but the court was informed of my UCL place and I was given a very much shorter sentence. Somewhat incredibly, after leaving prison, the old WW1 ‘cat and mouse’ treatment was tried and I was called up yet again. I could have lost my place in UCL, but Quaker friends and Lord Brockway made it clear to the authorities that such baiting behaviour was not on, and the third call up was withdrawn. It is difficult to fully imagine the emotions of previous generations, placed as they were in different contrasting social environments. Of the death of his father when he was 14 years old in 1911, my father remembered the doctor visiting the house because of the seriousness of his father’s illness, and his mother being told with her two boys present, that he had come too late, and the double pneumonia would take its course. So in his sixtieth year, my grandfather left behind a younger wife to cope, without a job or a house of her own, or indeed the social and financial support available today. No wonder she was stern, a survivor, and to me when taken to see her, tough and distant. I doubt if my grandmother and her boys had holidays in the modern sense of the word; perhaps days away on the bus were possible. When I visited her in Nottingham during the war, she was losing reality and though she was aware of the bomb damage around the supervised home she was in, she expressed no interest in it. She was not liked by the others in that protected community, and in the end was asked to leave. My father arranged for a move to an alternative home, but she refused to leave peacefully. The enforced departure which ensued killed her, so that she ended in the way so much of her life had been, with a struggle. My maternal grandfather was better loved by the local community, but nevertheless was a quiet and private man (Figure 2). For a time he was a baker, but somewhat overgenerous with those needing charity. Prior to the National Health Service, he had a long term drain on his savings by doctor’s bills, as my Aunt Hilda was a chronic and severe asthmatic who lived with him. My mother described to me on various occasions, her sister’s fight for breath and life, and I have photographs of her as a young healthy child, prior to the onslaught of the disease which later ravaged and killed her. I remember my grandfather as a calm and wise old man. Some of his comments would no doubt be seen by some today as cranky, but still seem eminently sensible to me. Perhaps as a result of the mass killing of a whole generation of youth in the First World War, he strongly held the view that the young deserve protection from the ever callous range of politicians and psychopathic leaders who follow on, generation after generation. If the ridiculous business of war had to be, then he believed that it should directly involve politicians together with older men of post-reproductive age! Wisdom indeed. In fact, there is no good biological reason why older men (say, 45-65 years) need be less fit, and there are probably endurance

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Figure 2. The Hickingbotham family. My Mother, Constance, is between her parents. Her siblings are at the back: left Harry, then Hilda and Arthur. 1905.

qualities in older men which favour performance and survival (including tolerance of stress). The ancient Greek warrior was at times of very mature years, and was it unusual that Captain Scott, the oldest in the team, survived longest in his expedition to the Antarctic in 1912? Looking in the phone book for Britain, the USA and Canada, I was struck by how few Brothwells were listed. Yet if we go back a few generations, say ten, extending over three hundred years (with an average number of children being three only), then there should be over 19,000 Brothwells living today! If half of this number were females and all got married and assumed their married name, then there should still be around 9,500 males at the end of the ten generations (30 years allowed per generation). So where are all the Brothwells? One explanation is that there were far more female children, but this isn’t shown by the genealogical information. Do we carry genes which kill us off before our reproductive period? There is no evidence of this. Are we sexually unproductive or disinclined? If I am a typical Brothwell, then that is definitely not so. Are we an aggressive lot, and have fallen in various wars? What little evidence there is, suggests that they survived well; at least since the Boar War. There is no doubt that regional gene

Childhood, Family and Education

pools can be affected by war, but this doesn’t appear to have been the case with my line. So there appears to be no full answer to the case of the disappearing Brothwells, at least so far. If we take the survival of surnames in general, there seems to be a mystery factor which can influence how family lines come and go. Many years ago, I recorded the frequency of early surnames in island cemeteries of the Orkney Islands. I expected similar frequencies throughout the isles, but the results were surprising (49). Common surnames in one cemetery were not usually the same as in others, and there was a contrast with the current island group surnames. There is no single answer of course. In the last couple of centuries, many people migrated or moved to cities for economic reasons. Tuberculosis and other epidemic diseases have differentially devastated populations, especially in the nineteenth century. And last but not least, wars have taken millions of lives, some families being far more seriously affected. The death of my maternal grandfather caused my mother great distress, although he had tried to prepare her for the end, saying that it would probably come soon and she must be calm and accept it. Nevertheless, she saw it as a great loss, of a close friend as well as her father. Death of parents, as much as the death of children, can clearly be a bleak final event, the final casting off of parental access and ‘protection’, even when we are of mature years. For us all, it is the ultimate coming of age and loss of innocence. Except for my grandparents, I was given very little information about my family history, by parents or grandparents, and had it not been for the curiosity of my son and the considerable genealogical knowledge of my relative, Catherine Stewart, then I would still be in blissful ignorance. My surname is sufficiently uncommon, that I had concluded that it derived not so long ago from either Bothwell or Rothwell. But in fact it is a distinct name in York by 1218, and the clan appear to have split into a number of sub-groups which generally remained around the Nottingham-Lincoln area. By 1400 they were established near Grantham. In the nineteenth century, the Brothwells had a range of trades; maltster, soldier, legal clerk, grocer, hosiery worker, lacemaker, butcher and gas worker. Members of the family emigrated to America and Canada, and there is evidence that one or two were transported to Australia! From an archaeological point of view, it is interesting to see that family size fluctuated noticeably, with some males being much more efficient at handing on their DNA. My great grandfather Jarvis had seven children, my grandfather William Pountain produced five, but my father George Sutton and his brother Ben had only one child each. More Brothwell DNA was then established in the population with my own six children, and perhaps for the first time in our family history, they are scattered widely beyond the Nottingham-Lincoln area. As I said, some decades ago I studied the surnames in the regional cemeteries of the Orkney islands. These family concentrations must have occurred back into prehistory, and makes the point that while we may talk of the Beaker People or Anglo Saxons, cemeteries may diverge considerably in terms of the families contained in them, and thus what DNA turns up on analysis. In the same way, a handful of Neanderthal DNA results is unlikely to represent all the families and clans using

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Mousterian tools from England to Uzbekistan. We need to keep this in mind when considering the molecular biology and affinities of the peoples of the past. My Victorian father did not have a well developed sense of humour, but nevertheless he did talk about the music hall days of his own youth, and was keen that I saw the slapstick comedy of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. And I confess that I am still more at home in the world of such clowning and absurdity, than in the so-called ‘serious’ and ‘grown up’ world. And I still rather have the feeling that the sincerity and openness of childhood is all too often replaced by a superficial seriousness, dishonesty and dubious integrity. Paul Goodman, in his challenging book ‘Growing up Absurd’, provides a strong argument for rethinking our adult lives (153). He argues convincingly that we transform our children by dishonest public and political speech, by submitting them to dishonourable behaviour, by driving parents to child neglect because they are held to vast mortgages and debts from material things. Power is placed in the hands of people who are all too often defective in perception, wisdom and compassion. Xenophobia of various kinds, the magic of commodities, and the national pursuit of wealth rules the world, sucks us all into lives often of questionable value. How tragic that the potential and openness of the child finishes up in this way. I don’t think the perceptiveness of childhood fails to see that the adult world sells them short, and I think this is the reason for so much petty crime and serious depression in advanced society. And the absurdity of our adult world is clearly revealed by the fact that those in power can only ‘solve’ such problems by prison, no satisfactory rehabilitation, and by anti-depressant pills. The clown and his world still seems to me to have more potential than the politician, in enabling the individual to have a more relaxed, cynical and ‘healthy’ view of life, which we all have to live. The evaluation of humour, comedy, and laughter through time is not easy. Darwin saw laughter and a sense of humour as a feature of some higher primates. The Greeks and Romans were suspicious of laughter, some believing that it had a malevolent basis. In perhaps the majority of societies today, a ‘sense of humour’ is regarded as desirable, and laughter at political posturing has certainly become a powerful weapon of criticism. Personally, I have found the ability to laugh at myself as well as the world at large, very healing. This effectively disarms any potential build up of bitterness about happenings, and also helps to defuse destructive anger. Yet I confess that as I get older, I feel more anger about the enormous injustices and avoidable violence in the world, so often perpetrated by self-important politicians or questionable religious leaders. Although most books in psychology and ethology do not include studies on humour, there is a growing interest in this aspect of our personalities (120). Although more challenging, there is certainly a need to investigate this aspect in earlier populations. Perhaps the main theme for me in Tolstoy’s novel ‘War and Peace’ (253), is that accidents of history may have a profound effect on later events. For me, two separate archaeological events were to influence my decision to move my career from art to anthropology and archaeology. The first accident of history was to occur when I

Childhood, Family and Education

Figure 3. My journey begins; the Trent gravel bones which stimulated my interest. Probable human Neolithic skull and Bos primigenius specimens are represented.

was about eleven years old, and I was shown human bones which had been dredged from Pleistocene gravels laid down by the River Trent near my home. The second accident was to be informed that at the top of a limestone quarry at Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire, about 10 miles from my home, human remains were to be found. Both of these facts kick-started a life long interest in the investigation of ancient remains. In the case of the Trent gravel bones (Figure 3), the mixture of species was puzzling, and I did not at first realise that some, including mammoth teeth, were probably re-deposited. But the human remains and those of Bos primigenius, the ancestor of modern cattle, could well have been contemporary and associated with fragments of Neolithic Peterborough ware and polished stone axes. Some of the finds were preserved at the gravel works office and others were curated in the Nottingham University museum. Just a few were given to me, to be a constant stimulant to my interest. I began to explore the history of so-called ‘river bed’ skulls, originally all seen as prehistoric, but which are clearly multi-period. One of the Trent specimens was extremely long and narrow (dolichocephalic) and its association with Neolithic cultural finds probably confirmed its antiquity. In any

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case, it was sufficient to drive my youthful enthusiasm on to undertake a broad study of such remains and introduce me to British prehistory. It was also by chance that I learnt of the quarrying at Breedon on the Hill, a little later, when working as a junior laboratory technician. On a day off, I travelled by bus to the village of Breedon and walked up to the hilltop overlooking the quarry. The local church remained perilously on top, surviving the blasting and preserving within some rare Saxon sculptures. Near the quarry face were a number of the square trenches excavated by Kathleen Kenyon, long before she was to become famous for her work at Jericho. Checking her publication on the site later, it was clear that the skeletons she found in her trenches were in rows, and that I had the chance to save more before the whole area was quarried away (174). As my digging team would only be a few friends, our trenches would be narrow, and positioned to locate as many heads and upper bodies as possible. First I had to gain permission from the manager of the quarry, a Captain W. C. Shields, a jovial one legged war veteran, who agreed to our digging, without any thought of insurance implications except to say that archaeologists were sensible enough not to fall into the quarry and damage themselves! How different are the rules of archaeological engagement today! Years later, when I visited the excavations by the London Natural History Museum at Westbury-sub-Mendip, everyone was helmeted and roped up, as though in conquest of Everest. Breedon provided my first opportunity to excavate and study a whole series of skeletal remains (Figure 4), and these are now preserved in the Odontology Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, in London. Later, as a student, I undertook an undergraduate project on the remains, but this was never published. There was finally one other experience which Breedon provided. On one occasion when leaving the site after a day of digging, I was confronted by an old villager, angry that we were disturbing and excavating his ‘ancestors’. It didn’t seem to occur to him that we were at least preventing his ancient relatives from being blown to bits by the quarrying, and rendered into roadstone. But I placated him nervously, and he provided me with my first experience of public objections to the excavation of human remains. Widening Horizons in Education, Teaching and Research So, beyond art, which I will come back to later, school provided me with no real education, and it was while I was working as a chemistry technician at Nottingham Technical College that science came into my life. But anthropology, including archaeology, was new to me and I was therefore a little apprehensive of how I would settle in with this academic discipline. To hedge my bets, I decided to take the option which enabled me to study archaeology and anthropology, but with the subsidiary geology and vertebrate zoology. Archaeology would be at the old Institute of Archaeology in Regents Park, but the rest would be at University College London. Geology and zoology, being partly laboratory based, turned out to be far

Childhood, Family and Education

Figure 4. My teenage ‘rescue’ dig at Breedon-on-the-Hill. Inset is the Down’s syndrome case from the site.

more demanding than expected. I quietly added human genetics to this academic cocktail. In zoology, I particularly enjoyed the lectures of Sir Peter Medawar, a Nobel Prize Winner for his tissue transplant work. A handsome, energetic and highly articulate man, he was to suffer a major stroke not so many years after he held my attention. Of a very different personality was Professor Hans Gruneberg, a mammal geneticist and escapee from Nazi Germany. His lectures on skeletal genetics and variation, especially of mice, drove home to me the importance of DNA, as well as environmental influences, in determining and controlling the growth and development of the skeleton. At the other extreme of genetics, I attended a course by Professor Lionel Penrose on the biology of human mental defect. Lionel Penrose was a small, friendly and quiet man who inspired my interest in mental variability, even though he was not a ‘good’ lecturer. But when we attended his clinical demonstrations at a London hospital, his gentle and compassionate treatment of the cases of mental defect was impressive. For me, anthropology in London consisted of courses in biological anthropology, social anthropology and material culture. Archaeology was taken by arrangement with the separate Institute of Archaeology. This was to the credit of Professors Daryll

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Forde at UCL and Gordon Childe at the Institute of Archaeology, old colleagues who were committed to presenting the broadest possible front in anthropology. So, long before the Institute officially took in undergraduates, it in fact contributed significantly to a London anthropology degree. My lectures were especially with Professor Gordon Childe, Professor Frederick Zeuner and Dr. (later Dame) Kathleen Kenyon. Of these three, Zeuner was Germanic and formal, Kenyon rather boring in lectures and to me somewhat reserved, while Childe was eccentric but interesting. Childe was not a good lecturer and his seminars were bumbling, but nevertheless I found his eccentricity attractive. On one occasion, invited to dinner with him, he was complimentary about Graham Clarke at Cambridge, but later I was to learn how sneery Clarke was of academics beyond Cambridge (unless of course from the Cambridge stable). As a Director, Childe would not have survived today, and the Institute seemed to run without great directorial input from him. On one occasion, Childe wandered around looking lost, because our seminar room had been taken over, and he didn’t know quite what to do. For all his claimed Marxist interest, I never heard him talk about the application of Marxist theory to prehistory. He was of course prolific in his publications, including on what we now view as social archaeology. Surprisingly, although he supported the scientific studies of Zeuner and Ian Cornwall, he was by no means convinced of the core importance of the sciences in archaeology. Sadly, on retirement he chose suicide rather than the status of a senior and influential prehistorian. This was a serious miscalculation in my view because he was beginning to rethink prehistory (and lose faith in some earlier work), and these new thoughts went to the grave with him. His suicide can perhaps be seen as both courage (accepting and controlling his death) but also perhaps as cowardice, in not expressing his change of heart on aspects of prehistory. There seems little doubt that it was planned suicide, rather than an accidental fall, although he was not physically robust, and he told me that he’d had poliomyelitis as a young man. He retired a little early in order to assist Peter Grimes to settle into the new Institute building in Gordon Square. I asked him what was to happen to the old Regents Park building, and he replied with a cackle, that he thought it was to be converted into a brothel for American visitors. In the small Anthropology Department, social aspects were in the hands of Professor Daryll Forde, Dr. Phyllis Kaberry and Dr. (later Dame) Mary Douglas. Forde was a hopeless lecturer and had little interest in his students unless you ‘survived’ in the business, in which case he claimed you as his own. Kaberry was a kindly, twitchy, but stimulating lecturer who sadly found solace in the bottle in later years. I suspect that part of her problem may have been Mary Douglas, who was a manipulator of Forde (and no doubt others) in her journey to fame and a professorial chair. She was in my time a young lecturer and not especially competent. She came over as a poser, and I was puzzled how a social anthropologist could dispassionately evaluate human behaviour and at the same time be a committed catholic and a conservative to boot. Moreover, it still seems to me that too many of the older social anthropologists came into the subject from non-social or psychological

Childhood, Family and Education

or ethological subjects, yet seemed all too confident that they could unravel the complexities of tribal societies. Reading some of Douglas’s later works, I confess to remaining unimpressed by the analyses and theoretical content. I also remain deeply suspicious of individuals I have known who are described as ‘brilliant’, but perhaps that is a reflection of my age and the extent of my academic cynicism. Studies on material culture, while integral to archaeology, were viewed as marginal in social anthropology, at least in Britain. But we did get lectures from Adrian Digby of the British Museum, and it was clear from the adaptive technology of these indigenous groups, that they were as capable of as much creative thinking and art as the advanced western societies. Looking back at the teaching I received in social anthropology, on the Yoruba, Nuer, Tiv, Fulani and others, it is clear that major aspects of these societies were ignored. I learned a lot about the importance of the mother’s brother in some societies, but nothing about the children, or reasons for the art of these societies, what they understood about diseases, or what they knew of foods and poisons. The reason, I suspect, is that few social anthropologists of that time were graduates of the subject, but had drifted in from linguistics, history, economics, politics and even philosophy. This did not bode well for a subject which is essentially a part of more disciplined behavioural sciences. Biological anthropology was mainly in the hands of Dr. Nigel Barnicot, later to become the first professor of this discipline in Britain (Oxbridge at the time only sporting a readership and lectureship). Nigel was a complex man, intelligent, emotional to the point of neurotic, friendly, and at times – in and out of class – fearsome. His breadth of interest was great, from blood groups to pigmentation, body morphology, adaptive physiology and skeletal variation. His dry sense of humour was an education to me. My first paper was jointly prepared with him, on the Etruscans, and other early work of mine was carefully and critically reviewed by him, resulting in my improvement. While Barnicot bristled at Mary Douglas’s personality, and was not greatly enamoured with Forde, he maintained a friendship with Penrose and clearly they had mutual biological interests. On one occasion, possibly on an invitation from Kenneth Oakley, then developing anthropology at the British Museum of Natural History, they went with their wives (together with Jonathan Penrose and myself) to Swanscombe to assist in the excavation run by the Wymers. It was the first time I had excavated in acidic gravels, where bone had a soft cheesy consistency (noted to my cost as I trowelled into a bone). Our hopes, of course, were to discover the rest of the Swanscombe skeleton, as the second parietal had recently turned up. Alas, nothing more appeared, and we joked about how nearly famous we all were, had we discovered further bones of this famous fossil. We had a picnic at lunch time, discovering with horror that the bottle opener had been forgotten. But Barnicot saved the day, and educated me further, by gently hitting the base of the wine bottle on a tree until the cork eased itself out. It was during my student years that I first became aware of the impact of emotional and physical stress on people, to the extent that they could mentally break

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down. In my second year, with fellow UCL students, we had a flat in a house owned by a polish artist whose Jewish family had decided to leave the deteriorating social environment in Europe before 1939. He also let a room for another Pole who had been one of the young men initially ‘absorbed’ into the Russian empire with the German-Russian pact to occupy and carve-up Poland. Having survived a horrific period in a Russian camp, he had been lucky enough to be transferred as a part of the Churchill-Stalin deal to ‘liberate’ young Polish males into the ‘free’ Polish army being assembled in Britain, which were to fight against the Germans in Europe. His account of his savage experiences of fighting, with its ‘butchers shop’ carnage, finally resulted in a mental crisis and he began to hallucinate. By the time we met him, a decade after the war, he was nearly back to normal, but he quietly confessed that periodically he still succumbed to fears and at times, in the night, we heard him stacking furniture at his bedroom door, to keep out Russian or German troops. Later, when we were living in other rooms in the house of a London rabbi, who in this case also let a room to a disturbed Jewish lady who had survived one of the death camps, we again in our young lives had the experience of seeing another form of unstable mind, caused by wartime human sensitivity to the intolerable. In this case, Miss X began by being extremely paranoid about us, resulting in one or two occasions when she came to our rooms at night, banging on the door and accusing us of plotting against her. Gradually, her fear of us subsided, and our gestures of friendliness eventually resulted in a relaxed relationship. I still wonder what both of these individuals were like before the horrors of war embraced them. For all the control mechanisms of the body, all of us seem capable under stress of misssparking in our neural networks, with subtle to severe affects on our minds. I was to see even more evidence as the years passed. I was to finish up with a reasonable degree, which enabled me to continue at UCL undertaking research for a PhD on skeletal variation in early British populations. I set myself a massive task of visiting and examining all major collections of Neolithic to medieval date and assessing their morphological variability and health status. This was in the late 1950s, before the massive escalation in cemetery excavations had provided vastly more material. But the research project was to be cut short by an unexpected opportunity. At Cambridge, a junior demonstratorship in anthropology had become available, with a maximum term of five years. My colleague would be Jack Trevor, who I shared common interests with on ancient skeletal biology. I applied and was kindly offered the position, and the next few years became a steep learning curve in how to teach a broad range of biological anthropology. While personal research continued, it had to take second place to teaching, and I also had the new duties of husband and father to add as well. In Cambridge I had entered a den of tigers, with all too many large egos. It did not take me long to realise that Grahame Clark was not compatible with Glyn Daniel, and Edmund Leach and Meyer Fortes had differences of opinion, with lesser souls to some extent taking sides. At a personal level, while Jack Trevor was friendly and helpful, it became clear that he was suffering from bipolar mood disorder. Some time

Childhood, Family and Education

after I had left Cambridge, his mind deteriorated, and very sadly he was to end his life prematurely. While Cambridge provided my first academic position, I was still only in my twenties, and I view it now as my final education and loss of innocence. The Natural History Museum In 1961, I was invited by Kenneth Oakley to join him in developing the newly formed Sub-Department of Anthropology at what was then called the British Museum of Natural History. Although enjoying the Demonstratorship (equivalent to a junior lecturer) at Cambridge, I was uncertain whether my position would continue after the five year appointment, whereas the London position was permanent. To satisfy protocol, I had to be interviewed by a panel appointed by the Civil Service, but Errol White who was Head of Palaeontology had already talked with me and appeared satisfied that I was the man for the job. So with my young family, we moved from Great Shelford to Dorking, and I became one of the countless souls coming into London to work. At first I found commuting quite exhausting, but it became much easier as time passed. Humans can adapt to an amazing range of stressful and even intolerable situations. Researchers in the Sub-Department of Anthropology consisted of Kenneth Oakley, Madeleine Smith, who was developing palaeoserology, and myself; Rosemary Powers, an artist and very knowledgeable curator of the skeletal collections, and Robert Parsons, a casting expert (Figure 5). Kenneth Oakley had started off in geology and his Ph.D. was on fossil sponges, but he became attracted to human prehistory in the 1930s, and with the support of Sir Gavin de Beer, Director of the Museum, was able to establish Anthropology. De Beer was an extrovert zoologist from University College London, but with broad interests and a flare for languages. He was also a small man, and it was said that one of his scientific enemies had critically questioned at a meeting how such a small man could dare to lecture on growth and development in the vertebrates. I got on well with Errol White, a specialist in early vertebrate evolution, but found some of his colleagues stuffy. His successor was entirely different, being neither a scholar or skilled in dealing with people, including myself. I viewed him with suspicion, especially as he could be oppressive and sadly I saw him knock the confidence gradually out of Kenneth Oakley, so that in the end he retired early (on the excuse that his health was deteriorating). Kenneth was diagnosed as having walking difficulties, caused by the ageing of old myelitic changes (according to Lord Brain, his physician). I was sorry to see him go, and it placed me in the aunt sally position of being in charge of Anthropology, with the additional responsibilities for the collections, including fossil primate and hominin material, as well as a vast series of Holocene skeletons which were a combined collection from the museum, the Royal College of Surgeons, and the Oxford Anatomy Department. This was a period of staff expansion at the Museum, including Anthropology. It was especially pleasing to me that Arthur Mourant, one of the senior serologists

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Figure 5. Staff and research visitors to the British Museum of Natural History, early 1960s. Sitting are Liz Gardiner, Kenneth Oakley, Sonia Cole and John Napier. Standing, from left, DB, Alan Walker, Bob Parsons, Robin Kenwood and Rosemary Powers.

in Britain, initiated talks with myself and the museum authorities to establish a serological laboratory in Anthropology, to curate a vast collection of human blood samples from many parts of the world, including tribal communities, partly the result of the efforts of the International Biological Programme. The museum’s trustees were supportive, and the laboratory and storage facilities were established (Figure 6). Towards the end of my twelve year period at the museum, I was able to see the appointments of Chris Stringer (Figure 7) and Peter Andrews. Chris has distinguished himself in his detailed studies of neanderthalers, and Peter worked especially on later Tertiary fossil primates. So everything seemed to be going well when I decided to leave, and the reason was perhaps two-fold. First, my relationship with the Keeper of Palaeontology, within whose department the Sub-Department of Anthropology rested, got so bad that I was invited to a friendly talk with the Director, who assured

Childhood, Family and Education

Figure 6. The new serology laboratory, British Museum of Natural History, in 1972 (now extinct).

Figure 7. The new boy, Chris Stringer on the right, at the British Museum of Natural History, together with DB, Chris Buckland Wright and Theya Molleson. Early 1970s.

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Figure 8. Geoffrey Dimbleby, environmental archaeologist at The Institute of Archaeology in London. Courtesy, Institute of Archaeology.

me that my promotion prospects were good and that I should try and keep the peace. Alas, I was quite incapable of listening to such advice, and fortunately it was not long after, that Geoffrey Dimbleby (Figure 8), who had the Chair of Environmental Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology in London, approached me to see if I would be interested in a position with him. At the time, Ian Cornwall was about to retire, and Geoff had considered me a possible replacement. Ian and I completely overlapped in our broad skeletal interests, but I was not a soils specialist and my geological knowledge was not especially linked to the Pleistocene. Peter Grimes, then Director of the Institute of Archaeology, was supportive of this change, and I subsequently arrived, wondering how well I would fit in. The Institute of Archaeology in London Having been head of the Sub-Department of Anthropology at the British Museum of Natural History, a position totally under the thumb of the Keeper of Palaeontology, it was at first a relief to be back in academia. But I arrived back at a very different Institute to the one I had left more than fifteen years before. Staff numbers were significantly larger, but the old ‘giants’ of the subject, Childe,

Childhood, Family and Education

Mallowan, Zuener and Kenyon were missing. And the atmosphere had changed. Grimes, the Director, was friendly but distant, and the staff meetings were cold and carried out without any feeling to me of closeness in colleagues. But I did enjoy working with Geoff Dimbleby, an Oxford botanist and soil scientist. I also found Peter Drewett, Ian Glover and James Mellaart, as well as colleagues in Conservation, more approachable. My guess was that the environmental floor, with the benign Geoff, Ken Thomas and Joan Sheldon, were the most integrated and friendly of the departments. I confess to being disappointed in the segmented nature of the Institute, and perhaps the current state, with the extinction of departments, encourages a better integration. I still believe that the retention of a director’s position is a little ridiculous in this day and age, when most departments of archaeology, large or small, rotate such administrative chores. It may have seemed justified in view of the size of the Institute, but it is questionable whether Wheeler’s vision of such a grand institution didn’t get a little out of hand, and would have been better off reduced in size, and especially concentrating on aspects of archaeology neglected by most other British departments. This, in my view, would have meant concentrating on the development of the Near East and Asia in general, Africa where it didn’t overlap with the School of Oriental and African Studies, and the Americas. I remained at the Institute for 20 years, much longer than I should have done, and in the end was disenchanted with it, and the choice of Director. I also did not like the prospects for the future, with the imminent arrival of another Director, and I thus decided to leave. Looking back at the Directors of the Institute, prior to the current one, and excluding Childe, they all seemed to me to be little people, without sufficient academic stature. Sir Mortimer Wheeler was great as an actor, full of pomp and ceremony, but to me no real gravitas. Peter Grimes was kindly, fairly unscholarly, and should have remained in the museum world where I suspect he was happiest. John Evans, quietly laughed at by Grahame Clarke in Cambridge, was neither leader nor an outstanding archaeologist, but he did try to be kindly at least. David Harris, a geographer with sadly no laboratory expertise, was at least a good administrator, but failed miserably in not conferring with colleagues with regard to his successor. The end result was deep anger and mistrust on the part of more than one colleague. Peter Ucko, a great ‘cultivator’ of people and highly intelligent, sadly lacked a soul, and with it a compassionate understanding of people. Such is the line up of individuals who were placed in this coveted but quite unnecessary and pompous position of Director. I have left out Childe, who I have discussed elsewhere (110), because he was quite unable to direct the Institute or probably various other things in his life, but in his work was outstanding. I can think of various people who would have been much better Directors of the Institute over the years, and no doubt some were considered. But the nature of appointment committees is that their lack of wisdom can result in major errors, or serious disagreements may result in a compromise appointment, as in the case of

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Grimes. This is another good argument for rotating headships, so that mistakes can be rectified within a year or two. The University of York I viewed the possibilities of moving on carefully. A position was talked about in St. Andrews, but didn’t materialise. Another in Edinburgh also did not materialise. My links with York had been over many years, and I had supported Geoff Dimbleby and Peter Addyman in developing an environmental archaeology unit linked initially with York Archaeological Trust and then the university. Unknown to most of the university, and long before the Department of Archaeology was established, I had also taken York students with me to the Orkney Islands to excavate a Norse site. Sid Bradley had initially arranged for his students to join me in 1968 and the project continued for four years with great success. So with this experience of York, I approached Martin Carver about the possibility of moving to York in some position. Fortunately, and unknown to me, another UCL colleague was on the move to York; Ron Cook, having decided to accept the position of Vice-Chancellor. Ron was an environmental geographer, and in the years that followed, was very supportive of the department. I am certainly indebted to his kindness. I don’t know what exchanges took place about supporting me, or of the views within the department, with its strong medieval bias at the time. But what I do know is that I arrived in the winds of change, and that the department has been transformed in the past ten or so years. Teaching and research now covers prehistory and there is a strong archaeological science component, especially in the field of bioarchaeology. Added to which morale is good, and there is an ideal friendliness within the department and good links into history, biology and chemistry. In my old age, I could not wish for a better situation for York, and have been more contented here than anywhere else. On retirement, I became emeritus professor, so that some teaching and research continued. Ageism is no longer a problem, but clearly we should hand over academic positions to younger men, even if we continue in our work on a pension. But research funding is still available to us, if on a reduced scale. We can also enjoy other things which may have been neglected when younger, and it is a great pleasure to me that I have returned, after fifty years, to my first love; art. And what a pleasure it has been these last few years, combined as it now is with my archaeological interests. Writing and Editing, the Final Education I had been driven by some internal force and enthusiasm to write a report on a series of Saxon remains while still an undergraduate, and published briefly on medieval skeletal material from Thurgarton, near Nottingham. This was followed by a note on a rare case of congenital absence of a basi-occipital bone in a Roman, the first of many publications in the field of palaeopathology. But my experience of publishing

Childhood, Family and Education

was to have a broader base, and when I became programme secretary of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, it became possible to arrange meetings of the Society and to edit Dental Anthropology (1963) and The Skeletal Biology of Earlier Human Populations (1967). Together with Eric Higgs, I gathered a series of papers together under the title of Science in Archaeology (1963) and this was revised in a second edition in 1969. Eventually this was replaced by another collection of science papers, with my co-editor Mark Pollard, entitled Handbook of Archaeological Sciences (2001). My editorial enthusiasm in the 60s, and friendship with the Glasgow pathologist Sandy Sandison, also resulted in Diseases in Antiquity (1967). The publishers of these volumes were a mixed bunch, Pergamon Press, Thames and Hudson and Charles Thomas. Robert Maxwell was still in power at Pergamon, and made it clear that his press paid no fees to such editors. The Illinois press was even worse and sent us a bill for the cost of the proof corrections, most of which were the result of their own type-setting incompetence. I should have realised by then that editorial work was a painful and thankless task, more likely to make enemies than friends, but for some unknown reason I was to be drawn into other commitments of this sort. In 1974, Geoff Dimbleby and I, together with a British Museum colleague Harold Barker, launched the Journal of Archaeological Science, to provide a publishing opportunity for scientists working within the field of archaeology. It lifted off slowly, but is now one of the major and respected journals in the field. As one of the founders of the Association of Environmental Archaeology, and organiser with Geoff Dimbleby of the first symposium of the Association on ‘Environmental Aspects of Coasts and Islands’ (1981), it fell to us both to edit this volume also. But my final stint of editing was to be with the launching of the Cambridge Manuals in Archaeology in 1985, and still going strong with over 20 volumes in the series so far. Looking back, it was hard work but good fun, though I am very pleased to have retired from it all now. Editing has diverted me over 40 years and I wonder if I would have been far more productive without such labours. But my own research and publishing continues, and perhaps we are all better for more general experience of the publishing world, which is a strange society of people, not always following the best advice of those acting as referees. To what extent all of this diverted me from family and children, I would prefer not even to contemplate.

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Chapter 3

War, Peace and Prison It remains a matter for debate as to when organised conflict began in humans. Localised fighting may well have increased when early Pleistocene populations began to challenge other hunting and collecting bands to territory. Head and other injuries are evident in the bones of Homo erectus and Neanderthal people (Figure 9), but real warfare with the development of specialist equipment is not seen before urban development, demographic changes and social hierarchies become well defined. In Britain, the weaponry seen in the Bronze Age is a clear indication of early militarism, and in Egypt and the Near East these threatening changes are seen much earlier. The Assyrian conquests between c.800-600BC consolidated one of the first major empires. Sadly, the army and militarism had come to stay, and at a more recent date, the same ‘depersonalised’ warfare can be seen in the New World. In terms of the mentality of warfare, little has changed since, except that the destructive power of armies and their weapons has increased massively. In a sane world, this would have been enough to ban conflict for all time, but not in ours (1). As a small boy in the late thirties, my parents and friends talked clearly about the coming of another war with Germany. Talk of appeasement was just nonsense to them, but to me these things seemed to be about another planet, and nothing changed until the air raid shelter in the garden was built, the gas mask supplied and the night bombings began. What bombs were really about became all too clear on passing demolished houses, a large unexploded bomb nearby, and my growing collection of large jagged pieces of shrapnel. Five years later, sitting through films on the starving of Belsen, and mass deaths at Auschwitz, I saw for the first time the extent of depravity which humans are capable of, and later, it was no different, except in extent, to what I witnessed in 28

War, Peace and Prison

Figure 9. Probable head injuries (arrowed) in Pleistocene skulls; a) Swanscombe, b) the Shanidar 1 neanderthaler, c) Homo erectus, China.

Bosnia and Kossovo. Human suffering worldwide is now accepted as never before as a part of life, as if politicians are incapable of resolving these basic issues of savagery. Greed, celebrity and a new kind of religious fervour, have simply replaced the elite societies of pre-1914 days. I can no longer remember when I became concerned about human violence to the extent that it was clearly important for me to make a stand for my beliefs. In a way, something of what I felt is summed up in another autobiography. ‘They talk of the last war and seem to think it highly honourable…..that having first got us into what they call ‘an arduous struggle’, it afterwards, at the expense of many myriads of lives, got us out again. But let me ask what was gained by the last war, and who gained it? We knocked down one despot and set up a score; this was their concern, not ours. Then as to the substantial part of the gain, the money and the glory – the generals, and admirals, and colonels, and lieutenant-colonels, and all the rest of them, got money, and most of them a little glory, some a great deal. The poor privates who took the disagreeable part of the business, and who were sent home when it was over to loiter about Chelsea Hospital with one leg or follow the plough with two, they got no glory; any more than those at home who paid the piper.’ (p277)

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This was not written about the time of the first or second world wars, or of the Iraq conflict, though it could have been, but is part of the autobiography of John Stuart Mill (203), a foremost political thinker of his day. The comments were in fact first made in a speech to the Debating Society in 1825, and referred to Napoleonic machinations. What impressed me, some might say naïvely, was the similarity in the patterns of these wars. A few individuals with power, sufficient to influence organisations with weapons (usually well defined armies), then demanded or cajoled large numbers of ‘ordinary’ people to fight and kill other ordinary people with no feelings of anger against them. The difference today is that far more non-military individuals are killed or injured, including many children. It seemed to me then, and it still does, that this state of recurring madness has got to stop, which means action at an individual level and at a state and political level. We have evolved the League of Nations and now the United Nations. We have a world recognising the value of education, which should include recognition of abnormal states of mind and the need for non-violent conflict resolution. And we have world medicine, which must study further the impact of paranoid behaviour, delusions of grandeur, and other psychopathic states on people and communities. In this millennium, after all we know of war and violence in the past, those who pursue violence should be seen for what they are, minds moving into psychopathic and sociopathic states. The arguments of killers may seem rational, and frustration leading to violence may seem justifiable, but nevertheless such minds are in an abnormal state, and should be recognised as such. The solution is not mutual killing, the old answer of an eye for an eye, but the recognition at a political, educational and medical level that people are sick and need help. The Napoleans, Hitlers, Husseins, Amins, were people who should not have had a political voice. No general or informed population should have listened to them. Psychiatric attention was needed, but never acted on or declared by the world at large. And that is the final tragedy of such violence, that it is not seen as the result of minds in distress. People who influence or cause violence can be seen to be worthy of serious attention by us all, because the majority behave as if it is natural and clearly has serious implications. The only implication is one of madness. All of this was moving through my mind by the time I was sixteen or seventeen, and was reflected in my art work (Figure 10). Writings I came across in Quaker literature, in Tolstoy and Gandhi consolidated my feelings to the point that I knew I had to reject call up. Views on non-violence need to be expressed clearly in a world still so committed to the resolution of problems by violence. It was a duty to make clear my feelings, whatever it meant in terms of educational delays or social repercussions. It was distressing to go against the wishes of my parents, who just wanted me to go along with what the state demanded. On my eventual imprisonment, a Nottingham paper referred to me scathingly as a ‘local conchie’ not willing to fight for his country. Rather surprisingly, my uncle Ben who had served in the first world war with my father, expressed sympathy with my wish to stand and be counted. But generally there was social pressure to conform, and even the call

War, Peace and Prison

Figure 10. Art and war. The author’s mid-teenage response, produced for A Levels. Pencil.

up papers emphasised that this society of which I was a member, demanded that I take up arms. My answer could only be that I would gladly work down a mine for two years, or on a farm or ambulance team, but not carry weapons and be in the military machine. I have pondered this position again and again over the years, and feel that I would still do the same today. But my statement to the tribunal would now be more mature than presented by my teenage self. No doubt the tribunal would also be very different, and more sympathetic to alternative points of view. Where perhaps I have changed is in devising a solution to the recurring problem of violence. Abnormal states of mind resulting in violence may well be with us for a long time to come. And unfortunately, people will continue to be led like sheep. So education into policies of non-violence are vital for the future, and I would advocate the development of some form of international course for schools on resolving problems without violence and that we are all family, not different nations and religions. The UN, sooner or later, has to shake itself and behave like an educated, mature, dignified and peace-making organisation, concerned to protect equally all

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members of our species to the same degree – which means eventually no contrasts between rich and poor, no privileged and under-privileged societies. And most difficult of all, it should be recognised that countries do not have the right to amass armaments for so-called defence, and indeed there should be no mass production or trade in weapons. But I accept that the UN needs to develop a well organised, and to some extent armed police force, with an accepted brief to move into any part of the world where violence has erupted. This should be seen clearly as a policing operation, to find, report on, and resolve with others the nature of the discontent. Anyone with delusions of power linked to violence should be removed by their local communities from positions of authority, and it is a new and pleasing trend that the UN is trying to instigate such conflict events through its ‘war crimes’ procedure. But so far this is simplistic and only operates after considerable damage to one or more communities, including by the new phenomenon of pseudo-religious mania. The Prison Episode Looking back at my rejection of militarism so long ago, I now see that my decision to decline call up set in motion a string of events that I didn’t and couldn’t foresee. There was the distress of my parents, not anger against me but fear of reactions of the community they lived in. Fortunately, they were treated more gently than they had anticipated. There was the ‘cat and mouse’ treatment I received in the early stages, until Lord Brockway reminded the relevant bureaucracy in London that First World War treatment was no longer applicable in the mid-1950s. There was the uncertainty of the prison sentence, which could have been a year or more, but was eventually ‘lenient’ because of the offer of a place at University College London. Then there was prison, a great unknown which turned into a formative period in my life. But what still stands out clearly for me is the subtle pressure which society exerts on young minds. It was the law to go and serve in a military machine, and to decline was to affect the family, meet public disapproval, and finish up in prison with all its potential consequences. As an old man, I look back at the absurdity of it all, and the immaturity of a society which did not honour serious alternative points of view. In Nazi Germany a decade earlier, my treatment would of course have been different, and I would not be alive to write this now. In fascist countries generally, we finished up in concentration camps, if not as smoke and bones with the Jews in Auschwitz. At the same time, these countries continued as Christian, although how Christendom compromised the Sermon on the Mount with its destructive and oppressive war policies is beyond comprehension. I was taken in the old style square ‘black maria’ to Lincoln Prison, with a motley assembly of others (Figure 11). They included a sad unloved man who would now be regarded as a paedophile, a term not used then. The police sergeant who handed us over to the prison authorities advised him in a surprisingly kindly way, to change his

War, Peace and Prison

Figure 11. A nineteenth century depiction of a horse-drawn black maria, c.1860.

habits from children to ‘big girls’ (women). The sergeant had lost an eye previously when attempting to control a stroppy youth, but there was no bitterness in him. I have always remembered his attitude to all of us, rogues, flotsam or whatever, who passed his way: ‘There but for the love of god go I’. What better earthy philosophy could any of us have? Prison made a man of me. Long hours in a cell, but I confess to finding the food perfectly edible (especially the date pudding!). I had a range of companions for some work, one or two recorded as mentally challenged, one innocent who just liked stealing cars to drive, and so on. Unlike Lord Archer, although I wrote extensively in my cell, I was not allowed to keep this work on my discharge. I also discovered a bulldog skull while out on exercise one day, and again my request to keep it was rejected by the screws (prison officers). But I had friends in low places, and on my discharge and dressing in my ‘civvies’, I was quietly surprised to find it in my pocket.

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A prisoner on clothing duty had clearly heard my request and exercised humanitarian action! Suez, politics and people On leaving prison and entering UCL, I was fortunate enough to be a student in London at the time of the Suez crisis, and experienced the genuine outrage of many thousands of young people at the serious error of political judgement carried out on our behalf by the government. Student unions throughout the country held emergency meetings and there were rapid plans to march and protest in London, especially outside the Houses of Parliament. I was one of an enormous crowd which assembled rapidly, with little planning and instruction, because each one of us was driven by our own personal realisation of the enormity of the occasion. British, French and Israeli governments, and thus military machinery, had taken action against a relatively defenceless Egypt. The Egyptian actor, Omar Sharif, recalls being handed a rifle, with many thousands of others, to stand and resist this planned invasion, but with little prospect of success. The military result was easy enough to predict; defeat of Egypt, but at a political level their triumph over this imperialistic and misguided invasion. The day after our vast rally, I was stunned to see how little the rapid reaction of so many young people was noted or discussed by the press. Indeed, it was cast aside and was even dismissed as ‘communist inspired’, a sure way of relegating it to inappropriate behaviour. Yet to me then, and still today – over fifty years later, it was a true response of many young people, and had in its own way the quality of the Ghandian salt march. It was also a lesson in how politics can be totally disassociated from the feelings of ordinary people. ‘This makes the madmen who have made men mad By their contagion ; Conquerors and Kings, Founders of sects and systems, to whom add Sophists, Bards, Statesmen, all unquiet things Which stir too strongly the soul’s secret springs, And are themselves the fools to those they fool;’ Byron: Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage Canto III, 43. So my youthful experiences; prison for being a pacifist, and outrage at Suez, did not bode well for my political development. Since then, I have struggled to arrive at what seems to me to be an ideal political system, for current world politics. Currently, what is the ‘art of the possible’, is nevertheless seriously defective, and in the grander scale of the world social evolution will have to be transformed sooner or later. At a basic level today, politics is concerned with maintaining a social hierarchy which will protect national boundaries, allow the day to day commercial business

War, Peace and Prison

of life to proceed, honour and protect the religious aspects of the community, and provide some access to education and health care. In simple terms, the result is a mosaic of discontent, injustices, variable health and education, religious suspicion and territorial conflict. To me, this is a formula for the perpetuation of the status quo, with disquiet, suspicion and blood-shed into the third, fourth, 12th millennium AD. So is this it? Of course there will be changes, more getting richer and fatter, a reduction in pollution, more widespread education, but is that really all we can expect for two or three million years of evolution? If so, then give me the life of my australopithecine ancestors. In contrast, what I would like to hope for my great, great to the n’th grandchildren is a greatly transformed social world. There would, for instance, be: 1. A universal high standard of education, including conflict resolution. 2. A universal high standard of health maintenance, with good food distribution. 3. Personal religions would be extinct or in serious decline – mainly reduced to the history of comparative religions, and general ‘ethics for a world people’. 4. Through an efficient UN, armies would have gone, to be replaced by an international police force, concerned with law and order, and the prevention of acts of social pathology. These alone would be armed if necessary. Arms trading would be extinct. This may all seem like theoretical pie-in-the-sky, but I believe it is achievable with time, effort, and determination. The alternative is a continuation of the current crises, mistrust, violence, inequalities and death. Surely after three million years of evolution we deserve better than this? But if this is it, then our evolution has been a waste of biological time and change. Like the dinosaurs, it might be best if we become extinct, and let another species determine the planet’s future. When the socialist geneticist, J.B.S. Haldane wrote his book in 1925, called Daedalus or Science and the Future (155), he was uncertain whether the ‘war to end all wars’ (WW1) would be followed by others, before eventually we would all come to our senses, and work towards a peaceful world state. Wars and political paranoia are still getting in the way, but Haldane (3) was still hopeful and writes (p85) ‘…the tendency of applied science is to magnify injustices until they become too intolerable to be borne, and the average man whom all the prophets and poets could not move, turns at last and extinguishes the evil at its source.’ In a way, we have seen this with the disintegration of ‘communist’ states, and we can only hope that eventually the common man will say ‘enough’ to the absurdities of warfare. Since leaving prison, so long ago, I have continued to reflect on it as a much used institution, but with very doubtful merits. That we are still ‘punishing’ vast numbers of our men and women in this way, without really understanding the complex nature of crime, is surprising in the third millennium AD. What really is the value of punishment? Is murder, violence, drug pushing, petty stealing, deserving of punishment, or understanding, compassion and correction (if possible). Robert

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Maxwell’s way out was not to face imprisonment, but to commit suicide. To what extent, at an ethical level, are there ‘levels’ of crime, serious or insignificant? My prison record reveals an act against established law, and since then I have infringed a variety of road rules, told a variety of lies to keep the peace, and no doubt committed other offences without realising it. By Victorian standards, I am dishonourable and a criminal equivalent to being a pickpocket or perhaps even a sheep stealer. In the last 60 years of the 19th century, over 15,000,000 people were received into British prisons (or returned there), many for petty offences (195). Did this mean that we were a basically criminal society, or had we a range of ridiculous laws, sentences and imprisonments? Should our current population of 60,000,000 have more than, say, 5,000 in prison at any time (instead of the massive current number)? And of these 5,000, how many are likely to be murderers or people of violence? More than anything, crime and prison means educational failure, so perhaps the important people to go to prison first, should be politicians and educational administrators, and even the parents of deviants for failing these children. There are no easy answers to this problem of anti-social behaviour, but putting more and more in prison is nothing more than outdated absurdity. Unknowingly, I was privileged to travel from the Nottingham court to Lincoln Prison in one of the old style ‘Black Marias’, a somewhat square, roomy van which could take quite a few of us at a time. Though horse drawn in the mid-nineteenth century, it was still remarkably similar to the one I journeyed in. In those days it was also called ‘The Van’, ‘Her Majesty’s Carriage’ and ‘Long Tom’s Coffin’. Alas, the modern, more expensive transport is of a different design and order of luxury. Slang words in prison could be colourful, and I came across a few, some remaining a puzzle as to their origins. Prison officers were called ‘screws’, tobacco was ‘snout’, which apparently had its origins in the prison period when there was a rule of silence. To inform a fellow prisoner that someone had tobacco (for possible barter, for instance), the signal was to touch the nose (195). I am not sure why I was placed in a prison rather than a borstal institution. I was the right age, being a sub-adult, but my defiance of the law clearly merited prison rather than this alternative. In the 1960s, I was to meet and greatly enjoy the company of borstal boys during the excavation of the deserted medieval village of Wharram Percy, in the Yorkshire Wolds. They fitted in well with us all, students, academics and others, and were excellent at constructing rain covers with me over the medieval cemetery, which I was keen to see excavated, even though we had some appalling weather (Figure 12). As I write this, it is reported that in Britain alone, over 500 individuals commit suicide while in custody in one or other form of institution. Worldwide, the number must be astronomical. Again, this is a part of the complex of handling, or manhandling, people in relation to what we consider to be antisocial behaviour. But the result for many is clearly depression, despair and death. The world remains a violent place, but I still believe that non-violence could triumph in the end. Certainly not in the next year or two, but as the world is united in

War, Peace and Prison

Figure 12. Wharram Percy medieval cemetery under rain covers. Barbara Adams (UCL) talking with Maurice Beresford.

resolving problems of global warming, the same positive intensions could similarly transform the nature of violence on the planet. This requires commitment on the part of the United Nations, but probably a more rigorous selection of those representing their nations. It also requires a humility on the part of the more ‘powerful’ nations, an acceptance of the fact that jostling for power and position is dated and outmoded in a world where international links and markets have made us a world community, though still with vast differentials. While trade is good, and international aid is very gradually homogenising living conditions, trade in arms panders still to the mischief makers. This is not helped by religious fanaticism, which all too often resorts to violence as a quick but murderous way to get ‘results’. This complex of social pathology, will continue for millennia without an international policy change in relation to violence and national militarism. Group violence may not go for centuries, but massive changes could occur rapidly with radical attitude changes, demanding education against all violence, education

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to emphasise one world and one people. There is a need to demote nations and nationalism which leads to xenophobia. There is a need, at UN level, to rethink the world arms trade – a malignant exercise in capitalism, exploiting human fear. There is also a need at UN level to debate the closing down of armies into the next century. International policing and collaboration now occurs and should be sufficient, with a better superstructure, in carrying out responses to human violence. One of the most disturbing and problematic aspects of de-violencing world communities, is to improve the quality of perception in all of us. This requires better education and perhaps nutrition, so that our brains work well. At present we fail to select politicians to represent us, who are wise and perceptive enough to see that non-violence is the only ultimate solution to the recurring world conflicts. Their claims to be peacemakers are hollow, when their expenditure on armaments would feed and clothe the world. Why do we allow ourselves to be shepherded by these suspect characters into chronic conflicts? These remain antics of the Bronze Age? We are drawn again and again into combative exercises, fooled by propaganda about this or that ‘enemy’. Adding up all the enemies over the centuries, it is surprising that we now speak to anyone! At an academic level, it seems to me that research is urgently needed into why we don’t ‘see straight’, perceive what needs to be done to eliminate group conflicts. Social psychology is not a subject considered in parliament, but it certainly should be. Politics is not just for the politician, and at present, science needs urgently to ask how we select and train the next generation of those to represent us and eliminate world conflicts. Radical research and thinking of an unprecedented nature is needed.

Chapter 4

On the Science of Art Interest in visual art crept up silently on me, and by eleven I was spending some time in and beyond school drawing and painting. With a change of school at that time, I was fortunate to be encouraged by the art teacher to think of art as a career line, and in the next few years I began to think of art teaching as a stimulating career. It was a time when the Nottingham education authority was keen to develop a somewhat experimental art school, combining a basic secondary education with links into Nottingham College of Art, a short distance away. Teachers within the main college gave specialist tuition in drawing, painting, etching, metalwork and photography, and all this was combined with basic classes. On leaving school, enthusiastic pupils could go full-time into the main college. I had intended to do this, but my interests extended to archaeology and anthropology, and as a result, Mr Seaton the headmaster wisely suggested a change of plan. In view of my broader interests, he suggested that I study for A Levels in geology, zoology and chemistry, as well as art, with a view to going to university. The Nottingham Technical College (now Trent University) had study schemes linked to laboratory technician posts, and I duly took up such an appointment in the chemistry department. It had been a great pleasure to be able to concentrate on art, but I now found the sciences equally attractive, and I have never regretted the change in direction, although art has remained a lifelong interest. But the visual art of today is very different to the art of my youth, and there is a barbarism about it which I find sad. Gimmick or celebrity art seems to have largely taken over. Faeces stains on nappies and unmade beds are presented as serious art. Have we lost our grip on reality in the art world? Yet my experience of art students, my own and my artist daughter Nina’s generation, is that there is considerable talent in these groups, but recognition of 39

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their abilities and survival as artists is rare indeed. It is not a matter of ‘survival of the fittest’ but of luck and all too often the kind of quirky creative work in relation to the needs of the ‘art trade’ and the temperamental world of art criticism. As a teenager, I was not concerned with the nature of visual art, but simply with the exciting range of art and a personal interest in producing art myself. It is only now, many years later, that I ponder art as a phenomenon which may or may not be specific to the human line. Is art definable as ‘the creation of visual works of beauty’? I think not. Are such works creations of special significance? No, not if it is commonly produced. Does it reveal human skill which is distinguishable from behaviour in other species? Only to some extent, as other species can be creative and appear to have the rudiments of aesthetic appreciation. Bird behaviour for instance, includes being visually creative on the part of the male to attract females (New Guinea and Australian bowerbird displays for instance), and the construction of complexly shaped nests. Art certainly can’t be left to artists or art critics and historians to define. After much contemplation, it seems to me that visual art is nothing more than the personal externalising of creative thought in visual terms. Unfortunately, this basic human inclination has been perverted by the various demands; religious, social and political, which have been increasingly made on it. Writings on the early prehistory of art I think generally fail to understand how limited the origins could have been, and how long this first phase could have lasted. These beginnings could have been little more than child experiments extended into adulthood; the use of mud or wet ash to make crude facial or body patterns. In colder times, the slight differences in the creation of ‘clothing’ from skins could have evolved to emphasise family, band or tribal allegiances. Minerals in powder form, perhaps especially the blood coloured haematite (red ochre) may have had general appeal. There was the common need for stone tools, and the early established manufacture of symmetrical artefacts, which perhaps simply copied the symmetry of nature rather than having technical significance. This was surely a period of slow development, in tools, language, social development and ‘art’. I would argue that perhaps in the Middle Pleistocene were the beginnings of art, an antiquity extending back even to Homo erectus times. Prehistoric cave art which is usually given as examples of Palaeolithic art is likely to represent art at least 200,000 years after its beginnings. It was this late art which I viewed first hand as a young graduate at Lascaux and Altamira and at other French and Spanish sites. So is a stone tool which is symmetrical shaped and of a recurring size, primitive art? Or if we find a bone object with marks scratched on the surface in the shape of animals (Figure 13), is this art? And are these individuals artists, or people with artistic abilities? In fact, are we rather confused as to what art is? Indeed, is the catch-all word ‘art’ really satisfactory, except perhaps for the investment art of modern times? Perhaps the word needs better qualification into ‘investment’ or ‘gallery art’, ‘religious art’, ‘socio-political art’, ‘commoners art’ (which would include my efforts), ‘psychotic art’, ‘humorous art’, and perhaps as so much human energy

On the Science of Art

Figure 13. An example of Palaeolithic precision art. Les Eyzies (Dordogne).

is directed towards this behaviour, ‘sexual art’ (which would embrace love scenes as well as benign pornography). The alternative to classifying art is to allow total anarchy, so that soiled nappies, views of unmade beds, and pickled sheep, are as acceptable as the art of Altamira and Rubens. Traditionally art is viewed as creative, anarchic and swinging in whatever direction the artist wished to go. But in fact even the Palaeolithic artist was constrained by style limitations, socio-religious demands, as well as restricted materials. The social art of early Egypt was even more restraining, although a range of materials and techniques were available, and there could be special social comment (Figure 14). The limitations of Van Gogh and Gauguin were dictated by finances and limited social acceptance of the art in their lifetimes. For myself, I have not had these restraints, as I have had no interest in being accepted by the ‘art world’, or of selling anything I have produced. So was Palaeolithic art already regimented by social demands, or like mine, the art of innocence and personal creativity? It is clear when viewing art through time, that there have been considerable changes, but it is not clear why. Viewing my colleagues in the past and current art groups, we each extend beyond any advice we may receive and perhaps instinctively develop personal styles. But social factors may superimpose influences on the artist so that art may appear schizoid in its achievements. For instance in Egypt, we have highly skilled caricatures with animals figured instead of humans (Figure 15). Yet at

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Figure 14. Part of the famine scene, Saqqara. c. 2350 BC. (Drawing by Rosemary Powers).

Figure 15. Satirical ostracon of limestone. Deir el-Madina, Egypt.

On the Science of Art

the same time tomb art is highly stylised to the extent that any creative ability on the part of the individual artists are submerged. This dichotomy, with our genes, education and socio-religious background influencing our variable performance, surely has a history back to the emergence of our species. In a contribution to social archaeology, Bruce Trigger (254) says that ‘Art’ in early civilizations was specifically in the form of a ‘religious object, political propaganda, jewellery, fancy clothing, and richly ornamented weapons,’ (p54). These were skilled craft workers, he says linked to upper class patrons. These art styles, he argues, emerged quickly in the early urban societies, and emphasised the controlling elite. While it is reasonable to suggest this general rule that art could support ruling classes in earlier societies, anyone who has observed art in the day to day lives of ordinary members of tribal or third world societies, must also conclude that art has been all pervasive, in basic ceramic designs, clothing and other aspects of daily life. As a student, I was impressed by how little the material culture of ordinary people was considered and still it seems not to influence current archaeological thinking on art. In day to day young adult life, dress and body art could well have been an aspect of mate selection, and thus of critical importance beyond the art itself. Steven Mithen (205) says ‘The very first art we possess appears to be intimately associated with religious ideas’ (p155), while Camilla Power (229) offers another, and equally debatable view that the beginnings of art was in the form of body paint, specifically red pigments to indicate the menstrual ‘coming of age’ of young females. It’s all very well of course, attempting to arrive at a new view on the origins of art, but there is always a danger of presenting nonsense as new reasoning. My own feeling is that art in some form evolved again and again with progress in brain evolution and the improving inner aesthetic sensibility which resulted. In my own artistic endeavours, I am not driven by religion or political affiliation, or sexual maturity, or education, or any other factor. During my development, I simply noted that, using art materials, I could draw or paint a face which at least roughly achieved the appearance I wanted. And this aesthetic achievement stimulated further activity. In a Palaeolithic society, socio-religious factors may have directed this energy to cave art, or in recent Africa to body art associated with circumcision ceremonies or whatever. But the primary basis of the art would be evolving aesthetic sensitivity, which would be separate to any superimposed factors. Perhaps under psychoanalysis, some interesting kinky reason would be revealed for my interest in art, but for the moment I will continue to believe that it is a pure aesthetic drive to extend myself through art into a creative visual world a little beyond myself. The evolutionary reason may simply be that there is survival value in being visually more perceptive of the world around us. In 1962 I read with great interest the new book by Desmond Morris on ‘The Biology of Art’ (207). As an artist and biologist, he was able to bring a breadth of vision to the analysis of human and other primate art which had not been achieved before. He concluded that ‘both men and apes possess a sense of design and composition’ but only humans in their evolution have been challenged to apply

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these abilities in their cultural evolution (p.148). How far back in our evolution this ‘self-rewarding’ aesthetic sensitivity has been an advantage, is still open for debate. In attending classes in art, it is necessary to pay attention to perspective, or proportions, to be aware of pencil hardness, charcoal quality, oils versus water colour, pastel, crayon or acrylics. In experimenting with styles, one becomes acquainted with many artists through time, and indeed may try to emulate particular ones. Indeed, a part of the pleasure of visual art is to study other attempts at art. Yet the influence of other art and artists is rarely, if at all, discussed in relation to art in the past. As a young graduate, I was very impressed with the work of an Australian aboriginal of the Aranda tribe. Albert Namatjira, after brief European art tuition, produced highly attractive and colourful Australian landscapes, and in time encouraged other tribal individuals to ‘convert’ to European art styles (167). This transmission of art styles or techniques across cultures I’m sure is not simply a modern phenomenon, and it seems to me that the prehistoric masters of art who produced such works at Lascaux and Altamira, could have proliferated and accelerated the appearance of art in the later Palaeolithic. Looking back at the record I made of my journeys in France and Spain during 1956, only now do I realise how privileged I was to see some of this art. Financial support came from the Henry Mellish Scholarship fund, which enabled me to buy an old Ford van, a risky enterprise, camp and live modestly en route. The journey was planned through three main clusters of Franco-Cantabrian sites, the LascauxLes Combarelles region, the Niaux-Trois Frères cluster and the northern Spanish sites which included Altamira. Topographically, much of the country in which the art is to be found is roughly comparable with the hilly Derbyshire countryside, with similar limestone formations which have allowed the evolution of the cave systems. Some visits meant traversing parts of valleys on foot in order to reach cave entrances, then to find the art in somewhat inaccessible, dark, narrow corners and tunnels. Such locations could hardly fail to raise the question of why these artists were hiding their art away? In the voluminous literature on Palaeolithic art, the question is much debated and the general view is that this is magico-religious art, not intended for everyday viewing. Even with the modern installation of electric light, some of the magical atmosphere of the cave art remains, and in some instances I was transfixed by its beauty. At the time of this youthful study, discoveries were still being made, and at Rouffignac new drawings of rhinoceros, mammoth and bison had been made. Initially, their authenticity was challenged, but later back in London I was to attend a meeting at which the Abbé Breuil, a great authority on this art, demonstrated conclusively that these could not be forgeries (by mineral deposits over the pigment, for example). At Pair-non-Pair and La Mouthe; deposits blocked off or covered the art until excavations took place. In 1877, the magnificent stylistic paintings at Altamira were discovered, but having studied publications on this art, I was a little surprised to note that they did not appear to be so crisp and clear as the published illustrations suggested. The reason is now well known, that tourism had radically changed the microclimate

On the Science of Art

of this and other caves, and we were thus seriously affecting the cave walls and pigments. Such art provides many questions to ponder, and I still return to them after half a century. What are the differences in the quality of engravings at Les Eyzies telling us about the skills of different artists? Do the varying styles suggest various ‘schools’ of art? Does the highly conventionalised figure engraved on ivory at Predmost, in contrast to most statuettes (Figure 16), represent a major break with tradition on the part of one artist or a society? And what do the numerous hands mean, with segments of the fingers missing (loss from gangrene; removal of finger segments when a family member dies – as in recent New Guinea)? The one thing which is constant and clear to me after all these years of thinking about art, is that we are viewing skilled and mature artists, living in societies in which creativity has not been strangled by the dictates of authority, so that artistic realism is seen, but also

Figure 16. Highly contrasting figure styles in the Palaeolithic. Left, from Predmost (ivory); right, a limestone statuette from Willendorf, Austria.

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Palaeolithic cubism, impressionism, and probably other ‘isms’ which, after all these thousands of years, we are not fully sensitive to. It is certainly insulting to them to see such work as other than high prehistoric art. Archaeologists are certainly somewhat confused as to what art is in earlier societies. Should art exclude utilitarian objects and weaponry? Terence Powell (228) treads carefully and in his ‘Prehistoric Art’ includes even a selection of axes and pottery. Franz Boas (15) influenced my knowledge of ‘primitive’ art as a student, and many of his ethnographic examples were made of perishable materials which would not preserve in the archaeological record. So what is reviewed in Powell is a small part of the creative and artistic record which must have occurred back into prehistory. My own limited attempts at ceramics and terra cotta objects have resulted in individual pieces, and although they are no more than ‘folk art’, they are nevertheless creative pieces, not copied, not following an established form and not mass-produced. Over the years, I came to believe more and more that visual art deserved to be investigated in all its aspects by scientific methods. The aesthetic evaluation by ‘art critics’ or art historians was simply not enough. As a contribution to bringing together other specialists to view art, I approached a number of biologists, psychologists, educationalists, demographers and even medical specialists, to invite contributions on the nature of visual art. The response was very positive, and their views were published under the title ‘Beyond Aesthetics’ (61). Surprisingly, little of this kind has appeared since, although art remains a well defined topic in anthropology and archaeology. Viewing art now, after a lifetime of interest in it as a behavioural and social phenomenon, I still believe that the definition of art must be as broad and allembracing as possible. ‘Folk art’ for instance, may be the only way the majority of poorly instructed individuals in all societies can show their creativity. In advanced urban societies, as in ancient Egypt, personal art is eclipsed by political or religious art. Artistic abilities are common, but not encouraged in perhaps most societies. It is likely that artistic skills evolved in line with other cerebral changes, and the selection may have initially been concerned with tool manufacture, where visual and manipulative skills resulted in the best artefact. With the emergence of complex urban societies, personal art was subjugated to religious or political art (kingly, ritualistic, or mortuary art). Whether in Europe, eastern Asia or the New World, the art of more advanced hierarchical societies demanded specialists in art and is another matter for debate. The complex ritualistic art of the Mayans (Figure 17) is, for instance, an advanced and distinctive style (204). In the post-Roman world and in the Chinese dynasties, art styles fluctuated. Changes continue, but we now live in a more fragile and fickle world, where ‘pop’ forces are taking over from religion and politics. Moreover, ‘investment art’ is making fools of us all. Art and artists thrash about in a world concerned with money and celebrity, but against a background of tremendous inequality and suffering. Sadly, although this provides a social environment which should stimulate artists to protest against current world

On the Science of Art

Figure 17. Part of the complex art work of the Mayans at Palenque, Mexico. The Tablet of the Sun, rich in symbolism.

outrages, in the way that Goya, Picasso and others have done, ‘protest art’ appears to have largely died. This in itself seems to be in need of urgent evaluation. Why this artistic lethargy? Why does only the cartoonist protest? But perhaps we need to further evaluate film as an art form now. The visual impact of the two aircraft flying into the twin towers in New York had international significance, and could perhaps be classified as protest art to the millions viewing it on film. In his thoughtful book on cave art, Lewis-Williams (182) states that ‘art cannot be understood outside its social context’ (p. 44). To me, this seems questionable, although I don’t argue against cave art having social and symbolic implications. Artistic or other abilities surely begin with discoveries about ones self, not by social determinants. The evolution of ‘artistic’ abilities is primary not secondary to social demands. And in temporal terms must have had a long evolutionary history, not a post-Neanderthal one as argued by Lewis-Williams (p. 285) (9). Whether the 77,000 year engraved pattern from Blombos Cave in South Africa, or much earlier symmetrical stone tools, represent the first indication of an awareness of shape

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and design, we have to rid ourselves of the retarding idea that an awareness of the visual world and aesthetic sensitivity to it was not possible before the emergence of advanced people of the Upper Pleistocene. There remains a Victorian arrogance in such a point of view. Comments on my interest in art would be incomplete without some consideration of two neglected aspects which seem to me to contribute to an overall understanding of the complex nature of art. Ribald or ‘erotic’ art can be defined as art which in modern western culture is seen as socially obscene or coarse, relating to sexuality, but usually with a humorous or satirical emphasis. Psychotic art refers to visual work produced by individuals considered to be in a severe state of mental disorder. Such individuals are thought to produce ‘art’ while reality is distorted. The problem here is that severe deprivation, drug use and induced trance states can also distort reality. Also, both in tribal and advanced urban communities, mental ‘break down’ and schizophrenic states affect a significant percentage of each community, although in many cases it may only be transient. On the evidence of a variety of studies of psychopathological states (10, 11, 12, 13, 14), I previously estimated that the prevalence of mental illness could have been between five and ten percent at any one time. In other words, earlier societies as in modern ones of whatever culture, would have contained numerous individuals with mental instability, where the nature of their reality was challenged. And a proportion of these could have been creatively involved in art, and as such would have been more likely to ignore or break with traditions. It would depend of course on the illness, with schizophrenic art being perhaps more ‘creative’ than the art produced by less severe hysterical, phobic or anxiety states. The schizophrenic artist Carl Hill produced complex illustrations, and some complex illustrations have also been produced under the influence of mescalin. Choice and intensity of colour may also be affected by abnormal mental states. So the personal art which I have produced over a few decades may have been influenced by changed states of reality, but I suspect that only two normal forces have been at work. In my youth, I was concerned to become skilled as an artist, to explore the world of visual art, and to gain qualifications in order to teach art. In this I failed miserably, having abandoned art for the sciences in archaeology. At this final end of my life, art has become a new challenge of no economic or career relevance. It is now a pure challenge to achieve some satisfaction in what I visually attempt. It is an act of fun, tempered still with a commitment to achieve what I have in mind. While I have never been tempted to produce art which is usually classified as ribald, erotic or pornographic, I have always recognised human sexuality as a strong force subtlely influencing art in many ways, even in the choice of clothing or extent of body exposure. What is surprising is that this and psychopathological art is nearly completely ignored in archaeological literature or indeed in the history of art. In Palaeolithic art, there is little which can be identified as the male form, but there are quite a number of figurines depicting the nude female form, and even a

On the Science of Art

series of separate representations of the vulva. These have been much debated of course as mother goddesses and fertility figurines. It is unlikely that they are toys, but alternative explanations also lack good evidence. Sexuality in art appears in a very different form, probably by late predynastic times. Min was the supreme god of male sexuality, nonchalantly displaying an erect penis, and his image remained relatively unmodified into Greek times. In the ancient Greek world, there is some dichotomy in the way art and literature dealt with human sexuality, which to some extent was viewed as a form of pollution. Yet the Egyptian god Min was not viewed as unclean, but rather equated with the much later Arcadian shepherd god Pan. This idea of sexuality linked to pollution is in stark contrast to the somewhat ribald illustrations particularly involving the god Priapus (4th century BC onwards), a phallic god of sexuality and fertility. As the art found at Herculaneum shows, attitudes to sexual activity remained liberal in Roman society, with scenes of nude couples embracing and even the ‘commercial art’ of brothel signs being preserved. How different to the stultifying and crushing Victorian attitudes to sexuality which still influenced thinking when I was a boy. Few artists dared to display all aspects of the nude body in stark realism, as in the more recent work of Lucien Freud. About the time I was in art school, Sir Alfred Munnings, former President of the Royal Academy, had threatened the much greater artist Stanley Spencer with prosecution for producing what he regarded as obscene art. The matter was sadly dropped, but could have provided a useful open debate about art and basic human sexual behaviour. Such art was nothing new, and by the eighteenth century in India and Japan, so-called ‘erotic’ art was an open art-form devoid of public prejudice. In the Americas also, notably Peru, Moche ceramic art included a wide range of sexually explicit visual images (AD 200-700). Steven Bourget (18) (argues that such images are inextricably linked to their evolving complex society and are in particular related to burial rituals, Moche religious beliefs, and a Moche worldview. Having seen, both in Peru and collections in the USA, a range of Moche art, I find it difficult to accept all of this art simply in these terms. Indeed I would challenge any of my colleagues not to find some of this work a little cheeky and suggestive of a humorous content. Society may dictate links to cosmological beliefs, and hormones drive us seriously into sexual activity and reproduction, but I for one have always found something comic in this part of our lives, and I don’t think this was lost on artistic peoples of the past. Thirty years ago, I was privileged to be able to study a wide range of bioarchaeological material under the newly available scanning electron microscope. One of the surprises from entering this minute three-dimensional world revealed by high magnification, was to view visual landscapes beyond the reach of the naked eye. Even petrified microbes could be seen in the calcified tartar on ancient teeth. As yet, these images have been little explored by artists, but there is an expanding interest in this potential interaction between the sciences and art. As yet, the art world is too busy applauding such trivia as pickled sections through sheep, but in the end science will provide enormous stimulus to serious artists of the future. Microscopy has

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Figure 18. Hair viewed under the SEM; a) petrified on a skull surface, b) deformed by heat.

certainly called attention to some of the minute beauty beyond our normal vision (Figure 18). There is also a need for more investigations of a sociological, psychological and anthropological kind, to understand the complex nature of visual art and creativity. The bias of nazi art, or the ‘islamic’ intolerance to satirical art, need to be understood. What art, if any, can really be condemned if it is serious and creative? Preference of course will always vary enormously, but that is not condemnation. In the responses to John Willett’s questionnaire (264) on public attitudes to different artists (Figure 19), my own Nottingham Art College hero, Dame Laura Knight, was not as well liked as the northern ‘matchstick man’ artist L.S. Lowry, but both were far more appreciated than Henry Moore or Ben Nicholson. A different social sample, especially of art students, would no doubt have produced completely different evaluations. But ultimately, only the enjoyment of art matters, not who gets into the ‘top ten’. The history of art is littered with the works of key artists who were rejected by their own societies. But in the end none of this matters. Only the pleasure of ‘doing it or ‘viewing it’ is relevant to each of us. From my point of view, it has been a lifelong pleasure. At a world level and through time, art is clearly a more complex phenomenon to evaluate than viewed by ordinary art critics and historians. What was really ‘behind’ Palaeolithic art? There was a high level of artistic skill, performed in difficult cave conditions. Was this magic linked to hunting food animals? Were they clan animals? And how do we evaluate Degas, say, a man producing considerable repetitive art, though with a good basic skill? He was also anti-Semitic in outlook and, as his

On the Science of Art

continued attack on Drefus showed, a stubborn closed mind to some issues. And though early communist art and approved Nazi art might be seen to be secondary to political ideology, its value at the time may have been no more or less than cave or church art. What was the evolutionary sequence of visual art? My guess would be that art has been initiated again and again simply by individuals, children and adults, accidentally marking rock or sand and liking the result. Like humour, it seems to be inborn in at least some of us. So the very beginnings of art could antedate the advanced hominins, and certainly could Figure 19. Variation in the response to visual art in a group of Liverpool viewers (264). Peter Scott came top (number 1). be pre-tool making, which is another visuo-spatial and artistic enterprise. Cave art again shows advancement in technique and aesthetic achievement. The art enters a new level linked to hunting, magic or religious development. We also see, perhaps, in the ‘venus’ figures, a growing interest in human sexuality. By the emergence of urbanism and warfare, a whole new range of art appears, with an amazing range of styles and creative effort. Adornment, which was basic in the Palaeolithic, becomes elaborate by the arrival of Iron Age societies. Where everything went wrong was in the eventual false recognition of special artistic abilities or favoured artists, and the distorted financial advantages which could thus be obtained. Modern art and artists are at the end of this sequence which distorts art in two unfortunate ways. First of all ‘art criticism’ has developed as a false evaluation of a complex social and technical situation. From my personal experience over many years, I have met a range of talented artists, for the most part unrecognised in the international art world. Many have not survived for economic reasons. Unlike the legal or medical professions, who have a guaranteed clientele, few of us call on artists to produce works of art for our homes. Those of us who do buy art are restricted by our finances, and this works against artistic survival. Today the international art world seems to mainly sell antique or gimmick art. We have entered a dark tunnel of art appreciation, with ultimately no real links with sanity if

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not society. But surely, like other serious fields of academia, in physics or biology or literature, we should surely be concerned with revealing the true nature of art. The great danger, I feel, is that gimmick art supported by the art investment world, will divert everyone from serious evaluation. The king without his clothes especially haunts ‘the Arts’ and we can so easily be taken in. Having a science background, I have found all too often that displays of art are linked in the galleries with gobbledegook explanations which would not be tolerated by a scientific community. The pretentious supportive writing seems at times to be welded to the art, to prevent any danger of critical and perceptive judgement of its hollowness. In the end, only I can know whether I have achieved what I set out to do in my art work. It may be creative and original, or influenced by society, custom and religion. It may be judged by others, who may be influenced by their social and economic environments. It can be considered purely on its technical merits, or on its conformity or symbolism. In terms of its creativity, I sometimes wonder if the least influenced and most creative art is in fact what is variously described as ‘Art Brut’, ‘Outsider Art’ (221), kinds of creative madness. This is emotional art in mental turmoil, also seen as ‘psychiatric art’. But in the end, the stupendous quantity of art, from the Pleistocene to modern times, can only be sensibly evaluated in scientific and behavioural terms. Styles, trends, traditions, all in the end must submit to science. This may seem highly contentious, but eventually I think will prove to be true.

Chapter 5

Controversies with Fossils When I arrived at the British Museum of Natural History in 1961, to assist Kenneth Oakley in the development of Anthropology, I had mainly studied our fossil ancestors through the literature or casts of the bones. The exception was a Neanderthal mandible from Haua Fteah, which I had seen in Cambridge. The collections in London were to provide me with a relative gold mine of fossil specimens to study first hand, including the Swanscombe skull bones, the Rhodesian skull and postcranial bones, some of the Mount Carmel remains, as well as the infamous Piltdown forgery. There were also a range of pre-hominid fossils to be curated. It was a privilege indeed to be associated with such material, and I pondered them for many hours. In fact I had already been concerned with the human remains from Mount Carmel, while at Cambridge, as Eric Higgs was reconsidering the fauna from the Skhul and Tabun caves. My own concern was the clear morphological differences between the Skhul 5 and Neanderthal specimens (Figure 20). The former had strong biological affinities with the various Upper Palaeolithic skulls from Europe, while to me the Tabun woman from Mount Carmel was a typical neanderthaler. But what was also interesting was that the tool technology was basically the same in both fossil groups, even though they were biologically distinct (29). This put me at odds with some of the views of others on the neanderthalers, and I began to realise that there are as many views in human palaeontology as there are fossil fragments. It is certainly very far from an exact science. The emergence of an osteologically modern form of human raises the question of our evolution beyond the Neanderthal homeland of Europe, North Africa and the Near East. In 1959, through contacts between Kenneth Oakley in London and Tom Harrison in Borneo, I was asked to report on a skull from the great Niah cave, considered to be 40,000 years old. The cave was also producing numerous more 53

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Figure 20. Early modern form of skull (Skhul V) compared to a ‘classic’ neanderthaler (La Chapelle-aux-Saints).

Figure 21. The 40,000 year old Niah skull, completely modern in form.

recent skeletons, some of which I saw many years later in the USA, and Tom seemed keen that I helped to study them while being excavated. At the time, I had been warned that Tom was a rather ‘difficult’ individual, and for various reasons I failed to go to Borneo in the end. Back in Cambridge, the ancient skull presented plenty of reconstruction problems, as it had collapsed and the main brain box was distorted. Together with Bernard Denston in the Duckworth Laboratory, casts were made which seemed to correct the post-mortem deformation, and I duly reported on the individual (27). The overall conclusion which could be tentatively made was that the individual, though contemporaneous with later neanderthalers, was completely modern in appearance, and indicated the considerable geographic spread of modern looking people by 40,000 years ago (Figure 21). So did we also see this in Africa? Fossil finds such as the Saldanha and Rhodesian skulls had suggested that a less advanced form lingered on south of the Sahara (31). But later in the Pleistocene, from Matjes River in the south to Iwo Eleru in West Africa (48), modern tribal forms had clearly become differentiated. The late Pleistocene Iwo Eleru material, kindly handed to me for study by Thurstan

Controversies with Fossils

Shaw, also presented problems in terms of reconstruction but I was satisfied that we had achieved the correct morphology in the end. Morphologically, it contrasted noticeably with modern African tribal groups. It was at this time that a reappraisal of the Middle Pleistocene Swanscombe site and skull was undertaken, and I made brief comment on the pathology. There are three shallow depressions on the parietal bones, which I suspected might have indicated old injuries in life. But some degree of post-mortem surface erosion left the diagnosis uncertain (38). On the inner, endocranial, sides of these bones, there are slight anomalous expanded depressions associated with the impressions caused by the close proximity of the meningeal blood vessels. Exactly what these represent in pathological terms remains unclear. This inner surface of the skull is rather neglected, although it can show a variety of changes (103). In the case of the Gibraltar I Neanderthal skull found in 1848 and curated in London, I was unable to find any reference to the evidence of the inner frontal pathology (hyperostosis frontalis interna), before my own observation. This condition today is mainly associated with post-menopausal women, and no doubt was also in Neanderthal times. So as a result of noting these changes, we can be more confident that this individual was a female and probably over fifty years (which is also indicated by the severe wear on her teeth). A problematic neanderthaler which also attracted my attention was the Galilee skull, represented by only the upper front part of the skull. Could its biological affinities be confirmed simply by detailed measurements of the one complete bone, the frontal? Mike Hills, a statistical colleague, joined me in pondering this question, and we used a series of ‘contour’ measurements onto the skull from a fixed plane (Figure 22). Our results from comparing the Galilee frontal with a series of neanderthalers, Upper Palaeolithic and other fossil and modern skulls, was that the Galilee individual was probably a Neanderthal individual (161). In fact, why were these people so distinctive? They had evolved mainly in the European area, and to a large extent in colder climates. Some were notable for being robust in body shape, with large joints and a large face. Could some of these features be specifically cold adapted, like the small, rounded, Inuit body shape. It is possible that such an adaptation might be associated with growth rate changes, perhaps accelerated in early childhood, when skeletal growth could perhaps be critical for survival. Today, there is an abnormal endocrine condition, precocious puberty, showing strong early growth and muscle and bone development, but with premature epiphyseal closure. So the individual finishes up short but robust. Is this the key to understanding the Neanderthal physique (57)? One of the most puzzling Upper Pleistocene skulls is that from Singa, in the Sudan (Figure 23), discovered in 1924. Both Sir Arthur Smith Woodward and Professor L.H. Wells favoured evolutionary links with a prehistoric form of bushman, but this seemed rather doubtful to me. Indeed, the skull appeared to have a rather odd shape, and on a further study the parietal bones turned out to be abnormally short antero-posteriorly (53). So the identity of this individual will not be easy to resolve because of its abnormal shape, and in this respect it is reminiscent of the ‘Hobbit’,

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Figure 22. The affinities of the Galilee skull fragment (c), by plotting selected measurements on the frontal bone (b) and comparing with fossil forms (g). 0 = Neanderthal; = Upper Palaeolithic; x = medieval; Δ = problematic specimens (fossil).

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the small Flores skull from Indonesia (112), which has been especially controversial because of its very small brain size, which some palaeontologists believe is normal! Head growth can also be affected by cultural factors, and if the head is bound or influenced by tight head-wear during childhood, then the thin skull bones will be influenced in their growth and shape by these external pressures. In some tribes even recently, there has been intentional binding in children to produce modified head shapes, thought to be attractive. But there has been resistance to the idea that this could have occurred, by accident or intention in the distant past. It seemed to me that this was not supported by the evidence, and I published a note expressing my view that the skull shape in Kow Swamp 5, an upper cave individual from Choukoutien, and the Cohuna skull, all displayed frontal ‘cultural’ modification (56). The response was unexpected, and I found myself out on a limb, with few believing me. Even Bill Howells at Harvard, whom I greatly respected, doubted my conclusion. It is an interesting feeling, being doubted by so many of ones colleagues, but fortunately I

Controversies with Fossils

Figure 23. The Singa skull and evidence of abnormality. a) lateral view, b) plot of the two skull bone lengths, showing its distinctiveness.

was saved by the discovery of another Australian skull from Coobool (145), which was so deformed that no one could deny the abnormal shape (Figure 24). While I had been involved in the early days of excavating Boxgrove in the 1980s, it was later in 1993, with the discovery of a 500,000 year old tibia, that I once more thought about the site. And it was to produce a laugh at my expense!

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Figure 24. Evidence of frontal deformation. a) Kow Swamp 5, b) Upper Cave Choukoutien, c) Coobool, Australia.

When I eventually saw the X-rays of this bone, I noticed what appeared to be additional deposits of bone on the interior of the shaft. Could this be evidence of the uncommon conditions enostosis or osteopoikilosis? I got quite excited by the possibility, and pestered Chris Stringer to let me see primary CT scans. When they eventually arrived, my enthusiasm collapsed rapidly, as I saw that what I had interpreted as abnormal bone growth on the interior of the shaft, was in fact a conservator’s adhesive material to reconstruct the bone! I had been fooled by pseudo-pathology.

Chapter 6

Forensic Interludes As a young graduate, I had been introduced to the world of forensic studies in a somewhat unusual way. Dr Donald Teare of St Georges Hospital in London contacted me to ask my opinion on a lower leg, found on a London bomb site which was then being developed. What at first sight might have been interpreted as a heavily bandaged foot of a gouty old man, was in fact clearly part of an Egyptian mummy. I checked the linen with specialists at the Victoria and Albert Museum, and submitted a sample of leg bone for chemical analysis. The linen was confirmed as typical mummy wrapping, and the nitrogen value of the bone was much lower than it would have been had the individual been of recent date. So the leg was ancient, and thus of no further forensic interest, but what it was doing in London will forever remain a mystery. Archaeology itself can pose questions of a forensic nature, as I found when examining the so-called Neolithic skeleton from Maiden Castle. Sir Mortimer Wheeler described the long mound with a puzzling ‘primary’ burial. The body had been hacked into and showed multiple evidence of trauma (Figure 25). But what surprised me was that the bone injuries could not have been made by stone implements of that date, and this fact had been missed. I did some experimental work using meat bones, with genuine ancient stone and metal weapons, and could only produce similar injuries with the metal sword. A sharp, straight-edged weapon had clearly been used, but this was not available in the Neolithic. A radiocarbon date of c A.D. 635 was finally obtained on the bones, and although the murderer remains unknown, he is no longer viewed as prehistoric. Although archaeological knowledge of bones and bodies overlaps with that of the forensic pathologist, I have been reluctant to become too involved with what is now known as ‘Forensic Archaeology’, where the archaeologist assists the police 59

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Figure 25. The so-called ‘primary’ burial at Maiden Castle. a) Some of the multiple cuts on the skeleton, b) deep cut into the humerus, c) straight cut, d) femur with three separate cuts.

in detecting burials, recovering them in a controlled scientific way and providing biological information on the bones. On one occasion when I did assist a police enquiry, I was relieved when the possible child bones turned out to be of animal origin. In another case, previously checked by a forensic pathologist, the ‘animal bones’ included a human occipital bone! However, when the conflicts occurred in former Yugoslavia, and I was invited to assist in a number of the forensic teams, I agreed to help. Bosnia was to be the first region to visit, and following some bureaucracy and the issuing of an appropriate security pass, we boarded a UN cargo plane for Sarajevo. Coming into land, I was surprised to see a crowd or delegation clearly waiting for us to land, but then realised that they surrounded a coffin, to be picked up by our aircraft. First, we were all hustled off to the side of the cortege. Such is the power of the dead. Sarajevo airport looked like a war zone, and hadn’t then returned to normal commercial use. I was collected and taken by car to the forensic laboratory in

Forensic Interludes

Visoco, where I would join the rest of the team of local funerary staff, British police (especially SOCO’s – scene of crime officers), forensic pathologists, radiologists and bone specialists including myself. To my surprise, the bodies included not only those from a mass grave, but a group of mainly heavily burnt bodies from a helicopter crash. Apparently the Ukrainian pilot had been new to the area, and in mist had flown into a hillside. Only one body was easily recognisable, the rest were black twisted masses, identifiable only from their DNA. Most were thought to be German, and were guarded day and night by a German armoured troop carrier. Would the British have done the same for their people? The mass grave was one identified at Brčko, north of Sarajevo, and identified in an enlarged aerial photograph taken by an IFOR joint combat camera. The disturbed area of land was to reveal its grim harvest. The mechanically excavated pit contained a series of bodies between one and two metres in depth, which after four years were in an advanced state of decay. The mortuary was in an old Serb area, but is now Muslim. The Serbs bombarded the region from the surrounding hills for over a year, and families had to stay in basements or shelters. School was impossible and children were at home for over two years. Even on the cemetery paths I saw evidence of the ‘Sarajevo rose’, marks looking like flower petals, caused by the explosive impact and shrapnel marks from mortar bombs. There was much anger in the Muslim and Serb communities which spilled out onto UN people. It is certainly understandable as there is much evidence that the UN could have stopped some of the killing. The human remains were in an advanced state of decay, but some soft tissue remained, so that flies tended to build up towards the end of the day, being attracted by the unpleasant smell. The ‘at death’ trauma seen in the skeletons was mainly the trauma of execution, not of combat. Bullets were mainly fired into the head, and to a lesser extent the neck. But one woman had bullets in her lower back and pelvis, plus a ‘finishing off ’ wound in her neck. Bones were reconstructed with a special ‘magic’ glue which can be applied even to wet and greasy surfaces. Reconstruction was necessary so that the nature of the injury could be correctly established. While carrying out these basic forensic examinations, I became alerted to two research possibilities. Some of the young male victims displayed extensive calcified thyroid cartilages which gave the wrong age. Either genetic or environmental factors were clearly distorting changes to this cartilaginous thyroid structure, and still needs investigation. Secondly, the teeth displayed some wear, but we had no schemes developed to relate these wear patterns to age changes. The wear was not as severe as in ancient teeth. There is something deeply pathetic about the fact that when senior UN representatives visited, everything was geared to cleaning up and putting on a ‘special show’. The mortuary was made to look impeccable, and even the outside car park received a new covering of tarmac. The Americans quickly removed four bodies

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Figure 26. Louise Arbour of the UN (front centre), meeting with members of the Bosnian forensic team.

in large metal canisters. One body to be discharged was represented only by a foot, truly to be ‘one foot in the grave’. Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor at the UN International Criminal Tribunal in the Hague, duly arrived on one occasion and was shown the ground level forensic work being carried out (Figure 26). She was pleasant and appeared interested, but alas gave up this important position and returned to legal work in Canada not long after. Because examinations stopped during this visiting period, I was able to visit Sarajevo to view the extent of the war damage. It was still a vibrant and busy city, and reconstruction had already started. The important Muslim library was being rebuilt, but sadly many old manuscripts were destroyed by Serbian bombardment. The huge central mosque had also been rebuilt by Arab contributions, but there was plenty of damage left, both here and in the countryside. Although before Bosnia I had studied thousands of ancient skeletons, this forensic work really emphasised the need to research further on the accurate ageing of bodies. Minor errors are not important when dealing with the ancient dead, but with modern forensic studies it is vital to be as accurate as possible. Sadly, the UN forensic division are not interested in supporting research of this kind, even though it would assist in improving forensic detection. While there is a need to carry out this kind of forensic work in cold scientific terms, it is impossible not to be quietly moved by some cases. One of the bodies

Forensic Interludes

which came in was of a boy of about thirteen years old. I presume he was made to kneel, as he received a shot through the top of his head. The bullet passed through his brain, the base of his skull and out through his neck. To me, this was the saddest case of all. Who was this Serb executioner? The question could be asked thousands of times, back into history. It is no use pretending that such people are rare killers, because Bosnia, and Rwanda and the holocaust and so many other instances show that a significant percentage of us could be influenced by circumstances to act like savages. The brain seems able to quickly change gear from controlled rationality to states of madness. Again, it seems to me that considerable research funds should be directed towards investigating this fragility of mind which is displayed by humans. Just before leaving Bosnia, at one of my final sessions, there was a commotion in the X-ray section, and Jack Crane, the Belfast forensic pathologist, called out to us all to leave the building. An X-ray had revealed a live grenade on the body and there was uncertainty as to whether it was a booby trap (Figure 27). Security forces were called in, and the grenade removed. Why hadn’t the Bosnian used the grenade against the Serbs? Did this indicate that he hadn’t realised that he would be shot? The first snow of winter had fallen on the hills around Sarajevo by the time I left. I had a five or six hour drive to Zagreb, as there were no flights out during weekends. Neil, the UN driver, was nervous as we would pass through Serbian

Figure 27. A surprise in the clothing of a Bosnian body. A booby trap?

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territory before entering Croatia. The Serbs were aggressive to the UN still, and had seriously stoned a UN vehicle earlier, but all remained quiet and I was able to see more of this beautiful but devastated country. A final indignity was not being able to go beyond the road to the toilet, as minefields were not charted or cleared in the countryside. Kosovo It should be noted that the Kosovan bodies which I later studied formed only a very small number of the individuals killed – either having been rounded up or shot resisting the Serbs. A glimpse at the tragedy of this conflict is sombrely illustrated in Habib Zogaj’s small book ‘Crime and Survival’, which makes comments and illustrates some of the events and dead. Each victim tells a sad, sad story of human behaviour to others. Of, for instance, Ramadan Kastrati, 56 years old, executed in front of his family; of the blind Miftar Krasniqi, killed at 80 years of age; and the handsome young Adnan Maliqi; taken from the students canteen in Priština, and found some distance away with 32 bullets (two different calibre) in his body. Our work was to reveal the stories, in different degrees of completeness, of many more. My diary records over two visits, and helps to place the forensic enquiries into the environment of early post-conflict times. A number of teams succeeded one another during the years I was involved, and I would like to record the organisational and work skills of Professor Susan Black of Dundee University and all the others who ensured successful results, field workers, photographers, forensic archaeologists and pathologists, radiographers, SOCO’s (police scene of crime officers), and more. It was a pleasure and privilege to be with them all. When we arrived in June 2000, Kosovo was no longer in a state of war, but the society was by no means calm, even with KFOR troops strongly in evidence. On the 9th June, my notes say that in the British sector, there were three serious injuries to persons, one grievous assault, two cases of arson, two attempted murders, one kidnapping, twenty-two curfew violations, two houses torched, one explosion, two mines discovered, and seventeen Priština individuals arrested. So while the United Nations were concerned with the major political criminals, especially Milosovic and his henchmen, violence was widespread, and now with the addition of revenge attacks. In this environment forensic archaeology could contribute in two respects. The application of field survey techniques could assist in the detection of single or mass graves. Modified plant cover, disturbed soil conditions, and even electronic ground scanning could potentially assist forensic investigations. Excavation of burials and the evaluation of the relationship between bodies or bones, could again provide important evidence of body disposal. The removal to the laboratory enabled second stage work on the human remains, with assistance in ageing and sexing the often decomposed bodies. Archaeological skills in skeletal reconstruction assisted the pathologist in processing the bodies in reasonable

Forensic Interludes

time. Restoration of disintegrated skulls and other bones enabled the more precise evaluation of gunshot damage. Ultimately, of course, we hoped that tentative or certain identifications would assist in the speedy return of these sad cases to their families. Some diary comments So on the 3rd June, I arrived in Kosovo with some colleagues and Catherine Nettleton of the Foreign Office. KFOR forces were well in evidence, and it was clear that they were essential if peace was to be fully restored. From the 4th onwards, I became involved on site in establishing the identity of graves, and also in the laboratory (Figure 28). About 18 bodies from Dragodan were the first batch to receive attention from our team of forensic anthropologists and pathologists. Laboratory facilities were in Priština Hospital, and although at first we presumed that all bodies came from Serbian killings, we found that some were not. In the field, Norwegian army engineers proved to be extremely skilled at gently scraping areas of ground, a centimeter at a time, until soil contrasts revealed a grave. Where there was the possibility of booby traps within the graves, then sniffer dogs were brought in. Whenever we had time off, we visited the surrounding areas of Kosovo, which is a beautiful landscape, with towns such as Prizren, still with its old Balkan charm. Admittedly roads were in a poor state of repair, not helped in some areas by damage

Figure 28. Norwegian army clearing ground, with some of the Kosovan team checking soil contrasts.

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from cluster bombs. Diversions off established roads were not advisable, as mines were at times planted in them to pay off old debts. KFOR was also not immune from attack. Another threat, in this case to health, were the numerous stray dogs. Because these strays bite both humans and the valuable sniffer dogs, they were sadly being shot to reduce the chances of disease spread to the dogs. The most serious condition is babesiasis, from a tick borne protozoan. June 12th turned out to be a special day, the football match between Norway and Spain. The Norwegian army base was festive, with hot dogs and beer freely available. The temporary marquee and large screen enabled the match to be viewed by everyone, and there was much face painting, chanting, cheering and bonhomie. Some Spanish and Swedish forces and the British forensic group were in attendance, and to our great delight, the Norwegians won. As the evening darkened and the lights came on in what was originally a bomb devastated Serbian barracks, there was something enchanting about this unique and happy atmosphere, even in the midst of the tanks, personnel carriers and other heavy equipment. We eventually left for our beds with our minds far from the laboratory horrors which would meet us in the following days. By mid-June the weather was extremely hot (above 30°C) and with no cooling system in the path lab. The smell was always with us, but the paper thin suits we wore were not intolerably hot. The number of individuals with gunshot wounds increased, mainly single but some multiple ones through the head. Handing bodies on for ‘repatriation’ had been slow, owing to bureaucratic bungling, but at times it could work in our favour, so that on one occasion over 50 bodies were handed over (though only about 20 were expected). Music emanating from the cabin radio of the Norwegian army mechanical digger could be surprisingly appropriate at times. On one occasion, when the body was being lifted from its grave, the song was ‘move my body’. At another time it was ‘I believe in Angels’. Such relaxing music could occasionally be replaced by sombre concentration, as when the digger appeared to have exposed booby trap wiring. But the sniffer dog was not impressed, and the body was exposed and found to have hands and feet crudely wired together, presumably to drag the body to the grave. My work on the 19th June included 27 babies, assembled in three batches. They were clearly born in hospital and had wrist bands and umbilical clips, but why were they not claimed by parents and buried separately? I suspect, but have no clear evidence, that the Serbs wanted beds and cleared the women out as quickly after the births as possible. By why were so many babies dead? My liking for bananas as a snack food while working in the mortuary was noted by other members of the team, and I was duly named ‘Bananadon’. It was suggested that it would equally be a good name for a new kind of dinosaur. Some time later, in another building, we were shown what looked like a VW dormobile which had gone over a land mine near Priština. The explosive force had particularly gone upwards, so that the roof area looked as if it had been tin-opened off. The following day, the current Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former

Forensic Interludes

Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte, visited, and no doubt this wreck was an acceptable bit of political tourism for her. So this ended my first field season in Kosovo. By the time I arrived, over 1,300,000 refugees had returned to their homes and villages, but many Serbs were still away. A year before, the murder rate was 50 per week, but went down to about 5 per week. The enormity of the task of reconstruction remains unknown to most of Europe, but already has been massive. By June 2000, 16,000 homes and 1,165 schools were cleared of unexploded ordnance and mines. 1,000,000 roofing tiles were distributed, as well as 18,000 stoves. And over 43,000 Kosovars had received medical treatment. Finally, regarding my first visit, there is a surprising story of clothing washed and drying by Priština Hospital (having been taken off a body receiving forensic investigation). A woman visiting the hospital identified the clothing of her husband and asked if a 1,000DM note had been found on him. Records of his clothing were checked, but no money found. But she insisted that it was his clothing and she stated that the money was stitched into his trouser lining. On further examination, the money was found within a plastic bag, and confirmed without further doubt the family links. In one respect, I was pleased not to have been there at the time, as it had been my task to clean up his skull and reconstruct the evidence for trauma. A high velocity bullet had entered his head, and on exit had shattered the bones of his face. In June 2002, the facilities at Orahovac Mortuary were much better than in Priština. The down side was that there wasn’t the field support which was available previously, and I for one missed the excavation skills of the Norwegian army engineers. At a field level, progress at detection and excavation was slower and out of our hands. So I spent all my time in the mortuary, and in this extremely hot weather with no air conditioning, this meant a smelly business. Body preservation was not as good as in 2000, with soft tissue and adipocere variably represented. Gunshot damage to the head is especially common. In some cases, bodies claimed by the Serbs to have been killed by NATO bombing, had in fact clearly been shot, and bullets were recovered. On days off, we seized the time to travel and visit other parts of the region, from Priština to Prizren, Peć and the Montenegran border area, some being regions of great beauty. Two monasteries still had about 30 monks living in each (the Patriarchate of Peć and Decani monastery), and it was clear from our conversations that they still see Serbian history and people as intimately linked to Kosovo. Two Serbian churches in the area had been blown up in bitter reprisals, and in fact throughout the country, many more have similarly finished up as piles of rubble. A few important ones were protected by KFOR troops. Water was not always guaranteed at the mortuary, and then one realises how vital it is in this kind of forensic work, both to keep oneself and the mortuary clean. Occasionally the bones turn out to be mis-identified and on one occasion, I found that ‘human bones’ taken out of a lake were in fact butchery cast-offs of sheep and cow. Just occasionally, we have some information to add to our forensic data. One

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young Kosovo Albanian was known to have been in hospital with broken ribs, but was removed from hospital by the Serbs. The age estimate of the skeleton turned out to be correct, and my stature estimate of 169.9cm compared very well with the known stature of 170cm. But the actual cause of death was not established. While my life back in Britain is football free, it seemed to be punctuated in Kosovo by matches and consequent celebrations. On the 21st June, we joined two Turkish police officers, who photographed remains in the mortuary, to watch the Turkey-Senegal match in a Turkish restaurant in Priština. It was amusing to see these normally restrained officers jumping for joy at the winning goal for their country, with hand shaking all around. Four days later, we finished in the mortuary early to visit the medical section of the German army camp at Orahovac, to view the victory of Germany over South Korea. Unlike the Norwegians two years ago, they were more concerned with the celebratory barbeque of beer and sausages than the game, but our congratulations were gracefully received. While bored with Kosovo and their minimal medical duties, they were thankful that they were not posted to Afghanistan, where pay was better but dangers were greater. Forensic work later in June included a group of nine bodies from one locality, which seemed to present a special problem in forensic reconstruction. They all showed roughly the same pattern of post-mortem damage and burning, and it was clear that the Serbs had tried to conceal the nature of the crime. Probably, on skeletal evidence, all were male, and they may well have been shot. But the reason for their forensic interest was that bones in the region of the elbows, wrists, hip, knees and ankles, all showed crude chopping injuries, with charring in the region of the bone damage. So what did this mean? The bone damage suggested a relatively blunt instrument, perhaps an unsharpened axe or even a spade. The blackened and burnt bone ends were puzzling. Why not all over the bones? The only explanation which seemed to fit this grizzly evidence, is that the bodies were roughly chopped up and piled up, then ignited perhaps with petrol. Flesh covered all but the chopped bone ends, which thus were charred. On decomposition of the soft tissue, most of the bone was still of a normal colour. Later in the month, I was surprised to visit the protected monastery of Gračanica where a play was being performed by Serbian children enacting a famous battle between Serbs and Ottoman Muslims (who were defeated). As this was protected Serbian territory, there were plenty of parents, nuns, monks, KFOR personnel and ourselves. The children were charmingly dressed up as ancient Serbs and Turks and entered into the enactment with great gusto. But was this really a good time to be emphasising Serbian-Muslim history of this kind? My part of the forensic work in Kosovo ended early in July. It was a pleasure and privilege to work with all my colleagues, and even after all these years, projects continue to provide a learning curve for me. Forensic theory is all very fine, but field work so often exposes and challenges textbook statements. I have mentioned thyroid cartilage calcification, but other questions came to mind during the work. In areas where there is iodine deficiency, as in part of the Balkans, to what extent might

Forensic Interludes

skeletal maturation be slowed down, thus affecting our age assessments of teenagers and young adults? Sadly, although international forensic research on such problems deserves to be financed, if not carried out, by the central criminal investigators at the Hague, the cumbersome bureaucratic machinery does not allow for such essential academic investigations. In view of the vast amount of money being spent on all of these criminal proceedings, it is sad indeed that nothing is being provided for fundamental laboratory studies on biological aspects of victim identification.

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Chapter 7

Bog People and Other Friends The examination of well preserved bodies has never caused me unease and a feeling that I am somehow snooping on a personal life. On the contrary, I have always felt privileged, given an opportunity to tell a little of the life of an individual from the past. It is forensic work, but with or without criminal associations. Since Sir Grafton Elliot Smith’s massive study of the Egyptian royal mummies in 1912, the amount of detailed scientific investigation has gradually increased. And of course well preserved bodies have appeared in various parts of the world, with the Neolithic Iceman, European bog bodies, ancient Guanche, Peruvian mummies, frozen Scythians, and extreme desert dried remains from China. My own contribution to this field began in 1965, when I borrowed a very well preserved Guanche mummy from Cambridge (Figure 29) and with my friends, pathologist Sandy Sandison and radiologist Peter Gray, the body was studied in great detail (45). The Egyptologist Warren Dawson had commented on it previously, because it appeared to have been prepared in the same way as an Egyptian mummy. But there were differences, and we were in for a few surprises. When the Spanish colonised the islands, they found thousands of mummies in sepulchral caves; but few remain now. The Cambridge body was saved from destruction by Captain Young of His Majesty’s sloop ‘Weasel’ in 1773. Being a good unsuperstitious protestant, the good Captain was ready to bring back the body but met strong resistance from ‘the Romish priest’, but the glint of gold soon removed the objections. The brown leathery body was recorded as female but in fact was male. The testicles are clearly present, but some time in its history, a joker has removed the penis. I was able to examine the individual on two separate occasions, the second time to record the scientific work on film. Dawson’s comparison of the body with those of Eighteenth 70

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Figure 29. The guanche mummy now in Cambridge. a) severe trauma of the head, b) partially exposed interior, showing anthracotic lung and abdominal packing, c) whole body.

Dynasty Egypt (c 1560-1320 BC) seemed a little far fetched when the Guanche radiocarbon date turned out to be between AD 1285 and 1410. However, I do think that we probably underestimate the considerable time depth of some traditions. X-rays taken of the individual in 1927 report that the body cavity was empty, but we found this to be completely untrue. The abdominal area was packed with inorganic and plant material, while the thorax was intact with lungs and heart. To

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our surprise, histological sections of lung visceral pleura showed considerable amounts of carbon, indicating anthracosis. I had always associated this condition with smoky industrial environments, forgetting of course that poorly ventilated rooms with cooking and heating fires could produce an unhealthy environment. Periodic re-examination of these ancient remains is clearly worthwhile, not only to add further scientific data on these ancient individuals, but also to correct some questionable past interpretations. The Guanche certainly did not have rickets, as previously suggested, but the severe cranial injuries were probably received at about the time of death, and not long after as the first report suggested. Bog Bodies In the spring of 1952, Grauballe Man was found in Denmark, and I read with considerable interest the biological reports which were published in the Danish journal KUML in 1956. Recently, further detailed studies were undertaken on him, considerably updating the earlier work (2). Following the discovery, I was eventually to meet Hans Helbaeck in Copenhagen, who did excellent research on the masticated and partly digested food in the guts of Grauballe and Tollund Man. It was Easter when I visited him at the National Museum, and he had just obtained a crate of the special Easter brew which Carlsberg produced for the Danes. As we drank this heady beverage, the weather seemed to get warmer, and the nature of death in the bogs of ancient Europe was somehow transformed into something less threatening. Such is the nature of British law, that when Ian Stead visited Lindow Moss on August 7th, 1984, a body had been cut out with surrounding peat, boxed, and transferred to Macclesfield District General Hospital to await the coroner’s opinion. A quick radiocarbon date from Harwell allowed the body to be released and on the 21st of August it was taken to the Conservation Laboratory at the British Museum. At this point Ian invited me to help and over some days a specialist team was assembled to monitor and study what was extracted from the block of peat. Initially, only a flap of skin was visible, so even for the sober scientists, there was some excitement in the gradual excavation and exposure of this unique individual (Figure 30). Little did we then realise what hard work would be involved, and the rush to include it in an exhibition to be opened by a young chap I had lectured to at Cambridge, Prince Charles by name. The discovery became a world press event, and in April 1985 the Q.E.D. film was viewed by more than ten million people, and got an award from the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In time, two major volumes were dedicated to this body, and the remains of two others from the bog (247, 255). My short, popular, account sold like hot cakes, much to my surprise (76). Things didn’t always go well. Manchester considered that the research should have been centred in the north, where the body was discovered, and such differences of opinion are sad but at times inevitable. At a technical level, I remember when we were being televised and the scanning electron microscope we were using broke down; Keith

Bog People and Other Friends

Figure 30. Lindow Man, still within peat at the British Museum conservation laboratory. Courtesy of the B.M.

Dobney and I had to continue to discuss non-existent SEM images which should have been on screen. It was the one point when we were complimented on our pure acting skills! Because David Liversage was a colleague in the National Museum in Copenhagen, I became drawn into another bog body investigation, but this was no corpse fresh from a bog. In 1879, a clothed woman was found in a bog called Huldremose (79). It roused little interest, possibly because it was quietly transferred in 1905 to the anatomical institute in the University of Copenhagen. The peat cutter realised that he had come across a body when he accidentally cut off a hand (Figure 31). In our detailed examination, we found many cuts from a sharp weapon, most likely carried out at the time of death. One cut removed the right arm below the shoulder. Her hair had been roughly shaved off, and we were able to confirm this by scanning electron microscopy, when the scalp stubble was shown to have cut surfaces at the ends. One problem we had to resolve was how to get a food residue from the gut of this woman? Conventional X-rays and CT scans showed that the lower intestinal tract was not empty, but how could we sample it? After much pondering, and with full permission, we undertook a unique ‘operation’ on the lady. I had noticed in the radiographic detail, that the gut came close to the abdominal wall, and it seemed possible to cut a small trapdoor into the abdomen, open a small length of gut

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and sample for food residues. Perhaps a lot could have gone wrong, but it didn’t, and we thus established a micro-sampling technique, as well as showing that she had eaten wheat and rye with perhaps some meat before death. During work on the bog bodies, I had visited other discoveries in Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, and eventually published on the differences in preservation of these bodies (97). One body stuck out in my memory, because I was not sure if an apparent abnormality was the result of drying and shrinkage or was a congenital growth anomaly. In acid bogs, the bones are demineralised, so that when they dry there is considerable reduction in size. The body in question was found in 1951 near the village of Zweeloo, in the province of Drenthe, the Netherlands. It was a female of the Roman period, and when I examined it, there was considerable shrinkage to the bones. But unusually, both forearms seemed to be equally reduced. So could the body have been generally shrunk post-mortem, but in life have had a congenital abnormality of the arms? I remained uncertain and my notes remained on file. Years later, in 2011, I was shown two skeletons from an Islamic site in Mertola in Portugal, and both displayed

Figure 31. Huldremose woman showing: a) back view with roughly shaved head; b) SEM view of hair, showing cut end.

Bog People and Other Friends

very shortened forearms. In these two, there was no doubt that they had inherited dyschondrosteosis. At this point I told my Dutch friend Wijnand van der Sanden, who had shown me the Zweeloo body originally, and it turned out that a number of European colleagues were pondering the Zweeloo body (12), to publish this case also as a case of dyschondrosteosis. Compared to the Mertola cases, this will remain controversial. It had been a privilege to be drawn into bog body investigations on the Lindow individuals, and the Huldremose and Zweeloo women, but it seemed unlikely that other cases would come my way. It was thus a great surprise to be contacted by the National Museum in Dublin and invited to join the team being assembled to investigate three new bog body finds. Later, a further body was added to the list. As I write, the detailed study of these bodies has not been published, but let me at least mention the surprise we all got when shown what was left of the man from near Croghan, in Ireland. His head had been cut off and the lower half of his trunk had been cut through and was missing. But what was left was of a young well built man who had been roughly manhandled and stabbed through the chest. The ultimate brutality was in the form of twisted plant withes which had been inserted through the skin and biceps muscles of both arms to restrain him. Again, this was a reminder of the violence of these earlier societies. The Neolithic Iceman The first news I had of a frozen body (Figure 32) being found in the Otztal Alps, on the Italian-Austrian border, was from a brief newspaper item, late in September 1991. Our experience of the conservation and temperature control needed for the Lindow bog body a few years earlier drove me to contact the small research team in Innsbruck, consisting of professors Platzer, Spindler and Henn. In fact they were aware of the research and publications on the Lindow finds, and I was invited to be part of the international research team being assembled. I was also invited to meet with them in Innsbruck, together with Professor Hart Hansen of Denmark, to discuss a future research strategy. Rainer Henn of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, later to die in a road accident (‘the curse of the Iceman’), was especially interesting to talk to. He was the first to see the body in the mountains, as a forensic expert, and because of its condition, had assumed it was of relatively recent date. The flow of a glacier usually dismembers any trapped body, so his assumption was reasonable. When I talked to him at his institute, he explained that he had assumed that the associated finds he had seen, flint knife for instance, had been made by a prisoner of war on the run. It never occurred to him that it could be 5000 years old. It was left to Konrad Spindler (245) to realise its antiquity, and transform the find into an international discovery equivalent to the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. The story of the find and the numerous publications are now well known. Werner Platzer of the Anatomy Institute maintained the body in a constant temperature and

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Figure 32. Superb preservation of the Iceman, as seen in his face; also the positions of his tattoos.

humidity until it was transferred to the Bolzano Museum. I visited the Iceman on two occasions, and with Platzer’s help collected very small samples of gut, hair, and what I thought was dental calculus (but turned out to be a fragment of enamel with signs of defective growth). Work on the hair was carried out with Geof Grime, then of the Nuclear Physics Department in Oxford, and it was interesting and puzzling to find that the human hair displayed two contaminants but in contrasting parts of the hair (101). Arsenic, which was probably associated with the copper ore during metal extraction, was within the hair. But considerable copper was found on the surface of the hair (Figure 33). Our conclusion from this was that this ancient Tyrolean man had been more involved than originally thought in the long term processing of copper ore. Arsenic in the keratin cells of the interior of the hair shaft showed long term contamination, so he was not simply a trader or owner of a copper axe. The copper axe he carried was an early form which would have been greatly valued, so

Bog People and Other Friends

Figure 33. Iceman hair chemistry (sulphur, copper and arsenic), as revealed by the PIXE analysis of a hair section.

the arrow found in his shoulder may have been an attempt on the part of someone to acquire it the violent way. Ancient Yemenis Yemen is a country of great beauty, where one of the most perfect forms of Arabic is spoken. Tribal communities are still well formed, and there is clearly local pride in them. The people are friendly and long suffering with the bureaucracy which seems to pervade so much of the Arab world. In 2002 I was drawn into a research team investigating the occurrence of mummified bodies, especially in crevices of cliffs in the central region of the country around Sana’a (Figure 34). The radiocarbon dates suggested a period of around 2500-2900 BP, which spans the Assyrian to Archaemenid periods in the Near East. From my point of view, and because of time restrictions, the bodies already curated in Sana’a University Museum had the most potential, and a request was made to the authorities for permission to CT scan the easily moveable specimens. I had already discussed this with the CT unit in the main hospital of Sana’a, who were pleased to collaborate. About eleven bodies were in the museum, displaying varying degrees of preservation. One seemed to be perfect and was still sewn into a large leathery skin. My optimism, however, was finally dashed on the morning of the scanning. For some reason beyond our understanding, permission was withdrawn except for one body, somewhat skeletonised, which was still contained within its leather wrapping. On scanning this individual, extra bones were found from another person, but museum records were not available to say why.

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Figure 34. In Yemen; a) viewing cliff faces for possible crevice burials; b) a body in skins, University of Sana’a Museum.

What began as a potentially very productive study of Yemeni mummies was biologically a disappointment. But it had been a pleasure to visit this part of South Arabia and its people. Whatever the differences in landscape or culture, I always feel a closeness to people, as if we are all just family. It reminds me again and again that the violence which springs up between communities is so false and without good cause, when we come down to meeting one another and realising that our basic aspirations for life and family are the same the world over. In one village I had the pleasure of sharing and chewing the leaves of the Qat plant with locals. Unfortunately, I was so intent on talking that I swallowed, rather than removing, the wad of chewed leaves. The result was disastrous, and I felt ill for the rest of the day. Salted People In November 2004 miners extracting salt from the Chehr Abad salt mine in Iran, came across human remains in what turned out to be ancient tunnels made for salt extraction. This was to initiate by the Iranian Centre for Archaeological Research,

Bog People and Other Friends

a long term investigation of this site, and since then, further humans as well as mining tools, plant foods, rope and clothing have been found. Contacts between Dr. Hassan Fazeli Nashli and Mark Pollard in Oxford resulted in a number of us in Britain also being drawn into the research. Radiocarbon dates range between 410 BC and 570 AD, with most bodies in the earlier part of the variation (227). The research continues, including with the German Mining Museum of the Ruhr University at Bochum. As part of current international collaboration with Iran, I was able to visit the museum in Zanjan where the bodies are curated, and also the Chehr Abad site itself. The mine is situated in a beautiful part of north western Iran, and the pure crystal salt is mined from what appears to be rounded small domes. The salt preserved bodies are very variable in preservation, with the clothed teenager Number 4, being the most complete. What caused the death of these individuals is not altogether clear. The body postures and some trauma suggest that they were all crushed to death. But whether as a result of earth tremors and ‘roof ’ collapse, or just bad tunnelling and risk taking, is not clear. There are plenty of research questions concerned with these bodies. Were they displaying evidence of artificial cranial deformation? Why, although in recent Iran intestinal worms are common, these people showed no signs of the parasites. And as salt mining and handling can be very damaging to the skin, were they applying some form of ointment to the skin to protect from chronic salt ulceration? The research continues. Egyptian mummies and dried bodies In the early 1960s I worked on the extensive collections of Ancient Egyptian skeletons curated in the Faculty of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. They had been excavated mainly by Sir Flinders Petrie of University College London, but eventually transferred to Cambridge by Jack Trevor, who was one of the very few academics with an interest in skeletal biology. My interest in early Egyptian populations resulted not only in publications but more importantly an international symposium in Montaldo Castle, near Turin, in April 1969 (Figure 35). Brunetto Chiarelli obtained funding and we collaborated in inviting a wide range of specialists. The resulting publication was poorly circulated because most of the papers were also published in the new Journal of Human Evolution, and Academic Press got cold feet about putting them in book form. My interest in the biological aspects of Egyptian remains continued, and I eventually extended my work to non-human remains. This included the important matter of stimulating interest in others and, for instance, Dr. Lidija McKnight began her career in York writing an undergraduate dissertation on X-raying Egyptian animal mummies, and has since continued the research linked to the University of Manchester. Occasionally, something very surprising and puzzling turns up, and in 2005, Dr. Rosemary Luff of Cambridge contacted me about a XVIIIth Dynasty pig skull from Tell el-Amarna, Middle Egypt (189). When I saw the young pig skull, I realised that this was a one in a million discovery and quite unique. On the

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Figure 35. Participants in the symposium on the Population Biology of the Ancient Egyptians, held at Montaldo Castle, Turin, April 1969.

upper surface of the brain box was a large circular groove which had been made in life, as there was evidence of infection and some healing (Figure 36). In fact, it was remarkably like the surgical trephination to be seen especially in prehistoric human remains from various parts of the world. But why was it done to a young pig? Perhaps a reasonable explanation will eventually be found, but it must have ritual significance. Also linked to Amarna was the exotic story of Nefertiti, wife of the religious radical Akhenaten (c. 1352 – 1336 BC). It is always sobering to me to remember that these architecturally magnificent societies of Egypt were thriving at a time when Europe was just coming out of somewhat basic and militaristic societies of the late Bronze Age. Having worked on many skeletons of the British Bronze Age (25, 54), I was to meet Nefertiti face to face late in 2002, as a result of the enthusiasm of my colleague, Dr. Joann Fletcher, and a television team. The story begins in 1898,

Bog People and Other Friends

Figure 36. XVIIIth Dynasty pig skull from Tell el-Amarna, displaying a partial trephination; a) general view; b) lateral X-ray; c) close-up detail. Courtesy Rosie Luff.

when the French archaeologist Victor Loret located in a side chamber in the royal tomb KV35 in the Valley of the Kings, three bodies. Joann invited me to join the team to try and sort out, on biological evidence, who the mummies were (Figure 37). Unfortunately, Dr. Zahi Hawass, then Director of Antiquities in Egypt, refused to allow DNA and other samples to be taken for laboratory analysis. With these constraints, we proceeded as far as we could (144). Of the two women in the cramped side chamber, the older one of perhaps 45+ years, may well be Queen Tiy, mother in law of Nefertiti. The boy, of around puberty, has pierced ears, is not circumcised and displays the royal Horus-lock of hair to the side of his head. He could well be the older woman’s son, Tuthmosis. But special attention was given to the younger woman who, on radiographic and other evidence, was aged between 19 and 30 years, and could well have been Nefertiti. On carefully examining her and the boy, I was surprised to find evidence of cuts to the bodies which did not suggest the rough damage of tomb robbers, but malicious cuts from a sharp weapon. Could this be evidence of angry and vengeful priests, following the highly disruptive reign of Akhenaten, with the radical transfer of the capital from

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Figure 37. The three mummies seen in 2002 in the side chamber of KV35, in the Valley of the Kings; a) detail of the mummies; b) Queen Tiy; c) Prince Tuthmosis; d) Queen Nefertiti.

Thebes to Amarna, and the adoption of sun god worship? The two-hour Discovery Channel special was ‘unveiled’ in Hollywood, and was much publicised. Sadly, the critical DNA evidence in support of Nefertiti was not allowed, but in a subsequent TV programme, Dr. Hawass appeared to change his position on the identity of this young woman in KV35. I have been immensely privileged to have been involved in the study of such a diverse range of bodies over the years, from pharaohs to salt miners. And what has this experience taught me, besides the cartoons aimed in my direction? (Figure

Bog People and Other Friends

Figure 38. Joking about mummification, cartoon sent to me from Sardinia. Courtesy of Stefano Caddeo.

38). Archaeologically, it shows that even single, and unique, bodies may reveal new information about the past. It may also tell us a little more about the nature of food, or ritual or treatment of the dead. The ancient DNA may be better preserved than in skeletons, and the evidence of disease may be detected in the soft tissue as well as the skeleton. Sadly, the callousness and violence of past communities may also be recorded in the perimortal injuries. Much suffering can also be implied from them. And for each of us, their deaths warn us that we do not have full control over our lives and the nature of our own deaths. Our lives are each unique experiences, but at the same time fragile and to some extent unpredictable. And that knowledge alone should make us relish each day as an opportunity to wonder at, and learn about, fellow humans and this amazing planet.

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From Rocks to Protons All life exploits resources in one way or another, but humans have become exploiters par excellence. During my teenage years I saw first-hand the mining of two very different forms of rock. While studying A level geology, I met in class two coal miners who were concerned to improve their education, and eventually I was able to go down a Nottingham coal mine and visit the working coal face. My first experience of rescue archaeology was at Breedon on the Hill in Leicestershire, where Christian Saxon graves were being blasted away with many tons of magnesium limestone, material which was of value for garden paths and road ‘metal’. In view of the pulped humans, which resulted from the crushing of the quarry material, I wondered how often a tooth or finger bone appeared to the observant gardener or walker. Although rock fragments or salts can be used by a variety of species, including invertebrates, humans alone have devastated parts of the earth’s surface. It began with the earliest stone tools, expanded with the construction of large Neolithic barrows and henge monuments, and became massive with the building of the pyramids and the vast architecture as seen at Luxor. By the time of these early Egyptian societies, quarry and workshop skill meant that hard materials such as granite were being worked and polished into sculptured pieces. Gold, diamonds, lapis lazuli, became valued and trade routes established (72). And of course the discovery of a copper axe with the Neolithic Iceman reminded us all of the importance of metal extraction as a highly significant discovery. It also probably transformed the nature of warfare and the incidence of serious injury in conflict. As I write this, there are plans to investigate further the scientific aspects of vitrification. A research team consisting of field archaeologists, and members of the Universities of Stirling and York, and also the Forestry Commission of Scotland, will begin excavations and experimental work on sites in Scotland. Geoarchaeology techniques will be applied to soils and 84

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rocks in the hope of better understanding this fascinating problem. Initially, the project extends over four years, but my guess is that some more years will be needed to fully understand what these slick Iron Age technologists got up to. These geological topics have been generally neglected in archaeological teaching, although I always tried to insert some comments on this aspect in my general teaching on archaeological science. For a couple of years, students on field work also saw me busy lighting fires in association with segments of dry stone wall. Some understood why, but others must have thought it was the early onset of dementia. What the field experiments were really about was an attempt to vitrify rock built in the form of walling, and thus reconstruct what some Iron Age peoples in Britain, Germany and Scandinavia had achieved over two thousands years ago. My experiments were crude compared to what I believe was well controlled technology in the Iron Age. Making a fire is of course not enough, and the trick if you want to melt stones and fuse walling (vitrification), is to control and contain the heat until the stone temperature rises to over 1000° centigrade. My efforts, using both wood and charcoal plus bellows, resulted in a small pathetic degree of melted rock. But some Scottish hill forts displayed longish pieces of low vitrified walling. The rocks used were very variable, from sandstones to metamorphic and igneous, not always easy to melt. In a sample I collected from a Welsh hill fort, the slate was part melted and twisted, and to my surprise the impressions of wood cellular structure could be seen pressed into the molten material. In 1973, I collaborated with colleagues in the Mineralogy Department of the British Museum of Natural History and reviewed the question of vitrification in ancient hill forts (55). We concluded that the extensive rock melting had occurred in situ and couldn’t have been simply due to the destruction and firing of the fortification, as undirected heat would have been quickly lost into the atmosphere. These sophisticated Celts had planned the vitrification, presumably to strengthen and stabilise the stone bases to fortifications. But the exact process still remains a mystery. Figure 39 shows the variation in melted fort rock from a number of sites, in relation to temperature (indicated on the isotherms). The seven analyses are identified to specific forts by the three symbols; circle, square and pyramid. Temperatures achieved in the vitrification were in the region of 1000-1100°C. There is no evidence from the rock melt chemistry that they were the side product of a bloomery. Since the Iron Age, rock mining and quarrying of all kinds has greatly modified land surfaces in many areas of Europe and beyond. In archaeology, I feel that there is a real need to attempt to assess the degree of rock exploitation and topographic change. At some localities this has been disastrous. During the early field seasons at the Pleistocene site of Boxgrove in Sussex, where I assisted a little one summer, I was appalled by the extent of the quarrying damage to the site. There is no doubt that we may have lost important fossil hominin evidence as a result of the commercial enterprise. I am similarly reminded of my student days when I briefly assisted in excavations at Swanscombe (secretly hoping to be the person to find the frontal

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Figure 39. Seven rock samples from Scottish vitrified forts, showing their basic chemistry, and temperature needed to melt the specimens.

bone or other part of the Middle Pleistocene skeleton). Again, the site needed far more excavation than it got. The building of Roman York, the remains of which can still be seen, or other towns and cities in the Roman Empire must have accelerated the quarrying of rock resources, and more rapid exploitation must have occurred when blasting was introduced into Britain after 1636. Pig-iron production escalated for instance, from about 250,000 tons in 1800 to nearly 9,000,000 tons in 1900. Slate, gravel, chalk, even rock-salt, have all now been extensively exploited. In my home town of Nottingham, bricks from local clay were first used in house building in 1615, and some were still standing when my father was a boy. Considering the exploitation of rocks and minerals ultimately leads to the question of the antiquity of pollution, a subject which has held my attention from time to time (50). The handling of toxic mineral ores could have caused health problems from the Near Eastern Chalcolithic onwards. In Roman society, lead may well have been a serious pollutant, not only because of lead water pipes and tanks, but in the production of cosmetics. The arsenic in the hair of the Iceman is another indication of the threatening spread of pollution as we continued our exploitation of the planet. Herodotus noted that asbestos was mined in the Italian Alps and Ural Mountains, and Pliny (A.D. 50) comments on the difficulty of weaving the fibres. Strabo refers to the wicks of certain ritual lamps as ‘asbesta’. However, its use was probably modest until early in the 20th century when its annual production increased to 1,300,000 tons. But the first case of asbestosis was only described in 1907 and by the 1920s an unequivocal relationship between asbestos and pulmonary fibrosis had been established. By 1932, a relative of the archaeologist Peter Ucko and a colleague had reported on the high

From Rocks to Protons

incidence of asbestosis in Berlin factories. The clothing industry was one of those affected by asbestosis, and my mother had worked in that environment as a young woman. She was to die of a cancer related to asbestos fibres in the lungs years later. It is a sad fact that reactions to pollution threats of this kind tend to be all too slow, and as I write, asbestos is still being removed from wall plaster in a laboratory at the University of York, and the British Library has closed part of the collection for decontamination, eighty years after its toxicity was well established. Grave soils ‘And from afar they will bring the dust of my tomb to be peddled as cosmetics to beautiful girls’ Medieval Jewish poem (Einbinder, 2009) I began to take an interest in soil when I purchased a sarsen built cottage in Avebury, next door to the manor house. For some odd reason, the small garden was about 25 centimeters higher than the path and entrance to the cottage. This puzzled me until I remembered that until the 1960s, the toilets to these cottages were buckets which were emptied of their ‘night soil’ daily into holes dug in the garden. The contents were carefully dug in to avoid previous deposits and to avoid being too close to the well. Over the many decades this had resulted in a heightening of the garden surface. Fortunately for the English, hookworm was a rare parasite in Europe and did not, as in many regions of agricultural China, get spread unknowingly with the faeces as a fertilizer, so causing common hookworm disease, leading to anaemia and even death. During work with forensic colleagues in Kosovo, I had been involved in scanning the ground for soil contrasts which could indicate graves. Differences in colour or texture could reveal a burial and decomposition products. I pondered this for some years, and finally drafted a tentative programme of research, in collaboration with colleagues in geochemistry and soil micromorphology. This was when I had moved to York, and we presented a research application to the European Research Council stating that graves deserved far more intensive investigation than archaeology had yet envisaged. What surrounded the decomposed body might potentially contain evidence of organic ritual offerings, special decomposition products including clothing and parasite eggs, changes in the inorganic structure and its micromorphology, which potentially could provide additional relevant data on burial ritual. The ERC showed an interest, and we were duly given a substantial grant to investigate. An example of what might be achieved even with a far from ideal burial situation, is provided by the Viking mass grave on Ridgeway Hill near Weymouth (224). Samples were taken from key locations between the skeletons to test for signatures of the bodies and of any materials buried with them. Root damage and small invertebrate excremental features were identified, but no food debris from the gut was found. The organic analyses revealed evidence of leaf waxes of vascular

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Figure 40. CT scanning of ancient bodies; a) enthusiastic Yemen medical staff in Sana’a CT unit, with myself and Howard Read; b) scanning an Egyptian body, with Joann Fletcher and colleagues.

plants. Cholesterol was particularly derived from the decomposition of the bodies. Elevated levels of 5B-stanols in pelvic samples, indicate faecal materials, but more specific food identification was not possible in this situation. No compounds indicative of clothing (e.g. lanosterol from sheep’s wool) were identified. However, the project has opened up a vast new research field with considerable potential,

From Rocks to Protons

but laboratory costs are not negligible in this kind of work. We have evidence of frankincense in some Roman graves, and my hope is that eventually specific elements of foods will be identified, at least from some environments. Harnessing X-rays, Electrons and Protons My interest in radiography began in my late teens, when I worked at Nottingham Technical College (now Trent University) in the chemistry department. Clearing out some old neglected cupboards I was intrigued to find decaying envelopes in which were glass X-ray plates, displaying the bones and the outline of hands. Later, I was to ask myself why this technique wasn’t used regularly in the study of fossil humans, ancient bone pathology and other archaeological materials? The answer was probably a combination of lack of interest in X-raying bones combined with unavailability of radiographic facilities other than in hospitals. For me, the chance to explore and use radiographic equipment came in the 1960s with my move to the British Museum of Natural History. Lodged in zoology was a large industrial machine under the control of Wyn Wheeler, a fish specialist who became a friend and helped me greatly to X-ray a variety of ancient human remains. His growing links to archaeology were eventually to result in a book on archaeological fish studies, written with Andrew Jones. In actual fact, there was a glimmer of archaeological interest in the technique only two years after Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in 1895, for members of the University of Pennsylvania had X-rayed a Peruvian mummy from Pachacamac. At about the same time, Sir Flinders Petrie began to make use of the technique in the investigation of Egyptian mummies. But it was to be sixty years before the systematic study of much larger mummy samples were studied, especially by my radiological friend Peter Gray. There had also been a slow start in X-raying fossil human specimens, and although Neanderthal remains had been X-rayed by 1910, it was to be fifty years before Joe Weiner (who had been my external examiner at UCL) managed to visit numerous collections to X-ray fossil finds. Although there have been more studies of this kind since then, there is still not an ideal and comprehensive review of our ancestors in this way (121). The scene has also changed in that CT scanning is now also being used in archaeology, although very reliant on hospital facilities (Figure 40). This technique provides far more detailed images both of bones and well preserved bodies, and in recent years I have found the ideal to be a combination of conventional radiography with CT scanning. During my period at the Natural History Museum, the scanning electron microscope became an important new tool for the study of hard tissue and other structures at high magnification (Figure 41). The instrument used a fine probe of electrons to directly examine the microtopography of solid bulk specimens. It permitted the examination of surfaces whose roughness or other characteristics did not allow the use of the conventional transmission electron microscope. Also, the depth of focus is at least 300 times greater than that of a light microscope.

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Figure 41. Working with the first scanning electron microscope (SEM) at the British Museum of Natural History. About 1965.

Figure 42. SEM detail of human calculus; a) microbes calcified in three medieval samples; b) micro-stratification in the calculus.

From Rocks to Protons

The range of magnification I found especially useful for archaeological material was between 100 and 5,000. In these early days of its use, it was very exciting to explore the highly magnified world of archaeological objects. My friend, Alan Boyde, in Anatomy at UCL, greatly encouraged my interest in applying this form of microscopy, and I became something of a proselytiser of the method in the archaeological community (44). For me, the most surprising discovery has been the appearance in ancient dental calculus (tartar) of the calcified negative images of microbes which lived in the mouth, and they have now been identified even in the teeth of Neanderthalers (Figure 42). The discrimination of the hair of different species is easier by this method, and for instance the separation of human and deer hair found with the Neolithic Iceman was easy using the scale patterns on the surfaces of these hairs. The study of biological remains now calls on a much greater range of analytical techniques, but it at least has been my privilege to be part of the increasing application of scientific technology to the investigation of archaeological objects. A Hair of the Dog I became interested in archaeological hair as a result of lectures by my teacher Nigel Barnicot, who had undertaken research on hair and its pigmentation. My own concern was to see what information could be obtained from ancient hair, and for this reason I collected hair samples from a variety of world sites, and I published a brief survey of this material with Richard Spearman, a hair and skin specialist (35). I had previously spent some time at the National Physical Laboratory, using their spectrophotometer to record reflectance curves on ancient and modern hair of different colours (Figure 43). Together with electron microscopy details, it became clear that the perceived colours blond and red hair in ancient samples were mainly the result of oxidation changes to

Figure 43. Spectrophotometric data on ancient hair. Colour variation is likely to be due to post-mortem changes, especially pigment oxidation.

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the melanin granules, and that most of these early people had in fact dark hair in life. My earlier interest in hair had in fact extended to variation in body hair in the living, and I had collaborated with colleagues on two occasions. Robin Harvey had been involved in a Cambridge project in Japan in 1964, and we were both interested in the so-called ‘hairy Ainu’ of Japan. Were these people who were culturally distinctive for many centuries in Japan uniquely hirsute? Ordinary Japanese, who lacked much body hair, certainly thought so. The Ainu were also facially different, which further emphasised their distinctiveness. The literature on body hair was poor and we had to establish new standards for comparison between different groups. Our conclusions were that, because of the biocultural separation of the Ainu over centuries, they had become far hairier than most Asian populations, but they could not be seen as having more body hair than all regions of the world (158). The pattern of hair on the body is also variable between people, and as I found out in a short study, even quite specific regions can show differences. For instance, the frequency of middle phalangeal (finger) hair is quite variable (39). Few indeed are ever likely to be excited by these results, but at the time some of the women in the study were rather embarrassed by the revaluation of this hairiness. Further opportunities came along over the years to study ancient hair, and the Neolithic Iceman from northern Italy was a particular challenge (101), especially as there was much debate as to whether this individual was a local shepherd or a trader in copper artefacts. There was even a possible crime dimension as he had died perhaps from blood loss, shock and hypothermia after being shot with an arrow into his shoulder. The study we undertook involved the elemental analysis of hair sections (human and red deer) by PIXE at the Nuclear Physics department in Oxford (153). Proton induced X-ray emission analysis (PIXE) began in 1969 and is now a high precision technique, analysing the concentration of elements to parts per million. Element analysis with PIXE is therefore quantitatively accurate. Much to my surprise, copper particles were concentrated on the human hair surface of the Iceman, but arsenic (a component of copper ore which is separated by melting out the metal) was within the interior of the hair (Figure 44). This suggested that the Iceman was engaged in copper extraction (thus breathing in the arsenical fumes which later influenced the chemistry during hair growth), and was not a simple shepherd. There are times when research is especially problematic, as when hair, or casts of it, turn up in Pleistocene hyaena coprolite. Is the hair human? Was it scavenged, with juicier portions, from a corpse? Or was it another species? My part in the study of such a case of ancient faecal material was to consider the probable identity of the hair based on the shape and form of the external cuticular scales. The scales on mammalian hair are extremely variable, but become more and more similar in appearance the closer the species is, in evolutionary terms, to humans. Having considered a wide range of species, including primates, my tentative conclusion was that the hair could indicate our species, but there remained some uncertainty as a number of other advanced primates have very similar hair forms microscopically (14).

From Rocks to Protons

Using hair for radiocarbon dating can have interesting spin-offs in terms of additional information. During the research on ancient dogs from Peru, hair was used in dating them, and this enabled the stable carbon isotope ratios (¹³C/¹²C) to be considered. For comparative purposes, I nervously approached a number of poorly controlled village dogs in Ecuador for additional hair samples. Rabies was not something I needed from a dog bite! The results of the isotope comparisons was surprising, both in the ancient and recent South American dogs. It indicated that maize was being eaten in significant amounts by the ancient Peruvian and modern Ecuadorian village dogs, through force of circumstances. This was certainly compatible with my experience in a number of South American countries, where indigenous communities gave only their own food scraps to the dogs, and this included the common staple of maize (114). Within the past two decades, studies on ancient hair have turned in detail to the chemistry of hair (82), including variation along hair shafts, which can reflect seasonal differences in diet. There is also great promise in the detection of drug metabolites in hair, provided the sample is sufficient. Andrew Wilson and his colleagues provide a good example of what can be achieved, in their study of the hair of sacrificed Inca children in the Andes. Dietary isotopic data are seen to vary along hair samples before death, suggesting that they were given a privileged status some time before they were sacrificed. The Llullaillaco Maiden’s hair also showed high levels of the coca metabolite benzoylecgonine.

Figure 44. Copper (Cu) and arsenic (As) in the Iceman hair; a) in a hair cross-section; b) medial line scans through the sections in (a).

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Bones, Teeth and People In the autobiography of Edwin Muir (210), the Orkney poet, he gives an evocative contemporary account of the processing of bones for economic reasons. ‘This was a place’, he recounts, ‘where fresh and decaying bones, gathered from all over Scotland, were flung into furnaces and reduced to charcoal. The charcoal was sold to refineries to purify sugar; the grease was filled into drums….. The bones, decorated with festoons of slowly writhing, fat yellow maggots, lay in the adjoining railway siding….and the trucks….looked as if they were covered with moving snowdrifts…. It was a gentle, clinging, sweet stench…. Many people considered that the smell was good for the health….. There were old, faithful hands in the place, who had spent their lives among the bones…. They made free with the bones, humorously flinging them at one another as they sat at their midday meal in the bone yards, the older ones cynically stirred their tea with a pointed dry bone’ (pp 130-31). Glue and Data: the Value of Bones Having also spent a life partly with bones, though not yet stirring my tea with them, I have come to respect them for the variety of information they can provide. Looking back on the mountain of material I have handled, happily free of moving snowdrifts of maggots, I am surprised at how much information they have provided. In April 1958, I was invited with my supervisor Nigel Barnicot, to attend a Ciba Foundation symposium on ‘Medical Biology and Etruscan Origins’. Those attending were a hotchpotch of Italian archaeologists, classical scholars, anthropologists and human geneticists with an interest in Italy, but I was impressed by how well they interacted and tried to extend studies on the Etruscans. My own part, with Barnicot (Figure 45), was to consider the biological affinities of Etruscan skulls, and prior to the meeting, 94

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Figure 45. Multivariate statistical analysis of Etruscans compared with other Mediterranean peoples. Pompeians, Greeks and Egyptians are similar. Males.

I went in search of them in some European museums. Our results were not world shattering, and although Etruscans were distinctive, biologically they seemed to be quite similar to Romans and even to the Greeks we had data for (7). In July of the same year, I talked on a very different topic at a meeting in the University of Kiel. It was surprising to see the extent of the rebuilding of the city, as it had been pounded by the RAF in the war (and a priceless fossil skull, ‘Africanthropus’, from East Africa had been blown to bits by the British). My paper was a new approach to testing the discriminatory power of multiple craniometric measurements, compared with a range of non-metric data (such as extra sutures or foramina). My conclusion was that a combination of non-metric traits could help to discriminate earlier populations, perhaps as much as osteometric data (24). The paper seemed to be a complete flop, and I left Germany feeling that I’d wasted time and effort. But history has proved differently and I still get requests, fifty years later, for copies of this short article! Measurement of bone size and shape is obviously a long established method for comparing different samples within or between species. It remains a nuisance that definitions of measurements are not always the same in Britain as they are in the USA, and I stick with the ones established in the UK over a century ago (36, 54, 95). I have applied them successfully in the study of a variety of early British populations, but questions still remain for the future. Why, for instance, are there such contrasts between Saxon and later medieval populations (Figure 46)? Osteometrics have been similarly used for cattle, pigs, and even mice. My interest in the diversity of New World dogs resulted in collaboration in 1979 with Richard Burleigh at the British Museum, and Dr. A. Malaga of the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, in Lima, Peru. There were clearly a number of varieties of dog (Figure 47) evolving in the Americas, including one or two hairless forms, but it seems to me very debatable whether any are still recognisable today. Since the 1960s, a considerable range of studies have used non-metric traits to show population diversity and microevolution in earlier societies (143, 10). Unfortunately, although these epigenetic traits have been used to discriminate

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Figure 46. Human population change in Britain from the Neolithic to later medieval times, based on skull measurements and canonical analysis; a) large Neolithic samples are *, and tomb groups ʘ. Bronze Age samples are black dots, and the encircled ones are from Yorkshire (with different cultural associations). YB have Beakers; b) black dots are Saxon samples and squares are later medieval. The oblique lines show the degree of separation of the major groups.

between various regional populations of living mammal species, it has been rarely applied to ancient samples. The reason of course is that animal bones are usually in the form of food debris, and are broken and incomplete. Today, my own concern is that we still need to know far more about the aetiology of these individual traits. Some are probably far more influenced by the environment than others, as for instance the development of auditory exostoses (173), which could be stimulated by cold water. Demographic aspects of skeletal material have also got my attention over the years (46,49). Prior to recent times, it is clear that human populations had much shorter life expectancies, and the majority were dead and gone by fifty years of age, with the average adult life expectancy being only in the thirties. In domestic species it was of course dependent not only on health, but human factors. Meat animals had life terminated early, while those useful for milk, wool or even traction, would live longer. In the case of humans, I remain puzzled as to what health factors most

Bones, Teeth and People

Figure 47. Variation in New World dogs, as indicated by two skull indices. Black symbols are archaeological dogs. Figure 48. Child mortality in three cemeteries, with only prehistoric Lerna in Greece displaying no bias from social factors.

commonly terminated life. In the case of children, the pattern of deaths is not the same in all the cemetery samples, and because specific infections can hit children hardest in particular broad age groups, are the mortality patterns reflecting the differential impact of particular diseases in a particular period (78)? The impact of disease must also have been critically influenced at times by standards of nutrition. It is also important to remember that social factors can significantly influence age group composition, as exemplified by the data shown in Figure 48 where only the Greek Lerna sample is unbiased. The literature on ageing and sexing is now vast, and modifications still continue. In humans and other mammals, increasing dental attrition in adults is still a useful way to roughly age an individual. But allowances have to be made for the nature of the environment and the foods eaten. It is interesting the way revisiting data after many years can sometimes bring out differences which were not recognised initially. In recently viewing dental attrition in a sample of Neanderthalers, Romans and ancient Egyptians, I realised for the first time that the Pleistocene Neanderthal sample of comparable young adults displayed less wear than most of the individuals in the other groups (108). The difference is probably because the fossil group were largely meat eaters, while the others had far more grain foods in their diets. Tooth wear can be severe in older Neanderthalers, but I suspect that by then the grain eaters would have probably lost most of their teeth.

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Studies on the chemistry of bone have gradually changed in my lifetime. Kenneth Oakley’s (217) interests in relative dating by uranium, fluorine and nitrogen analyses have largely been replaced. Palaeoserology always had problems, and has been replaced by DNA analyses (113). Isotope variation in relation to geographic origin or dietary regime is producing useful though limited results. The chemistry of bone certainly has a future, but in what directions seems to me still debatable. Teeth and Time: Reflections on Dental Archaeology Seventy years ago, as a junior schoolboy, I was fitted with an orthodontic device to correct the malocclusion of my upper incisors, and my interest in teeth began. This was a Tolstoyan moment where a single unimportant incident influenced by chance a lifetime of interest in the archaeology of teeth. Later, as a student, I was to be introduced to a wide range of studies related to teeth. Because teeth tend to preserve and fossilise better than bone, dental studies could be said to form the core of human palaeontology, and I became immersed in theories on tooth differentiation, special adaptations in the primates, and in particular the changes during our own evolution. There are few examples of adaptive evolution in mammals so impressive as the ‘rodent’ incisors of the aye-aye, a distant relative and prosimian primate. Attending the genetics classes of Hans Gruneberg, a specialist in the normal and abnormal development of teeth and bones, it became clear that our DNA had considerable control over tooth size and shape, but that the ‘environment’ could significantly influence growth. Even the age of the mother and the intra-uterine environment could be forces for tooth modification. Fate continued to push me in the direction of dental studies, and later in the 1950s I was invited to speak to a meeting of the Nutrition Society on teeth and food in the past. It demanded quite an effort to survey the oral pathology of various early British populations, and to my surprise there was more variation in caries prevalence than expected (23). In the case of caries, the changes were clearly related to diet, but it was not easy to explain, for instance, why tooth decay declined in Saxon times (Figure 49). Shortly after this meeting I met Loma Miles, then Professor of Oral Pathology at the London Hospital, and was drawn into his interests in tooth wear. He considered that the sequence and pattern of enamel wear and gradual exposure of dentine on the occlusal surfaces could be used to roughly age individuals from earlier populations. Investigations included wear experiments, to understand how molar tooth wear might change in velocity as the hard enamel was worn away and increasing amounts of softer dentine appeared. He concentrated on a Saxon sample I had excavated years before, and which is now curated in the Royal College of Surgeons Museum in London. My own efforts were to scan tooth samples of various early British periods, to see if there was much variation in rates of wear. We both published separate comments on this later (36,202). Somewhat again by chance, while visiting and teaching at the University of California in Berkeley during 1966, I was invited to assist in a dental anthropology

Bones, Teeth and People

Figure 49. Caries frequencies through time, in three European areas (both sexes). Britain - ; France - - - ; Greece ----.

field project on the Pima Indian reservation in Arizona. I met Al Dahlberg at a dental conference I had organised in 1963, and I greatly respected his studies. He visited the reservation annually to cast teeth of the school children, and this now forms a major research collection. Al balanced a dental practice in Chicago with research in the university, and it became clear to me that he was not as appreciated by his department as he should have been. He was a charming man, humble and totally committed to his research. He and his wife were also ideal individuals to get the friendly cooperation of the children, linked as they were to another culture. We worked hard at collecting casts and data, and I was particularly impressed by the common occurrence of so-called shovel shaped upper incisors, which are uncommon in Europeans. But they are much stronger teeth with their side-struts. It was interesting, but sad, to see how attitudes in the children changed, depending on age. The young ones were all relaxed and friendly, but there was increasing reserve in the teenagers who perhaps saw us more as ‘exploiting’ native American people. During this time in California, I also met Christy Turner in Berkeley, who now has a worldwide reputation for his detailed studies on world variation in tooth morphology. My own interests extended into the history of human dentistry. Even by the European Neolithic there was clearly interest in teeth, as shown by the ante-mortem drill hole in a Danish molar, and the Etruscans and later Romans had developed appliances for supporting teeth (30). But I suspect that the real beginnings of dentistry are back in the Pleistocene, where severe tooth loss in a number of the Neanderthalers is surely indicative of compassionate fingers of family members assisting in the removal of loose, painful teeth. There are of course more factors of the environment causing oral pathology than sugary and abrasive foods. Reading May Mellanby’s classic studies on feeding

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variable diets to young dogs, and the resulting defective enamel, showed me that other aspects of the environment must be considered (199). Over the years, I have found considerable evidence of enamel hypoplasia in different populations, but other variables such as third molar absence, need further study from the point of view of environmental factors. But of course genetic factors, including founder effect and endogamy could be important. I am reminded of a small bank vole (Clethrionomys glareolus) living in Scotland. The complex molar form which can occur in this animal usually has a prevalence of about 29%, but in a restricted new founder colony, it was found that this complex tooth form occurred in around 92%. This sort of variation suggests to me that we have a too simplistic explanation of hominid evolutionary change. All too often, we think of our evolution in terms of simple ‘need and adaptive change’, but microevolution is a more haphazard business surely. Of course there have been some major evolutionary changes in primate teeth, from the variation in prosimians, to monkeys and finally hominoids. Since my student days, the number of australopithecine species discovered has increased, partly on dental evidence. There has been molarising of premolars in this group, and relative reductions in anterior teeth. If I’m honest, I cannot say that these changes clearly had survival value. We succumb to Darwinian explanations all too often without scientific challenge. More modest tooth changes continued into the period of Homo erectus evolution. The diastema disappeared and tooth size got closer to modern variation, with most change in the third molars. What puzzles me is that these changes are modest, and are there really factors in operation which assist critically in their differential survival? For instance, if chewing or cultural stresses are placed on the incisors, causing early trauma and loss, is this sufficient to favour the differential survival of a shovel shaped tooth form? An alternative question would be how much dental variation, derived from founder effect, drift, mutation and endogamy, just gets carried along as frequencies varying non-adaptively? We tend to forget that world population in the Pleistocene amounted to only a few million, which would maximise the impact of genetic bottlenecks, drift and endogamy. If examples are needed, I have been especially impressed by two studies. Some African green monkeys were isolated on the island of St. Kitts for 300 years, resulting in significant dental differences (1). Similarly, the small, relatively isolated population of Tristan de Cunha have been separated for 200 years, in which time dental anomalies, including partial agenesis, have become surprisingly high. We need to change gear of course when considering teeth in other species, and particularly domesticated varieties. Dogs in particular show considerable variation in tooth size, shape and occlusion (80). This must have mainly occurred within the past 10,000 years. Here the changes are not due to normal evolution, but are the pleiotropic consequences of intentional human selection of dogs for different general forms, as well as intelligence and temperament. Most of us living in societies with high sugar diets are regularly reminded of oral diseases, and I am no exception, having had caries, abscesses, tooth loss and an

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extremely painful osteomyelitis of my lower jaw. Most of my dental troubles began with caries, but when I was privileged to examine a series of Neanderthal jaws, it was clear that other factors could be important. Wear on the upper front teeth of a number of individuals curved upwards onto the anterior surface, probably as a result of chewing and softening skins. This and other factors had produced rapid wear, pulp exposure, abscesses and tooth loss. But other Neanderthalers displayed less wear, probably because they were predominantly meat eaters, rather than grain and plant fibre eaters to any extent (108). From the vast amount of data now available on the oral pathology of past populations, it is clear that generally there has been an increase over time, linked to plant domestication, urban contrasts, and even oral hygiene. There are also differences related to social status, as seen clearly in early Egyptian populations (33). I think we are also now at a stage in assembling this oral data where we can begin to ask more specific questions as to why differences occur. For instance, what dietary or other factors specifically cause the decline in caries prevalence from Roman into Saxon times? We should even begin to consider such variables as fluorine availability in ground water. There are also cultural factors, not only regarding the developing knowledge of dentistry since Egyptian and Greek times, but also the extent of tooth cleaning. Even tooth evulsion, the cultural removal of teeth, could be mistaken for natural tooth loss, unless it was common and tooth specific as in the African Mesolithic sites of Afalou and Taforalt. There is also the question of tribal conflict and dental trauma. Even tooth cracks and chipping may encourage infection and eventual tooth loss, and indeed in the past Inuits and Aleutians showed a high prevalence of dental trauma. Over the years, other dental variables have caught my attention, and I have sidestepped from other work to consider it, if only briefly. For many years, interproximal grooving of teeth was put down to the use of tooth picks, even by fossil man. I have long doubted this, and I was delighted when the grooving appeared in cave bear teeth I was examining. There may well be various explanations, with tooth picks not high on the list of probables. The regular lodging of acid foods between teeth is one possibility. Bulimia is a possible cause today. With increasing age and alveolar recession, more acid food impaction can occur, at times with considerable discomfort. In such situations, a tooth pick may have been used to dislodge the food irritants. By the mid-1980s I began to think more about dental calculus, the calcified deposits usually towards the base of tooth crowns. It seemed possible that small masticated fragments of food could be trapped in this relatively hard and protective material. My luck was in, and a grant was obtained, allowing Keith Dobney to begin work on the problem. In fact we had been advised by dental colleagues that we were very unlikely to find any food debris in this material, but fortunately we were not put off by such comments. The result was that a new world of organic micro-fragments appeared under the scanning electron microscope from the decalcified lumps of calculus (131). Indeed, by new microtechniques, the layering of calculus which we

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could only note at the time, is now being investigated in far more detail, including by DNA analysis. Since the tooth correction plate was fitted in my young mouth so many years ago, and my anterior bite was corrected, dental studies on early populations have massively expanded, mainly as regards oral pathology. But metric and non-metric studies have not been abandoned, and the new field of dental archaeology is secure for the future. When I joined Al Dahlberg in 1966 to help with his dental project on a Pima Indian reservation, I had no idea how beautiful the desert could be, especially when the plants were in full flower. Neither had I any knowledge of these people who had prospered in their harsh environment over two millennia. To the archaeologists concerned with the past, they were the Hohokam, a Pima word meaning extinct communities of the past. These people were skilled desert farmers and craftsmen, coping with the heat and water shortages, but managing to water and raise crops. It was a privilege for me to study such a tough and proud people. The area they lived in is now to the south of Flagstaff and especially in the region of Phoenix and Tucson in Arizona (159). Originally a collection of small tribes, they are now viewed as one people, those in reservation territory probably in excess of 8,000. There has been little mixing with Europeans and features of their teeth, especially their incisors, support this. While involved with the field project, I was reminded of the differences in health status between these indigenous communities and the intrusive Europeans, which has extended over five hundred years. Until recently, tuberculosis affected many Amerindian communities, together with states of malnutrition. Trachoma, valvular heart disease, and caries were diseases notable amongst the Pima (171). Because I had my three young children with me, we were particularly warned that the infectious skin condition impetigo was in the community. Of course, all of us who travel must accept these risks, and at least be aware of the health situation. In terms of personality, the Pima generally appeared to be dignified and reserved. Anger was not a characteristic, and perhaps this is an adaptive measure to control mental distress in their harsh world. Throughout my travels in the Americas I have always been impressed by this characteristic, although it can be combined with acute observation and a healthy sense of humour. Today, dental anthropology is a major field of research, with a considerable literature, and I confess that it is a struggle to keep up to date with it. Population Studies : Beyond the Individual In examining a series of skeletons from a cemetery or series of round barrows for instance, the graves are examined one by one, but the eventual hope is to get an overall impression of the bioarchaeology of a population. But unlike the demography of a living group, the ancient sample is more likely to have a time span of a few hundred years, if not more. My first challenge to review a whole population was an invitation

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by Section H of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, to talk about the ‘Bronze Age people of Yorkshire’ (25). It was my first attempt to pull together as many aspects as possible on the morphological variation and health of an early British group. Since then, there have been numerous opportunities to study particular aspects of early populations, or particular tomb groups and cemeteries (40, 52, 74, 95, 111). Cooperation with statistical colleagues has also been invaluable, and I was especially lucky to have the support and enthusiasm of Wojtek Krzanowski in a multivariate analysis of many thousands of early British skull measurements (54). This study was especially interesting because it clearly showed significant differences between Neolithic and Bronze Age regional samples, supporting the view that the later people associated with beakers and food vessels were generally biologically distinct from the earlier Neolithic farmers (Figure 46). But while this could be explained by population movement into Britain, it was far more of a problem to explain why Saxon populations were also distinct from later medieval groups. Was this evidence of greater Norman immigration into the country than had previously been known, or were other factors such as the differential survival from plague or other epidemics playing their part? The question remains unsolved. At a demographic level, it was also possible to collect together thousands of age and sex estimates on skeletons, and calculate for various early British groups the sex ratio and life expectancy for adults. Children could not generally be included because so often they were incompletely represented in tombs and cemeteries. The results suggested that sex ratios were usually about equal, with a few exceptions indicative of social bias (46). In terms of adult life expectancy, I was surprised to see how similar the samples from all the periods were, but with slight differences between the sexes, and a slight increase in life expectancy into medieval times (49). The health status of these earlier groups was not so easy to assess fifty years ago when I began to think about it (28), but the recent review by Charlotte Roberts and Margaret Cox (234) shows how much more data has become available over these last few decades. The evidence now suggests that some diseases, such as joint and dental diseases have long been with us, although increasing. Tuberculosis could have a long history, but leprosy was probably a Roman and later intruder. On current evidence, syphilis did not appear until medieval times. Ancient Egyptians and Nubians My interest in the early Egyptians has provided an opportunity to compare two very different regional populations over time, namely, Britain and Egypt. My concern here is not with mummies, but with the many thousands of skeletons which have been excavated over more than a century. It was fortunate that the Duckworth Laboratory at Cambridge had taken over the vast collection of skeletons originally sent back by Sir Flinders Petrie to Karl Pearson at University College London, and then finally handed on to Jack Trevor at Cambridge. This gave me a chance to examine the material, first from the point of view of the pathology, but eventually

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in more general population terms. The anatomist Elliot Smith and colleagues began to work on both the bones and mummies during the earlier years of the last century, and I read these reports and books with interest. The statistician Karl Pearson and colleagues had also started to study some of these series, which were duly published in the journal Biometrika, which I read with interest. Added to which, Marc Armand Ruffer, professor of bacteriology at Cairo University made significant investigations on ancient Egyptian diseases, including at a histological level. These studies were very different to the research being carried out on ancient British bones, but the combination gave me a more balanced view on what investigations should be undertaken on skeletons, and influenced what was put in my 1963 handbook ‘Digging up Bones’. In a way, reading these Egyptian and Nubian studies gave me some inkling of the cliques and group biases to be seen in academia. Elliot Smith was an old school anatomist who believed in comparison by eye, and he had no time for the careful osteometric comparisons of the Karl Pearson school. But it was the anatomist who was more sensitive to the probable ethnic mixing which had occurred in at least lower Egypt and the Sudan. These populations were of course all relatively close to the Nile, extending from the Delta to the Fourth Cataract, 900 miles south. Moreover, the population history in this landscape over more than 5000 years, was in relation to varying degrees of drying, vegetational modification, irrigation and probably significant changes in human disease ecology. The biology of these Nile peoples contrasted sharply, from the largely North African and Mediterranean peoples in the north to the very different tribal groups of the White Nile, south of Khartoum. In visits to Egypt and the Sudan, I have been struck by the contrasts, and indeed the south has some of the tallest black populations in Africa, the males commonly exceeding 180cms in height. Even the urinals can be positioned higher for men, which I found something of a challenge! While evidence of mixing is seen in the ancient remains as changes in facial shape or hair form, recent studies on the living groups reveal significant gene frequency clines. Like studies on early British demography, overall population size can only be guessed at, but was unlikely to have been more than a few million people until later dynastic times, when there could have been notable fluctuations (164). Life expectancy was also probably similar in early Britain and Egypt, but today it is lower in Egypt than here in Britain. There are certainly plenty of questions still to be asked of ancient Egyptian-Nubian demography. I remain intrigued by the probable nature of endogamy in the past, not only in royal lines but the general population. Today in Nubia, over 50% of marriages are first cousin, and the rest are usually of relatives. In the past such endogamous behaviour could have accelerated the emergence of regional distinctiveness, and perhaps this explains some of the regional differences we see in the various multivariate analyses of skeletal measurements. Jack Trevor, my old Cambridge colleague, was especially interested in the Nubian Jebel Moya group, which is somewhat distinctive (211), being positioned between black African and more northern Egyptian groups. I have also been interested to see how the

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analysis of non-metric skeletal data has raised further issues. For instance, the Dutch biologist Agatha Knip (175) considered two early Christian cemeteries, facing one another on each side of the Nile. Employing non-metric traits, she found the differences to be highly significant, which raises the question of how far the Nile can not only allow the movement and mixing of peoples, but at times could result in their isolation. What religious, administrative or even mate selection factors could have helped to keep such groups apart in this respect? In 1960 I gave a special lecture (Curl Essay) to the Royal Anthropological Institute on the pathology found in early British skeletons (28), but my interest in the early Egyptians has not yet driven me to produce a similar review. However, over the years, it has been possible to research different aspects of health in these populations (33, 34, 42, 51, 88, 107). Considering the situation over time in Britain and Egypt, there are some interesting similarities and contrasts. Osteoarthritis, the commonest joint disease, seems to be as common in both areas, and oral pathology is similarly common. Tuberculosis seems to have a much greater antiquity in Egypt, whereas the other mycobacterial condition leprosy has been found far more commonly in early British samples. Accuracy of diagnosis has long been a problem, and in Batrawi’s (8) Nubian report his mis-diagnosis of toe amputations could well be indicative of leprosy. British samples have also produced far more evidence of a treponemal disease (probably endemic or venereal syphilis), and also of trephination. In my search for evidence of tumours, I found modest numbers from both regions, probably representing a variety of tumour types. This confirms their antiquity, but their prevalence was probably lower in view of the fact that life expectancy was also much lower. In both regions, cases of unusual pathology have turned up. In Egypt and Nubia this includes achondroplasia (a form of dwarfism), osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), and madura foot (a type of mycotic infection) (Figure 50). Intestinal ‘worms’ are known in both areas, and if truth be known, was probably very common in world populations in the past. The detection of ancient microbial DNA is going to be an important development into the future. Plague from the microbe Yersinia has been confirmed in earlier British remains, while Plasmodium DNA has been found in ancient Egypt. Finally, all of us examining skeletons see plenty of evidence of trauma, although bones broken at the time of death are not easy to separate from post-mortem damage. Occasionally there are surprises even in this respect. I still remember examining the skull from grave 121 in the Nubian cemetery 92. The individual had survived three sword cuts, but the large one behind his left eye had broken the bone which had been levered open in a frontal direction, so there was a large gap exposing the traumatised brain (Figure 51). Undeterred, but perhaps with his personality changed forever, the bone had healed in this abnormal position, and the man lived on. Surprisingly, there was no evidence of infection. If nothing else, such injuries raise the interesting question of how much natural immunity was built up in the lifetime of these early peoples? So what I have seen in my lifetime is the development of a broader based study of skeletons as representing populations. We are in fact getting closer to a population

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Figure 50. a) Ancient Nubian foot, showing massive changes and some bone fusion, due to ‘Madura foot’ (a mycotic infection); b) sites through which the infection spreads.

Figure 51. Surviving brain trauma? Nubian skull showing healed injuries, with left brow broken and pulled forwards to expose the brain (healed).

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biology of the past, with far more of a Darwinian emphasis. But there is still a long way to go. I am impressed by how little we still know about children, their growth, and what factors were influences on them in the past. How regular was food at this critical time, and how stressful were their lives? Perhaps my colleagues will not agree with me on what we are all in the end striving for from knowledge of secular or geographic changes in skeletal variation or patterns of disease, but can the end point be other than a better understanding of our whole microevolution, our adaptiveness to change, environmental and social? It is interesting to reflect that in 1866, T.H. Huxley, ‘Darwin’s bulldog’, published on prehistoric human remains from Caithness, at a time when he was also interested in Neanderthal remains from Europe (166). He clearly saw all this material as very relevant to a more comprehensive view of our evolution in all its aspects. His report was on individuals, but his concern was with the ‘Big Picture’. In the same way, the discovery of intestinal parasite eggs in the guts of the bog bodies Lindow and Grauballe man might seem trivial, but these finds support the view that parasitic nematode worms such as Trichuris and Ascaris were probably widespread during our evolution, and we are probably still adapting to them. Of Mice and Mammoths Many archaeological sites produce animal bones, usually in the form of food debris, but sometimes they are ritual offerings or pets or even traction beasts ready to draw a chariot in the next life. The domestication of a range of species has been one of the main concerns of zooarchaeologists for many decades, and although it has attracted the attention of zoologists as well as people such as myself, it has never been seen as a key area of biology. This has seemed to me a pity, as in the process of domestication, we see in some animals the acceleration of the microevolution of these species. So we see within the space of ten thousand years, the emergence of varieties of dogs from wolves, the transformation of skull form in pigs and horn core shape in goats. More recently, this research has extended into the field of ancient DNA studies, which is revealing variation which is not obvious from dry bones alone. My own interest in animal remains has meandered over a variety of species, and to some extent has been determined by the accidents of time and place. As a boy, discoveries of the remains of Bos primigenius and Pleistocene rhinoceros in the Trent gravel workings near my home, stimulated my interest in the local fauna roaming the neighbourhood over 10,000 years ago. Such young enthusiasm resulted in my parents having to tolerate the boiling up in their kitchen of mammal heads, smaller whole bodies, and other items for my first ‘comparative collection’. Travels in the Americas, especially Mexico and Peru during the 1960s and 1970s resulted in my particular attraction to New World dogs which came in varied forms (104). In this, I was encouraged by Dr. Aurelio Malaga of the Lima Veterinary School, a veterinary graduate of Edinburgh University, with an interest in developing

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Figure 52. Peruvian woman selling cooked guinea pigs as a snack food. Bus station, Peru. 1980.

Peruvian zooarchaeology as well as breeding dogs as close to ancient forms as he could make them (though whether their DNA was anywhere near similar is debatable). Jane Wheeler was another specialist in this field, whose important work stimulated my interests in South America. A much smaller animal than dogs also attracted my attention, as I couldn’t understand why, of all the mammals large and small in South America, the guinea pig was domesticated (73). Early New World societies have not been particularly interested in domesticating the wide range of species available to them. The peccary and capybara would have been excellent meat animals, but were ignored. So why pick on the guinea pig, which is still used as a snack food today (Figure 52)? My guess is that the relationship really began by the guinea pig exploiting humans, scavenging plant food waste near or even within the homesteads. They are easy to contain within a kitchen area, and they thus became a quick fall-back captive meal. It was also in the 1970s that the Near Eastern archaeologist James Mellaart handed me a series of very small bones from his site of Çatal Hüyük in Turkey. The bones were associated with human remains, but were certainly not young dog or cat bones. In fact, they were the bones of mice, genus Mus, and the fascinating question was what they were doing associated with human remains? Were these nesting animals who had died naturally? When I came to look closely at the bones and teeth, it was clear that there were at least 75 animals represented (69), a surprisingly large number to occur by accident. Another surprise was that not all bones of the skeleton are represented, with very few

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vertebrae, and these were mainly from the tail. Of the possible reasons for this bias in bones, I concluded that the bones remaining may have been left in decorative skins of the mice, which had been prepared for some form of ceremonial or ritual use. Chance also brought me face to face with another very small mammal, this time from the Scilly Isles. In the early 1980s, while on holiday in the islands, I chanced to walk along a beach and come across a coastal face with possible walling exposed. On closer inspection I saw shells and hundreds of small bones eroding out of the coastal deposit. Collecting what could be seen, and with my excitement raised but my holiday ruined, I took them back, washed and studied them. Only one small mammal occurs now in the islands, the Scillies shrew, but the bones were not that species. In fact they were the bones of the root vole, Microtus oeconomus, now restricted to parts of northern Europe, especially Scandinavia. So why were they in these western islands? Fairly certainly, I had stumbled across a relict population which had been left behind in the islands when sea level changes cut them off and their distribution shrank in Europe after the Ice Ages. Why don’t they live on in the Scilly Isles? Probably the increase in human groups, agricultural changes and the importation of dogs and cats brought an end to their existence in that area. Old UCL, Cambridge and York students come back into my life occasionally, and it is always a pleasure to re-establish contact and find out how life has been treating them. When Dr. Danielle Schreve approached me from the Royal Holloway College, I found myself moving into a very different world of research, that of the European mammoth. Danielle was aware of my interest in animal diseases and invited me to collaborate with her in the study of mammoth bone pathology from the site of Lynford in East Anglia. Little did I realise what a world of megapathology this was to open up to me. About a dozen animals are represented at this Neanderthal hunting site, and in this small number, there is a range of pathology. Congenital anomalies, trauma, joint disease and infection were found. In some cases of infection, the bone changes are considerable, suggesting to me that they could be old hunting injuries which became septic and eventually made the animal easier prey later to hunters. I presented this view at a conference on mammoths in South Dakota, but there was some resistance to the idea, some of my colleagues preferring to believe that the infection came from the animals fighting between themselves. But these were not alpha bulls and I still doubt this alternative explanation. While in the ‘Badlands’ of South Dakota, I was able to visit the mammoth site of Hot Springs, with mammoth skeletons presented in situ. What magnificent animals the large America mammoth species was, with pelvic bones the size of bicycles. From this initial intrusion into the world of mammoth disease, I have continued to research their pathology, some of the abnormalities presenting interesting questions in terms of aetiology. Why, for instance, do the neural spines of some mammoths display large holes? Could this be an undescribed adaptation related to the carriage of such a large, heavy head (109)? Surprisingly little has been written about the pathology of even living elephants and it is therefore a special challenge to understand the health of these giant mammals from the past.

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The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases The archaeology and antiquity of human diseases has occupied a peculiar position in relation to the history of medicine. Historians of the subject have viewed us suspiciously as our interests, except for cuneiform and hieroglyphic texts, are not concerned with early historical documents. The medical profession, who do not usually see diseases as biological phenomena, but linked to diagnosis, pills and hospitals, can be very snooty about palaeopathology and palaeoepidemiology. My own early days as a graduate were not made easy by these differences, and I particularly took a lot of flack from the late Calvin Wells, who I suspect wanted the field to himself. So it was something of a relief when in 1960, the Royal Anthropological Institute gave me the Curl Bequest Prize for a review of the evidence for diseases in early British populations (28). Over the years, it has been my good fortune and privilege to describe a wide range of conditions, and in some cases their prevalence, in past populations (26, 28, 30, 33, 37, 51, 62, 64, 71, 86, 88, 92, 102, 105, 107). It is not my intention to exhaust either myself or the reader in recalling the many hours of hard work involved in the publications, but a few comments are justifiable. Tumours were another disease group which I became interested in early on. Some medical textbooks had implied that these were diseases of advanced recent societies, but I doubted this. Looking through collections and earlier reports, it became clear that there was a surprising range of evidence for both benign and malignant tumours (42). Forty years later, I was invited to update this review, and in so doing I found far more evidence of tumours (107). Diagnosis is very far from easy of course, because often we are viewing the shadow or footprint of the impact 110

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

Figure 53. Evidence of a large soft tissue tumour in a Neolithic male from Slagslunde, Denmark. The nasal area shows much bone loss and remodelling. Courtesy Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.

of a soft tissue tumour on a bone (Figure 53). It is also important to realise that usually a precise tumour diagnosis is not possible. Tumours certainly go back into prehistory, and because life expectancy was much shorter in the past (most deaths being before 50 years), we are not seeing here all the tumours of old age, so common today. It may be that what we are recording archaeologically is evidence of changes though time of the prevalence of tumours in relation to younger age groups. Some conditions are notable by their absence, or near absence in the past, while others make an appearance in unusual ways. Since a teenager, I had been excavating for some years at the top of a quarry in Breedon-on-the-Hill, in Leicestershire. The skull of one child puzzled me as it was smaller than others of a comparable age, and round in appearance rather than long, and relatively narrow. There were also other anomalies, and I suspected a congenital disorder, but what? By good fortune, Professor Lionel Penrose, who had taught me human genetics, was also an expert .

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Figure 54. Facial leprosy in a Dark Age skeleton from the Scilly Isles. White pointers indicate bone loss in the nasal and upper incisor areas.

Figure 55. Small trephinations in a Bronze Age skull from Jericho. There is some healing.

on Down’s Syndrome, and when I showed him the skull, there was little hesitation in suggesting that this was a case of the syndrome (Figure 4). Before publication (26), a lot of data collection was needed, and I studied living Down’s children and, through Penrose, had access to X-rays of a number of cases, as well as obtaining more information from the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. Surprisingly, this Saxon case is the only well described early example so far, while the incidence in Europe today is 1 in 700, but significantly increases in women over the age of 35 years. As many thousands of skeletons have been excavated in Britain alone over the past half century, the question arises, are we missing cases of this syndrome or was it far less common in the past? Chance can certainly play a significant part in life, as when I began to consider the history of leprosy (22). It was by chance that cases of leprosy appeared in collections from Scarborough, Winchester, the Scilly Isles (Figure 54) and Cannington, which I had been working on for other reasons. I was also aware that histories of King Robert the Bruce of Scotland (1274-1329) mentioned that he suffered from leprosy, but without any recorded evidence. However, his skeleton was exposed, quickly examined, and reburied in 1819, but not until his skull was cast. Looking at the study of this cast by Karl Pearson, I was surprised to find that evidence of leprosy had

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

Figure 56. Probable healed amputations; a) Egyptian lower forearm, c. 2000 BC; b) lower forearm and foot, Tean, Isles of Scilly. Dark Age. (34, 37).

been literally staring us in the face. Although the cast is not perfect, it is clear that there is some recession of the margins to the nasal aperture, and the inferior nasal spine is missing. Also, more importantly, there is the loss of the upper incisors with remodelling of the alveolar bone which formed the sockets. In other words, this is a typical case of facies leprosa, indicative of well developed leprosy. Once or twice in my career, I have seen evidence of prehistoric medical practices brought to life by living tribal people. A particularly good example is trephining, which is probably indicative of misguided surgery rather than ritual hocus-pocus. While studying multiple small trephinations (Figure 55) in a Bronze Age skull from Jericho (216), I became acquainted with the experiences of Winifred Brooke in Bolivia in 1950, and of Roger Akester who saw a well healed case in Tibesti, Saharan Africa, and met the ‘witch doctor’ who performed the surgery. Later, I was to get to know Ted Margetts (190) who had direct experience of Kenyan ‘witch doctor’ trephining. To me what was most impressive was not the removal of pieces of skull, but the relative lack of pain and bleeding, the absolute crudeness of the surgical tools (penknife, nails) and the perfect healing. Would that have been so problem free in our own advanced hygienic society? Amputation of hands or feet has been found infrequently, and again healing is remarkably good (34, 37) (Figure 56). Bur in

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Figure 57. A medieval skull from York, displaying unique surgery along an extensive sword cut. Bone has been cut away, and the wound cleaned up, with partial healing.

my experience, the most surprising case was in a medieval individual from Jewbury in York, where the skull showed a large sword cut which had been surgically opened up, presumably to extract bone fragments on the brain (Figure 57). In search of syphilis As a young demonstrator in Cambridge in the late 50s, I had access to one of the best skeletal collections in Britain. One specimen which attracted my attention was a skull from the London burial site of Spitalfields. The woman had died with advanced venereal syphilis, but when in the past was not clear, although it was questioned as possibly Roman. Eventually I was able to get a radiocarbon date on bone from the skull, and sadly for me, it turned out to be post-Columbian. Why was this important? Because the history of the disease appeared to support the view that syphilis was a New World disease and it was brought to Europe by early European contacts. Few diseases have been so linked to questions of morality, hygiene and prostitution as venereal syphilis. But the biomedical situation is far more complex than this simply constructed history suggests. Fortunately at this time, I was to meet Dr. Cecil Hackett, a specialist in treponemal diseases, who was also interested

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

Figure 58. Post-medieval skull from London, showing advanced and extensive treponemal infection (probably venereal syphilis).

in its history. For my part, I was keen to find as much evidence for archaeological syphilis as possible, to see if it ‘fitted’ the New World hypothesis. But first it is important to realise that venereal syphilis is one of a group of four related clinical conditions, all referred to as treponematoses, because they all belong to the genus Treponema. One form, pinta, is little more than a skin condition, but the other three; yaws, endemic syphilis and venereal syphilis, can all be destructive of bone in a similar and characteristic way. All the early 15th-16th century references to what became known as the ‘Amboyne pimple’, ‘Swedish saltfluss’ and ‘French pox’ and so on, amount to very little of diagnostic value compared to specific bone changes. But the problem we faced, was how to explain the fact that there were three bone changing and related diseases. Hackett (154) established in at least the Old World, that yaws was generally adapted to hot humid climates and endemic syphilis to arid environments, and in both cases the infection developed in childhood. In contrast, venereal syphilis was mainly transmitted in adulthood by sexual activity (Figure 58). My chance to see far more archaeological evidence of some form or forms of treponemal disease came in 1966 and subsequent visits to the Americas. In the USA, I saw various collections where there were specimens with tell tale bone changes. There were a considerable number of cases in the National Museum of

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Anthropology in Mexico, and further cases in Peru. At that time, I was constantly concerned about the dating of specimens, and for a few sites, it was possible to arrange for radiocarbon dates, which clearly established some antiquity before Europeans arrived (59). Since then, many more dates have been produced. In contrast, it was extremely puzzling that there were very few probably pre-Columbian cases in Europe, the Near East or Egypt. I did not believe that treponemal disease came from the Americas, and there was clear evidence in the western pacific and in the Marianas Islands. Also, I had seen in a New York collection, clear evidence of treponematosis from the Marquesas Islands in the central pacific. History seems to play tricks with us at times, and in the last two or three decades far more cases of pre-Columbian treponematosis have turned up in Europe, and in Britain there have been cases from at least eight sites (105). I presume the reason for this is that far more early medieval cemeteries are being excavated, and the human remains studied. By the end of the 1970s I had started to ponder if the archaeological evidence for the treponematoses could be tentatively made into an evolutionary tree for the Treponema variants. The microbe was probably one species but with sub-species differences. It had adapted to different environments, hot and humid, and more arid. Pinta was only seen in Central America. The odd one out seemed to be venereal syphilis. An attempt at an evolutionary tree had been provided by Hackett (154), but it didn’t seem to fit the archaeological record of the disease group, and not altogether the geography. Hackett suggested that pinta was worldwide in the Palaeolithic, and gave rise to the other varieties, but it has only been known and described in Central America, and it looks far more like the ultimate evolutionary adaptation in the Americas. If a microbe is smart, it avoids destroying its host. Treponema is a warmth loving organism, but it seems reasonable that it needed to adapt separately to arid and hot humid environments, both assisted by poor hygiene. Infection commonly occurred in childhood, and it is here where there is most contrast with venereal syphilis. This latter condition is linked to sexual activity in adults, and is the most aggressive form, at times involving not only the bones, but circulatory system and brain. What puzzled me was that venereal syphilis, whether one considered the historic evidence or archaeological human remains, seemed to be generally late in Europe. After much pondering, it seemed to me that there was only one acceptable answer. Yaws and endemic syphilis had become established in Asia and parts of Africa in later prehistory, but increasing contacts into Europe by the Crusades, the Islamic expansions, and trade contacts could have resulted in these infections being shunted into northern Europe again and again. The Scottish ‘sibbens’ for instance, which appeared for a time and then disappeared, could have been one such intrusion of a treponematosis into northern Europe. At first the climate, societies and hygiene worked against treponeme survival, but adaptation and change is the ultimate evolutionary trick. So I have suggested (105, 71) that treponemal survival in our societies in the north had to adopt a sexual transmission strategy in order to survive (Figure 59). The good news is that children were freed from being the early reservoir of infection. Perhaps in the same time

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

Figure 59. Suggested evolutionary tree for the pathogenic treponemes, in relation to time and geography.

range, pinta appeared in the Central Americas, perhaps linked to the more advanced cultures and densely populated regions of Mexico, Guatemala and Peru. Perhaps DNA analyses will eventually resolve these questions, but it is too late to include most living societies, as antibiotics have eliminated most of the evidence in regional populations. Epidemiology and our past The pattern of diseases affecting human populations has not been static over the millennia. Environmental and biocultural changes contributed to fluctuations in the disease loads of tribal band societies, and later larger urban groups. But, as yet, we know little for sure about these interesting patterns of change, but studies on the disease evidence in skeletons provides us with a good base from which to speculate on the epidemiology of diseases (260). There are interesting theoretical issues for consideration here. What were the truly human diseases evolving within the higher primates? What parasites have we picked up along the way from other species? These zoonoses may especially have been associated with the increase in hunting as perhaps exemplified by tuberculosis in Bos and Bison. Richard Fiennes (142) has argued on reasonable evidence, that measles and rinderpest have evolved

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in humans and cattle by mutations in the distemper virus of dogs, derived from wolves. Moreover, the epidemic nature of measles, means that its survival in a community demands a population size of around 3,000, suggesting its emergence in the Neolithic, with bigger urban groups. There is certainly considerable scope for considering the impact of these diseases over time, including the development of equipment and hospitals, as well as Assyrian medical texts and Egyptian medical papyri. Occasionally, the apparent extinction of the neanderthalers is attributed to a ‘new’ infection, and this theory does demand general consideration. Cholera did not spread outside Asia until after 1817, and Aidan Cockburn (124) views it as a very new enteric infection in humans. What others have had variable antiquity, and perhaps caused the extinction of communities on the way, as exemplified by smallpox and measles in post-Columbian America? Archaeology remains naïve when it comes to broadly discussing the rise and fall of societies, with epidemiological factors being all too often ignored. Yet the highly destructive flu pandemic of 1919 clearly establishes the need to see infection as a primary influence on human communities, with many millions dead and societies traumatised. My mother was not touched by it, yet her sister, Hilda, living in the same house, was close to death. By the mid-1980s I had become interested in trying to combine the teaching of the related subjects of palaeopathology and the ancient history of disease. These had remained separate over many years, and whereas palaeopathology mainly relied on the evidence of disease in bones, the ancient history component was concerned with ancient texts, usually of post-Roman date. With the support of The Wellcome Trust, my MSc in the Archaeology and Ancient History of Disease began in 1989-1990, running biennially, with a review of its progress after five years. Eleven students attended these early years, all graduating successfully. In terms of their backgrounds, the graduates included a dentist, a pre-medical anatomist, an Egyptologist, and a Peruvian archaeologist. Although I failed to keep in touch with them all, I know that some have survived well, and indeed Dr. Piers Mitchell is now a leading figure in British palaeopathology. Because London is a special focus for academic visitors to Britain, I was fortunately able to draw in to teach twenty-six colleagues from twelve academic institutions, including the British Museum and the University of Arkansas. Sadly, I lost contact with the progress of this unique course on my departure from London. Food and Health in the Past My enthusiasm to write a readable review on the history of food use with my first wife Patricia was because there seemed little at the time on world foods in the past. Yet food interests us all, and there was a growing literature particularly on the domestication of plants and animals. In contrast, literary sources from the classical world tended to be established and generally unchanging. Apicius was still a good beginning on the Romans, and then there was the work of the dashing, flamboyant

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

and talented master chef Alexis Soyer, who in 1853 produced his ‘Pantropheon’. This is a Mrs Beeton of the classical world with knobs on. Not to be relied on, but a pleasure to read. Researching the book was a significant learning curve, and at some point I talked to Glyn Daniel about the possibility of putting it in the Thames and Hudson ‘Peoples and Places’ series. He agreed, and it appeared in 1969. While it was seen as introductory, I still think that it was one of the broadest food reviews for the past, had a German edition, and was updated with an additional section in 1998 for an American edition. Today I feel sorry that I didn’t give more time to developing this theme, both for archaeology and the general public with an interest in food and the past. My friend, the late Jane Grigson, kept it as a reference work, and other food writers have also seen the attraction of looking back to earlier times. It is impossible to consider food in antiquity without some personal experimenting. But I confess that liquamen, the strained off liquid from the salteddown entrails of fish, was beyond my courage. However, the wide variety of edible wild mushrooms were a considerable challenge to find, cook and eat. The Surrey landscape where I then lived provided a wealth of species which were hunted down by the whole family, the children being well warned about the poisonous ones. My favourites became some of the Boletus group, fleshy, tasty, and sometimes growing to enormous size. Taste in food is extremely variable in the world, and the foetid smell of ripe durian fruit is acceptable in eastern Asia, but not to the European palate. Few of us in Europe would sit down to a plate of witchetty grubs or silkworm pupae, but they are good nutritional value for some groups. And if Assyrian art is an indicator of foods eaten, then locusts-on-a-stick could have been a high calorie, if periodic, food source (Figure 60). This invertebrate world could have supplied a regular source of fat and protein to the early hominins, yet it seems to be rarely considered. Modern ethnographic evidence clearly shows that we have been extremely versatile in exploring every possible nutrient we can lay our hands on. We are indeed omnivores par excellence. But as societies became more complex, social factors began to influence what foods were eaten. Food taboos have not yet been explored in any great detail, and this includes possible species bias in faunal analyses. And are there good adaptive reasons why some food taboos have evolved? For instance, was pig meat excluded because there was visible evidence of tapeworm and its potential damage to meat? Religious attitudes to food can take various forms, and I confess that these have never particularly interested me. Early Indian writings in the Upanishads (230) state that purity of thought depends on the purity of the foods eaten. The quality of food during pregnancy and childhood were also viewed as critical, a philosophy which needs to be heeded in these times of food abuse and rising child obesity. The Bhagavad-Gita also states that the quality and types of food impacts on the state of mind, virtuous, passionate, calm and contented. But however one views possible relationships between food and mind, I have always found light meals, plant-based, and free of ‘stodge’ and high fat content, gives me a better feeling of alertness and general well being.

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Since ‘Food in Antiquity’ was first published, various papers and a number of books have appeared. In 1979, ‘Paleonutrition’ (270) particularly considered bone remains, calorie needs, the nutrients in food, plants, agriculture and seasonality. The emphasis was clearly different to what I’d had in mind, and there has been a further change of emphasis with the advent of isotope analyses in relation to diet. But here, we see only broad categories of foods consumed, marine versus land animal resources, C3 versus C4 plants, not specifically fish and chips or roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Also, in the detailed studies on the Iceman, DNA analysis was employed to detect a last meal consisting of red deer meat and probably cereals, residues in his colon (235). Figure 60. Assyrian art evidence of locusts being used So a prehistoric ‘diet’ is as food. basically the selection of food normally eaten by a group, possibly fluctuating through the seasons. This may not be ideal, and could result in vitamin deficiency, anaemia or other health problems. In the case of the Pleistocene Rhodesian skull with multiple caries cavities in the teeth, it could be indicating the seasonal exploitation of honey (271). Nutrition is defined as the process of nourishing, by the intake and assimilation of nutrient materials, which is not strictly what we consciously do. Food and drink to each of us, is to satisfy hunger and thirst, but as importantly to give pleasure by taste and smell. Fire and cooking liberated food tastes and smells as never before, and probably the addition of salt at least by the Neolithic, again extended the pleasure of eating a range of foods. In my travels over the years, I have become increasingly conscious that we take many substances into the mouth, perhaps even viewed as food, which are in fact not a part of nutrition. The extreme is seen in geophagy, earth eating, reported in

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

various parts of the world. It seems to affect pregnant women in particular, and those with intestinal worms. Other than some form of mental relief, it seems to have little nutritional value. My own brief taking of coca leaf in South America and of Qat in Yemen, produced no mental changes, but clearly does in those regularly using these leaves. Were these plants initially taken as food, or have we experimented over the millennia to see what other reactions come from potential foods/drugs? This is a fruitful area for future potential research, together with other substances with mind-changing effects. Food and drinks can also result in health problems and these can leave their mark on bones. This question has long interested me, and I confess that I have probably misidentified Vitamin C deficiency (scurvy) on more than one occasion. This condition has at last been described in good detail, and I now realise that what I have described as a ‘nutritional crisis’ in two Bronze Age children from different sites in southern England, was probably scurvy. There are now reports of rickets

Figure 61. Neolithic figurines showing obese individuals. Was fatness the new aesthetic? Mother goddesses my foot!

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and anaemia, but no certain cases of osteolathyrism, or hyperfluorosis (overeating certain legumes or drinking water with toxic levels of fluorine). Health could also be affected by eating food contaminated by botulism, which killed my maternal grandmother, or by Salmonella. Salting, drying and smoking foods were already known as preservation techniques in early Egypt, and their antiquity could be far earlier. A much more recent and ominous practice was probably that of food adulteration. This could be accidental, as when grinding stone dust or insects, were accidentally incorporated into food. Ergotism, ‘St Anthony’s Fire’ was presumably also accidental, although by medieval times at least, the toxic properties of ergot were known. In the last few centuries, food contaminants have included chalk in flour and sulphuric acid in alcoholic drinks, such is the malevolent nature of our species. Today I am concerned about the potential obesity of my great or great-great grandchildren. Food has become an instant satisfier and de-stressor in our fast hurdy-gurdy world. Food has become an instant pacifier of us all, yet for most of our prehistory it was simply a constant basic need, to fill the stomach and avoid feelings of hunger. My children have never been truly hungry, an experience still outrageously prevalent in this rich world of ours. Admittedly, there appears to be nothing new in this, and even Palaeolithic figurines provide evidence of both skinny and obese individuals. Indeed, the figurines (Figure 61) from the Neolithic strongly suggest that very plump ladies were admired for their expanded proportions, but could also indicate the beginnings of type 2 diabetes in the ancient world. Animal Health and Husbandry Because it seemed to me to be an important but neglected aspect of zooarchaeology, I prepared a short note for the first edition of ‘Science in Archaeology’ on the palaeopathology of mammals (32). It did not occur to me at the time that this subject would eventually take off as a well defined and recognised discipline within zooarchaeology, but it is a pleasure to see that it has. Descriptions of disease evidence in animal bones have appeared over many years, but without giving such evidence the significance it deserved. Perhaps for that reason, I collaborated with my friend John Baker, a senior veterinary pathologist in the University of Liverpool, in producing a book on the subject, as a more direct way of indicating to the archaeological community the importance of such data. We also outlined the range of diseases which could be found in animal bones (5). Inevitably, the book had some bias towards domestic mammals, but I have since tried to indicate that bird bones can also show a range of pathology (83). During the past few years, the International Council for Archaeozoology has formed a working group for animal palaeopathology, which has now met a number of times and published their proceedings. Clearly the subject is now well known and has a future. My hope now is that the division between human disease studies and those for other vertebrates will be removed, and there will be more interaction and discussion leading to a

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

comparative palaeopathology. Patterns of disease are not simply the same between species, as seen for instance in joint conditions. Why? Some anomalies such as noncarious erosions of teeth may more easily be investigated in non-human species. Finally, there is the question of disease in relation to husbandry standards in the past. I was especially aware of this in considering the pathology of Iron Age material from Danebury, kindly made available to me by Annie Grant and Barry Cunliffe (87). Of the 276 cases of special pathology I was able to study in detail, there was a surprising variety of abnormality, which made me wonder if social factors were concentrating these cases in some way. Normally, would one expect cases of severe congenital abnormality, severe and unusually placed fractures, advanced osteomyelitis, and much more, to turn up in a single hill fort? Was this community acting as a kind of veterinary centre for the surrounding area? We are unlikely to ever know. But what is indicated by the facts is that when the overall pathology is

Figure 62. The spread of viral condition avian osteopetrosis in England (seen as swollen bones). It appears in Roman times and later spreads out.

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separated by phases and period, the later phases have far more disease evidence. Factors of sample size and age-group composition need to be kept in mind, but the contrasts in trauma prevalence made me wonder if standards of husbandry had seriously declined in the later life of the hill fort. The alternative is indeed that a ‘veterinary’ wise man lived at the hill fort, and animals were brought to him for treatment. This may seem a little over-imaginative, but animal health, like that of human health, has certainly demanded the development of special knowledge, which must have a very long history. The Kahun veterinary papyrus was written possibly by 1800 BC, and there was certainly Roman veterinary expertise. One condition which attracted my attention was avian osteopetrosis, because it seemed to offer an opportunity to construct a palaeoepidemiology of the disease through time. Most disease evidence in bone is caused by bacteria, but this condition is caused by viruses of the avian leucosis group. When chickens are chronically affected, the long bones in particular become swollen in a very characteristic way, and can be easily identified (Figure 62). The disease probably moved into Britain with imported chickens in Roman times, and I searched sites where it had been noted. Although more data are needed and the picture is tentative, I was delighted to see that the Roman cases were clustered in the East Anglian area, but the postRoman cases were as far south as Hampshire, and had extended north to Yorkshire (100), suggesting a gradual spread over time. Chicken pathology can also be an indication of domestication and the early differentiation of varieties. Darwin was already aware that some types of crested fowl, such as Polish, Silkies and Houdans, also show enlarged skull vaults; in fact the brain can expand and cause skull thinning. This so-called ‘cerebral hernia’ is under gene control, but is incompletely dominant. Looking through the thousands of chicken bones from the Roman site of Uley in Somerset, a very fine example of this pathology turned up (Figure 63). Was this a new mutant gene just making its appearance, or does it show that varieties of chicken were becoming differentiated by the 4th century AD? Time, and more specimens, will tell. Abnormality in the form of dental malocclusion occurs with the domestication of some varieties of dog, being particularly linked to snout reduction. It occurred to me that this was something which could be recorded more precisely by measuring the angular relationships of the teeth (80), as well as by the mesiodistal overlapping. So far the method has attracted little application, but again, time will tell. A very puzzling anomaly, which still occupies my thoughts at times, is seen on the back of cattle skulls. Inward perforations extending into the sinus system have now been noted in various collections, including at Lincoln and Southampton. In view of the number of cases now known, tumours, parasites and infection seem an unlikely cause. Veterinary literature seems to ignore the condition. Because cranial board deformation of the human skull can cause major but local bone remodelling, I wondered if the pressure of wooden yokes on the back of the head in oxen would result in such changes (89). My colleagues in this study also wondered if it could be congenital thinning. A definitive answer now rests on the eventual

The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases

Figure 63. Chicken skulls; a) with cerebral hernia; b) normal (Darwin’s pictures); c,d,e) normal Roman skull; f,g,h) Roman case of pathology.

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study of far greater samples in the future. Clearly there is a growing amount of animal pathology, and it is at last receiving the attention it deserves. Two issues can be raised as much for humans as other species, and they certainly deserve further research in the future. One is concerned with the world variation in environmental iodine. This is essential for growth, and I remember as a boy in the Midlands being told of ‘Derbyshire neck’, indicative of a shortage of iodine and the expansion of the thyroid glands in the neck as a compensatory reaction. If the severe form of hypothyroidism, called cretinism, doesn’t occur, growth in the young may still be stunted, including the bones both in humans and livestock. My grumble (98) has been that while measurement of ancient skeletal remains is part of the established methodology of considering domestication and human variation in the past, no consideration is given to the iodine status of the environment, even though some parts of the world are severely affected. Finally, as regards animal health in relation to human health, I have been concerned to raise debate on the question of zoonoses, infectious diseases which are capable of shunting from one species to another, including humans (81). The close contact between early farmers and their domesticates probably greatly increased the chances of zoonotic relationships. Bovine tuberculosis easily moves to humans, but there are a variety of microbes and larger parasites which can cross over. Indeed, it is likely that leprosy and treponemal disease began as zoonoses. To me, this is an important part of theoretical archaeology, but a part which is rarely discussed as such. In looking on over the years at the development of so-called ‘theory’ in archaeology, I have been impressed by how much woolly thinking there has been, and how little scientific discipline there has been behind some propositions. No wonder the consequences of iodine deficiency and the zoonoses have never been seen as worthy topics for research.

Chapter 11

Peoples and Places Because of my broad interests, particularly in the field of bioarchaeology, I have been fortunate to travel extensively to sites and museum collections. In Europe, Paris and Bruxelles provided original Neanderthal material to support research on this fossil group. Copenhagen and Dublin opened up the backrooms of the National Museums and gave me access to the Huldremose lady and other bog bodies. The Institute of Anatomy of the University of Innsbruck kindly gave me access to the Iceman. Major collections in other cities in Denmark, France and Switzerland provided a range of variable Neolithic and other skeletal material. Kind access was provided to Egyptian mummy material in Turin and Washington. Pertinent animal bones were shown me for study in Stockholm, Mexico and Lima, as well as London and Cambridge. There is no further value in expanding on the visits many of us make to collections in relation to particular lines of research. We depend on collaboration of this kind, meet colleagues, and often have fruitful research meetings as a result. However, where travel may have special educational value is in broadening ones understanding of other societies and their environments, and for this reason, I have produced a number of sketches of places which I have found particularly interesting and distinctive. They mainly represent parts of the planet which contrast with the region I live in, with histories and prehistories very different to the round barrows, Roman buildings and Saxon churches which are common in the landscape of my birth. This land of Robin Hood was a cultural backwater in comparison to the ancient dynasties of Egypt or the people in China who painted Neolithic ceramics and eventually made the terracotta army of the First Emperor. So my concern here is to give a brief personal impression of some of the communities I have visited over the years, especially beyond Europe, which I believe 127

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have helped me to form a better perspective of the world in general, at a time when I have feared that my own society was drowning in its own hedonism. But I will start with three areas close to home, which have been significant for me. The Viking Experience In 1967, I was contacted by Professor Sam Berry about skeletons washing out of the coast in Deerness, the eastern part of the mainland of Orkney. He implied that they would be easy digging, and would provide a sample of Norse skeletal material from the Northern Isles for study. In fact the burials were in a thick marl, and after rain, turned into a sticky mud, and our trenches into a scene from the First World War. Permission to excavate was given by the owner, Arthur Delday, a small remarkably strong man with a surname which the books informed me was extinct! My team consisted mainly of York University students from various departments and additional volunteers, including Daphne Lorimer MBE, who was to go on to contribute significantly to the development of archaeology in the islands. Excavations began in 1968, and it rapidly became clear that we were not simply in an ancient cemetery, but that a chapel and at least one souterrrain was on site (Figures 64-65). This was all revealed over the next four years, and at times during stormy weather. Orkney winds can be ferocious and we resorted to large plastic tarpaulins weighed down with stones. Over two hundred and fifty bodies were located, and the foundations of much of the chapel. Radiocarbon dates suggest that the cemetery was mainly in use around 1400 to 900 BP. Studies on these people so far reveal a robust early Christian island population who probably brought leprosy from Scandinavia into the north of Britain. There is evidence that the disease had also moved into the south of England, suggesting a pincer movement of this condition during the first millennium AD. While excavating, I got to know many of the local Orcadians, who were extremely friendly and helpful. How they contrasted with the island folk of the Outer Hebrides, whom I met on another excavation project on the island of Ensay, and who had a more reserved, if not suspicious, attitude to our intrusive archaeology. On Ensay, we arrived on the uninhabited island in 1967 to find skeletons being exposed from sand by the wind and trodden by cattle, with no action from the Hebridean authorities to collect and save the bones. Yet we eventually realised that there was feeling against us for coming in and respectfully collecting the material for study. But to return to Orkney, because of the friendly nature of the population, and my general interest in the biological nature of living Orkney islanders, I was fortunate in getting the collaboration of Anthony Boyce and Veronica Holdsworth, human biologists with an interest in serological, demographic and dermatoglyphic variation. Our main research question was how distinctive and Scandinavian were the people of Orkney, considering the influence of Viking settlement prior to the annexing of the islands to the Scottish crown in 1471. We began to collect data in 1970, and from different parts of the islands, biological information was collected

Peoples and Places

Figure 64. Newark Bay, Orkney; outline (black) of Norse chapel, with later post-medieval ruins.

Figure 65. Newark Bay, Okney; plan and section of a souterrain at the chapel site.

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on 820 individuals. Although the Orcadians were to some extent distinctive, there was also evidence of some heterogeneity within the islands, which needs further evaluation (20). Other studies have supported the view that we can’t simply look for similarities or differences from the Scandinavians, because we are dealing with island people extending over 5000 years, and it is as yet impossible to show what genetic contributions pre-Viking or post-1471 people could have made to the current population. For the present, we are left knowing that there were some distinct features, but also some internal island variation which might have been derived from more than one time in their history (74). It could be said that their island variation is even shown in the different frequencies of surnames in the different island cemeteries of the past two centuries (49). A final comment on my Orkney interests. For many years I was puzzled by the skull of Saint Magnus. It became briefly available for study in 1925, and Professor R.W. Reid undertook a detailed examination of it. According to the Orkneyinga Saga, Magnus was struck twice on the head with an axe, and indeed the skull shows two cuts. The problem is that the position of the cuts does not fit the historic record that the executioner stood in front of Magnus. The relatively short and straight cut at the back of the head on the right parietal does not appear to be delivered from the front. The other damage is to the right parietal, the damage being obscured by post-mortem erosion. If this is indeed Saint Magnus, his executioner was not directing blows to the front of his head, or Magnus had turned to escape. Such are the problems and inaccuracies of history! The Siege of Avebury In 1980, we moved to Avebury to a cottage next door to Avebury Manor. My links to Avebury went back to the 1960s, when I was invited by the prehistorian Isobel Smith to work on the prehistoric human remains found in the Avebury area. In those days toilets in such cottages still consisted of a wooden seat over a large handled bucket for the ‘night soil’, which was duly buried in the garden. Piped water was then available, but it was sobering to see that the old garden well was no great distance from the domestic burials! Before moving in, we had experienced some building difficulties and delays. Heather and I had been in Ecuador and Peru, and had been informed by the solicitors arranging the cottage purchase that the wall had fallen down. I assumed that the damage was to the garden wall, so I instructed the solicitors to continue with the purchase. It was therefore something of a surprise to arrive back from South America to find that in fact the front of the cottage had collapsed. Some old Wiltshire cottages were constructed of sarsen stones held together with chalk ‘cob’. These building materials are fine when dry, but leaky guttering had soaked down into the walls, and frost action had done the rest. The result was catastrophic, but the rebuild resulted in a far more secure place to live. The Avebury region is one of the most important prehistoric landscapes in Britain, and this has been recognised by its elevation to World Heritage status.

Peoples and Places

The monuments in the immediate vicinity include the Avebury stone circle and surrounding massive ditches, West Kennet long barrow, the mysterious Silbury Hill, The Sanctuary, and Windmill Hill. As a result of excavations at West Kennet farm, it became clear that there was also a major circular structure below the farm. Additional barrows of both Neolithic and Bronze Age date were also sprinkled about the landscape. It was into this unique area that developers began to move, with an eye to tourist profits. Peace in the sleepy village of Avebury was to be disturbed for some time, and unexpectedly social divisions within the local community were sadly to be revealed. Although a staunch socialist, I was to find myself at this time applauding the wise actions of a conservative minister to turn down various development proposals. The siege began at a somewhat rundown transport café, across the road from the Sanctuary, presumably a ritual or tribal centre linked to Avebury by a stone lined processual way, West Kennet Avenue. What was revealed by excavation was a series of post- and stone-holes, now marked by concrete fixtures. Although not the most inspiring site, the original concentric rings probably represent phases of building, started in the late Neolithic, and finally reaching a construction 66 feet in diameter. The first proposal for development was therefore directly across the road, with the transport café being replaced by a hotel, to be built like a prehistoric house complex. As an architectural project, the design looked interesting, but where it was to be built was totally wrong. Not only did most Avebury villagers feel negatively about it, but various national organisations also protested. Locally, a pressure group ‘Avebury in Danger’ was formed, including myself, and had considerable support. This resulted in the first of the public enquiries, and in order to be legally represented, our pressure group needed to raise funding. This came from major and minor gifts, an auction of promises, and even the local school children, dressed up as prehistoric people, went collecting in Malborough. But the college kept its distance, and so did the archaeological community in general, much to their shame. We were particularly nervous about the outcome of this first public enquiry, as the acceptance of development could have opened up the floodgates to other such enterprises locally or at other important archaeological localities. We were somewhat reassured by the fact that the National Trust and Council for the Protection of Rural England were equally against this project, and in the end the application was turned down by the Secretary of State for the Environment in April 1989. The next hotel proposal was at the site of West Kennet farm, and an exploratory excavation at the site by the developers raised an interesting issue, and to me condemned them to failure. In fact they found part of a huge prehistoric circular palisaded enclosure under the farm, confirming the richness of the archaeology in the Avebury area. Admittedly, during their hotel development it would have been possible to put down a concrete raft over any prehistoric structures, but the immediate buried environment would have been radically changed. Again, Avebury in Danger and other groups raised objections, and again much to our relief the application was turned down.

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Figure 66. Unexpected Avebury ‘art’ in the form of vandalised stones, together with English Heritage covers.

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By this time, the final menace had appeared on the scene, and the nature of this final problem was somewhat different. The old manor and grounds were to be converted into an Elizabethan experience. Not only would this theme park be intimately associated with the village and prehistoric monument, but the application included demolition of outbuildings (including an icehouse, not mentioned), the erection of craft workshops and greenhouse, a large garage for ten vintage cars, a new building for the estate office and manager’s flat, and a new car and coach park. This was clearly not just the restoration of a Grade 1 Listed Building, as claimed in the planning applications. Indeed, it was likely that the exhibition of torture equipment, a new garden centre, craft workshops, motor museum, falconry, an adventure playground and other ‘attractions’ would change the character of the whole village. In the right setting, well beyond Avebury, there would have been no objections, but placed in a World Heritage site linked to unique prehistory, it seemed to us intolerable. The 1971 Town and Country Planning Act stated that the criterion for granting a planning application in a designated conservation area should be the positive ‘preservation or enhancement’ of the environment. What was planned for Avebury Manor would far from achieve any such thing. Sadly what followed was that Mr. King, the proprietor, began to carry out the changes without waiting for a ruling, a move which led to his eventual ejection from the manor, and I believe his bankruptcy. The story is not quite at an end. While the first public enquiry seemed to unite the Avebury community, the Avebury Manor affair sadly split us into two groups. Although a few jobs would have been created, Mr. King led some locals to believe that there would be plenty of jobs. The result was a growing bitterness on the part of some that our antagonism to these developments was uncaring in terms of job needs. At a personal level, I was as concerned as any to see such small rural communities able to get jobs, but these Avebury enterprises were not the answer. How strong the local feelings got was exemplified by a brick which came through our cottage window one evening. At that moment it was very clear that for all our efforts to protect Avebury, we had at the same time angered and frustrated a significant number. It was a moment of sadness for me, and I realised that the overall friendly atmosphere which I and my family had previously enjoyed, had now changed for ever. While centuries earlier, some of the standing stones of Avebury were broken up for building stone, a new kind of vandalism occurred before we left to move to York. One morning, we were to find that in the night a number of stones had been covered in painted symbols. Outrageous as the act was, I confess that the result was aesthetically interesting! However, they were soon restored to normality (Figure 66). Fromelles, France As part of our York research, funded by the European Research Council, to investigate the soil in close association with human burials of contrasting environments and periods, I gained permission to sample two mass graves from the First World War. These were constructed by the Germans to clear away the dead who had fallen near their trenches.

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Looking down at the tumbled corpses of the young Australian and British men revealed by the excavation, it was difficult not to think of all the life histories represented in the mass graves; all the hopes, family anxieties, and yes, all the fear and courage as they went ‘over the top’. Little did they know anything of the moronic machinations of Queen Victoria’s brood at the very heart of the war, of the innocent jingoism, of the military naivety and ignorance of what was to follow. It was absolutely correct that the War Graves Commission should attempt to identify the individuals and provide separate graves for each one, and it was also excellent that they could be submitted to a full forensic investigation. What to me was less acceptable was the way the work became politicised by visiting dignitaries. The only gesture that seemed appropriate to me would have been the burning of effigies of Haig and the Kaiser at the opening of this new cemetery for these courageous but wasted lives. The ultimate resolution of war has always demanded just one thing; that each of us refuses to fight and kill, and to resolve conflict non-violently. So simple, yet so difficult for our defective species. During July 2013, there was a ceremony of the dedication of the new headstones at Pheasant Wood Military Cemetery, Fromelles. Identifications then involved 124 of the 250 soldiers recovered, and amounted to excellent collaboration between the War Graves authorities, forensic archaeologists, DNA specialists, and relatives of the soldiers who had died. Samples which I had collected were briefly reported on in the thorough study of the recovered skeletons by Oxford Archaeology (184), with the intention of a detailed analysis by us later. On my visit, the site was in heavy clay, which was black, sticky and pungent. The bodies which had fallen by the German lines had been interred in a series of pits. While the monograph shows the range of body postures, which were crowded in ‘sardine fashion’, for some reason I found one or two oddly moving. In one instance, the young soldier was lying face down, but with his extended arm across the shoulders of the next man to his right, as if in a deathly act of comradeship. Although only two hundred and fifty bodies of Australian and British origin were excavated on this occasion, between July 19th and 20th, 1916, there were seven thousand casualties, with two thousand five hundred fatalities. And this was simply viewed by the military planners as a diversionary move to stop the Germans moving men to the Somme. Some months later, and some miles north of Fromelles, William and Dexter Brothwell, both in their early twenties and serving in the Sherwood Foresters, were to have their lives similarly terminated. Fromelles today is a modern prosperous town, but the photographs of it in 1916 show it in total ruins. The recent excavations and studies are an excellent example of how forensic digs of this kind can help to recreate details of a little known past. Entering the Islamic World During the 1970s, I was able to study human skeletons at the site of Sarachane, in Istanbul. The burials were from the church of St. Polyeuktos, which had

Peoples and Places

Figure 67. Map of western Yemen, and the area indicated by a rectangle which may yield more leather covered bodies (an example is figured).

collapsed by AD 1204, with Turkish houses and a mosque being superimposed over the remaining Byzantine structures. My report on the humans (75) was very far from earth shattering, but raised in my mind for the first time, the question of the intrusion of a treponemal disease (venereal or endemic syphilis) into Europe by medieval times. I consider this fascinating question in another chapter, and there is no doubt that this is one of the most misdiagnosed and indeed misrepresented disease groups in medical history. Istanbul provides a gentle introduction to the impact of Islam, and the architectural beauty of the principal mosques is evidence of the inspiration and devotion of Islam as it expanded into Europe. Turkey is indeed a tolerant bridge between Christendom and the coarser presentations of the Islamic world. There is a very different religious and social ‘atmosphere’ in Yemen, for instance. Politics in this Arabian country is still linked to tribalism, with Islam superimposed, or locked on to the political scene. In Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, I confess that my sleep was more disturbed by the loud electronic calls of the faithful to prayer, than I have ever experienced elsewhere. My journey on this occasion, in May, 2002, was to join the team of Dr. Howard Read to examine ancient dried human bodies located in the field or preserved in Sana’a University museum. Little has been written about these dried bodies, some of which are totally wrapped in skins (Figure 67). Radiocarbon dates now reveal that the bodies were preserved for insertion into crevices sometimes

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high in cliff faces, between about 1200 BC and 300 BC. In terms of Yemeni cultural phases, this would place their societies between South Arabian protohistory and the periods of the Kings of Saba, equivalent in Egypt to the sequence from the New Kingdom to the Ptolemies. In the field, human remains were located in the Al Mahwit and Kawkaban regions, but were poorly preserved. However, the ten bodies in the Sana’a University museum looked promising, and I duly arranged with the museum authorities to take them, one at a time, to the CT scan unit in Sana’a main hospital. At the last minute, for reasons never explained to us, only one body was permitted to be taken for scanning (and that turned out to have an extra limb within the skins enclosing it). Nevertheless, the project established that Yemen had distinctive burial traditions worthy of further investigation in the future. Personally, I remain intrigued by the question of how these Iron Age people managed to hoist the dead weight of a body up a cliff and insert into a crevice in the rock face. Long ladders (or ropes from the cliff top) would have been needed at the very least. Members of our team similarly came down on ropes to explore; not an easy task. Yemen is a rugged and beautiful country, and one harvest well in evidence are the bushes growing good quality Qat leaves. Like vineyards, the plants flow over an undulating countryside, protected by the ever present kalashnikof. Qat (or Khat) has been investigated by the Home Office, as it is chewed by a variety of people, especially from East Africa to the Middle East. Chewed as wads of green leaves, it seems to have a calming but alerting effect. Although now banned in Britain, it does have two main active ingredients (cathine and cathinone), which are Class C substances. At one lunch with local Yemenis, I was offered qat, and thought it impolite to decline it. All was well until I swallowed it by mistake, instead of taking out the wad of chewed leaves. Within an hour or so, I felt distinctly ill, my heart fluttering as if it planned to give up on me. The leaf was avoided after that. The question remains as to what is the antiquity of the use of this plant. The Yemeni mummies would be a good sample to start investigating from this point of view, but the current political climate is not ideal. Although I had worked on ancient Egyptian remains by 1960, and had published on them over the years, I did not visit the country until 2003, when I joined a team, financed by a TV group, to investigate the possible discovery of Queen Nefertiti, whose beautiful bust in the Berlin Museum was famous throughout the world. An additional pleasure was to test out a new piece of advanced and portable digital X-ray equipment (Figure 68). Dr. Joann Fletcher, my Egyptological colleague, had been piecing together the evidence for some time of the possible resting place of the mummy of Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, the mystical pharaoh (1372-1354 BC) who founded Amarna. Joann suspected that the queen was walled up in a side chamber of KV35, the tomb of Amenhotep II, in the Valley of the Kings. Permission was given by the Supreme Council of Antiquities to enter the side chamber, and even in the heat of this deep tomb, it was exciting to look into the side chamber and in the dim light to see three mummies lying there; two females and a boy. In fact, they had been quickly examined and described in 1907 by Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, but

Peoples and Places

Figure 68. Viewing the results of digital X-ray imaging in tomb KV35, of the three bodies in the side chamber. Valley of the Kings, Egypt.

now we had another chance to consider them in detail. It was concluded that the older woman could indeed be Queen Tiy, and the boy her son, Tuthmosis. Finally, it was argued that the younger woman was Nefertiti. Looking at her X-rays, I was not altogether convinced that her age fitted perfectly the age at death of Nefertiti, but age estimates can only be approximate, and there is much variation within a population. One thing was certain, and that was that her body, and that of the boy, had been hacked into, either by a near contemporary who disliked her, or later a tomb robber. When we later carried out some experimental hacking of fresh and dried pigs, unwrapped and linen wrapped bodies, it appeared that the cuts must have been into the body before it was prepared as a mummy (Figure 69). So in life she was beautiful and worshipped, but after death, like Eva Peron, she was certainly not revered by some. Following the publicity and showing of the TV programme, Dr. Zahi Hawass of the Supreme Council appeared to be offended by it, and I returned to Cairo on a sort of peace mission to talk with him. He gave the impression that this was not of importance to him, but some years later in a TV programme around his own interests in DNA and the pharaohs, he slipped in his own view that the walled up young woman in KV35 could perhaps be Nefertiti. Following the ‘Arab Spring’ and the change in Egypt, it will be interesting to see if the restrictions on

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Figure 69. Experiments with pigs; a) Cecilly Spall undertaking tattoo experiments of a kind potentially available to the ‘Iceman’; b) ‘Mummified’ and fresh pigs prepared for trauma studies, both on flesh and through linen.

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sampling human burials and mummies in Egypt will eventually be relaxed. We were not allowed to take tissue or other samples at KV35, and more recently my wish to analyse soils from burials at Amarna became impossible as no laboratories could be found in Egypt which had the appropriate analytical equipment. Mummies of course do not have to be human, and I have been keen to see animal mummies equally X-rayed and investigated (Figure 70). One of my old students, Dr. Lidija McKnight, began to investigate this line of research in more detail, and it is clear that aspects of health, growth and ritual may be revealed by such studies. If

Figure 70. A kestrel mummy (a) and its X-ray detail (b). Part of the Manchester University animal mummy project and Ancient Egyptian Biobank.

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the Ibis, an important ritual bird, was semi-domesticated for instance, could this be revealed by radiographic studies of size and shape of bones, or even bone density? Animal remains can also reveal unexpected surprises. In 2007, Rosemary Luff and I described a young pig skull from Amarna, which displayed a circular incision into the top of the skull, with partial healing. Was this a training exercise in how to trephine a living human head? Or was it a coincidence that the pig was from Amarna, so closely linked to Akhenaten and Aton, the vital force of the sun? So could it really be a representation of the sun? (189). For all the bureaucracy and petty restrictions which had to be endured, Egypt deserves to be visited by as many as possible who are interested in our cultural history. World perspectives in earlier societies need these major contrasts. At a time when Neolithic tribalism was waning in Europe, Cheops (c. 2650 BC) was building his Great Pyramid. But memory is a strange friend, and for all the monuments I have visited, I particularly remember simpler things; crossing the Nile in the cold half light at 5.30am, from Luxor to the Valley of the Kings, and returning back across the Nile, with the sails of Egyptian dhows outlined in the sunset. My visit to the Sudan was all too brief, but it did remind me that along the Nile, both now and in the past, there is great biological variation in the people, and this has been a melting pot of tribal societies over many millennia. Greenland While my stay in Greenland in 2001 was brief, it remains strong in my memory. We were blessed by mainly good weather, and it was indeed enchanting to see bright in the sunlight spouting whales in the bay by Nuuk, the capital. At the same time, one could only be sobered by the considerable exposure of land in the coastal areas, even though the vast inland ice appears as solid as ever. I had been invited to attend the 4th World Congress on mummy studies, and had an invited lecture to give, as well as present our results on the chemistry of the Iceman’s hair. While copper particles were spread on the hair surface, arsenic was linked to the inner cells of the hair. We interpreted this as meaning that the iceman had been processing (extracting) copper – hence the hair surface copper, but had been breathing in the arsenic impurities from the malachite ore, which had been incorporated into the hair growth. Nuuk, the capital, is a small modern development, with both Danes and Inuits living there. Without Danish support, the indigenous community would have a serious financial problem, and the situation does underline the need at times for prosperous European countries to continue to feel committed to old colonial countries. Towards the end of my stay, I was able to visit with other members of the congress, some of the old Norse sites. I was particularly pleased to see Gardar, on the southwest coast, which was excavated many years ago, and was an important Norse centre. Most importantly, the excavation had produced the skeleton of a Viking strong man, except that his robust appearance was pathological. Sir Arthur

Peoples and Places

Figure 71. Looking like Homo erectus in general form, a lateral view of the skull of the acromegalic ‘giant’ Viking from Gardar, in Greeland. Modified from Keith (172).

Keith had described his bones in 1931 (172), and I saw the skull in Copenhagen many years ago (Figure 71). The temporal muscles on the side of his head had grown massively, as also had his lower jaw, and no doubt other parts of his body. The reason for this was that he had developed a slow growing tumour (adenoma) at his pituitary gland at the base of his brain, which had stimulated further growth in his body even after maturity. His big face and countenance could have struck fear into his enemies, but in the end, he could have succumbed to associated health problems. How small the world has become, by modern electronic communication, was brought home to us when a Danish farmer working near one of the Viking sites we visited informed us that planes had just flown into buildings in New York! It was a sober time for our American colleagues, and getting back to the States was not easy. Travels in Mongolia My interest in visiting Mongolia was twofold. To the northwest of this vast land mass, was an area of Siberia which had produced the famous Iron Age Pazyryk tombs. Some of these tombs had been found to have been preserved in permafrost, and the bodies, some tattooed, were in a remarkable condition. On the ground surface the tombs could be identified by stone mounds, and I was able to see that

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these also occurred in parts of northern Mongolia. So what were the chances of finding permafrost-preserved tombs here also? In the south of the country was the vast, arid, Gobi Desert which to me posed the alternative question, could the environment preserve burials in a dry state, similar to that in Egypt or the Tarim region of western China? Although I did not know what collections of ancient human burials were available in the capital Ulaanbaatar or elsewhere, I was also hoping to see some of the skeletal material if possible. I was fortunate in being part of an exchange of scientists supported by the Royal Society, my exchange colleague being Dr. Naran Bazarsad of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences. As part of the old communist block dominated by Russian politics and control, I had no idea what to expect on my arrival in July 2000. In Ulaanbaatar, I lived in a small flat of drab appearance. In fact the city itself could have been a poorer part of Moscow. The university was clearly in desperate need of funding for restoration, equipment and no doubt staffing costs. It was a pleasure to meet various colleagues in Anthropology and Biology, who were interested in linking their research to institutions in Europe or the USA. I visited the British Embassy in the hope of learning of grants which might have assisted some of the academics I met, but it was economics and trade, not the furtherance of knowledge, which was the real concern of the embassy. Sadly, I had met the same kind of response years before in Peru, when I had talked to the British Council about the possibility of supporting promising archaeology graduates in the University of Lima. Budhism has returned to Mongolia, after a period of violent suppression. The Gandan Monastery in the capital has now rebuilt the vast Janraisag statue, the 17 metre original being melted down by the Russians. But it was a pleasure to see numerous young monks around the new 26 metre copper, steel and gold statue which is the replacement, an act of contrition by the new face of Mongolian politics. Travel presented problems in this vast land-locked country (larger than Britain, France, Germany and Italy put together). But Mongolian colleagues arranged for a sturdy car to take us, and camping equipment allowed for overnight needs, if alternatives were not available. Even in summer, the nights turned out to be cold, but at least we didn’t get the extreme winter temperatures of minus 50°C! I was especially concerned to visit the site of Karakorum, the city established by Genghis Khan (Figure 72). Little remains above surface of the ancient buildings today, but looking down onto the plain where it was once a vibrant city, I could imagine its magnificence, its imported artisans and its trade. Having also seen how even younger children seem to have such a natural affinity in handling and riding horses, it was easy to imagine the assembly of a vast army of skilled Mongol horsemen, moving easily across the country westwards, man and horse welded together as a skilled war machine, striking fear into the communities of the Near East, and as it is recorded, even causing economic flutters in Europe. Flying Mongolian Airlines to the Gobi Desert was an experience, and my seat did not appear to be very well secured to the aircraft. But its potential to fly down the

Peoples and Places

Figure 72. My visit to the site of Kharakhorum, Ghengis Khan’s city, accompanied by my Mongolian colleague Naran Bazarsad.

cabin by the rapid breaking of the aircraft, was thankfully not to be tested. Staying in a typical round felt Mongolian Ger (also called a Yurt, a Turkic word meaning dwelling), the Gobi landscape was hot, dusty and devoid of archaeology in the area I explored. But sadly, in one sheltered rocky area was an ice mass indicative of considerable precipitation at least in the winter, which probably meant that the area would not support the long term preservation of dried bodies, as in the Taklimakan Desert of western China. But the Gobi is a vast and variable territory, and it may still yield a dried archaeological harvest. Back in Ulaanbaatar, it was possible to study some of the skeletal material curated in the university. I had expected to see only ancient Mongolian morphology, but was surprised to see the skulls of people who were clearly not Mongolian in appearance. I had forgotten of course that, although the people today look predominantly like northern Chinese, and indeed the Chinese were there busy road building, the ethnic history of the country is far more complex. Not only is it part of the land mass north of Tibet, but also part of the broad corridor linking China with western Asia. The flow of people and goods had not only been significant westwards, but Turkish tribal people had extended far east by the Tang period (618-907 AD), and continued to be an influence into the time of the Mongol Empire (1206-1405 AD). Turkic languages could be linked to Mongol culture, clearly seen on one monument I visited. Turkish archaeology recognises this eastern exploration by Turkic peoples,

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and it was interesting to visit one of their excavations and a large stone house they have constructed to preserve and protect the past of these early Turkic communities. The journey back to Britain in August took 20 hours and was routed through Moscow. The only notable event was while passing the security check in Ulaanbaatar airport. I passed the electronic luggage scanner, only to have a security officer dash after me and request that my main case be opened. Clothes and other items were removed from the case, and a long hard object was especially picked out as suspicious. Far from being a cunning new explosive device, I explained that it was in fact a large Mongolian camel bone for my collection. Years before I had taken the precaution of informing the Swedish customs that I had a cylindrical object of metal which was not an explosive, but they had expressed absolutely no interest in checking out this potential bomb! My lasting memory of Mongolia, this vast and beautiful country, is of clusters of yurts in the landscape, together with many grazing horses. The Americas My research and teaching visits to various countries in the Americas began in 1966 with a fruitful eight month visit to the USA and concluding with a preliminary fact finding visit to a newly independent Guyana (formerly British Guiana). Looking back, these journeys of forty-five years ago seem a little foolhardy now. We travelled as a family of five on the German ship ‘The Bremen’, having decided to take a dormobile camper van with us to cut down on travel costs. The journey turned out to be rough, with enormous January seas, and we arrived in New York to a frozen city. In view of the weather, it was necessary to drive south to warmer conditions, moving west through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and into California. We arrived in Berkeley, where I was a visiting lecturer and researcher, ten days later, a somewhat exhausted family. Undergraduate teaching was somewhat different to Britain, and class sizes could be enormous, but I enjoyed my contact with this rather different academic society. The skeletal collections in Berkeley and elsewhere were extensive and I began to work on the pathology of these earlier Amerindian populations. Desmond Clarke, Sherry Washburn and other members of staff were kind and helpful. Later, I was able to join Al Dahlberg of Chicago University, in his research programme on dental anthropology, which meant visiting Pima and Papago reservations to study and cast the teeth of the school children. Al was the kindest of men and the children were relaxed with him, although some of the teenagers were a little suspicious of these weird Europeans. The ideally mild weather of Berkeley, combined with the ‘flower power’ innocence of the young, made it a pleasant place to be. Little did I realise at the time that after we left, the social situation would change for the worse, with chanting against the ‘pigs’ (police) and threats of violence to the university. In fact, even driving west to California, I had a sense that there were different layers in this society, and not all friendly. In one of the southern states, on two occasions, my bearded face and the

Peoples and Places

Figure 73. Dan Morse, TB specialist and palaeopathologist, holding a prehistoric ‘humpback’ pot from Illinois.

hippy-looking dormobile had produced hostile reactions until there was a realisation that we were British, when smiles spread again across faces. Later in the summer, we drove eastwards by the more northern states, camping in Zion and Yosemite national parks and experiencing further the vast beauty of this land. We also visited Dan Morse (Figure 73) and his family in Peoria, Illinois, where he was Director of a tuberculosis hospital. I went with Dan to see prehistoric skeletal material displaying disease, as well as the famous Dickson Mound site and Museum (Figure 74). In Washington, we stayed with Larry Angel of the Smithsonian Institution, and his lovely wife. It was a great pleasure to meet Dale Stewart, Don Ortner and others, as well as the superb collections. Very sadly, some of the collections I have seen have now been returned to tribal societies, and are no longer available for research. Arriving back in New York, to a heat wave and not the ice of our January experience, Patricia and the children returned to Surrey, and I took a Panam flight to Georgetown in Guyana. I had been investigating the possibility of finding a burial ground or at least individual graves at sites in the interior of Guyana. I had been warned by Clifford Evans and Betty Meggers, who had produced a Smithsonian monograph on their archaeological surveys in that country, that burials were difficult to find, and after some time and effort on my part, I was to conclude

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Figure 74. Dickson Mound Museum as I viewed it in Illinois in 1966.

that they were right. Only one skeleton, lodged in a rock crevice, was located by me and that had recent pottery with it. Part of my exploration was by Landrover from Georgetown, but I also flew to the interior by British Guiana Airways (an old C-47 plane, past its best). The pilot invited me into the cockpit, and I was able to see and photograph the famous Kaiteur falls, before landing at the rough airstrip near the village of Kurukabaru (Figure 75). I stayed in the small mission, which was not at the time occupied, so the Amerindian community had to cope with me on their own. For the first time in my life, I was completely out of contact with the outside world.

Peoples and Places

Figure 75. Kurukabaru, my brief base in the interior of Guyana, when in search of burials in 1966.

Looking up from my bed at one of the wooden struts across the room, I noticed that a large snake had shed its skin on the beam. I returned home from Guyana with more ‘luggage’ than I realised. Female jigger fleas had invaded under my toenails, and become swollen and gravid. This had produced sepsis. My GP did not know what it was, and in the end, I got my old zoology dissection kit out and removed these ladies bit by bit! An anxious GP then treated the sepsis. Some years later, I was able to travel in Mexico and Guatemala, examining a variety of human and other skeletal remains in a series of museums. Colleagues in the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City were especially kind and helpful, and I was surprised and delighted with the extent of their pathological collection. Guatemala, a beautiful and colourful country, was clearly not as stable as Mexico, and just before we arrived, the bodyguard to the British Consul had been shot for his weapon. Later, after our departure, the country became an oppressed society, in which very many ‘disappeared’. This included the rural village and town people, with their colourful regional dress. Much of the population appeared to be in a state of near poverty, but in these societies, such terms are so relative, with life accepted as basic, with sufficient food but no luxuries. In Guatemala, I visited an agricultural cooperative controlled by a local indigenous community. They were clearly proud of what they had achieved, and I could only wish that more

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Figure 76. Partly excavated site of Iximche, at the time of my visit.

Figure 77. Part of the massive construction at Saccsaihuaman fortress near Cuzco, Peru. I am the scale.

Peoples and Places

communities like that one, had sufficient financial backing to compete successfully with the intrusive middle class ‘gringos’. While visiting the Mayan site of Iximché (Figure 76), I was again reminded of the threatened nature of field archaeology in some parts of the world. Days before we arrived on site, the field team had been robbed at gun point, for any saleable finds. The conquistadores had initiated the ruination of these proud Cakchiquel people and perhaps it was now their own descendants who were salvaging for dollars a part of their past. Only in the later 1970s was I able to extend my studies to Peru and Ecuador. The Institute of Archaeology and British Museum in London had a joint field project in Ecuador, which I was fortunate to be able to visit. The base was in the small town of Santa Isabelle, which remains in my memory not for the archaeology, but because I saw clear evidence in a small child of swollen eyelids caused by the bite from a triatomid beetle, the acute first stage of Chagas disease. It is the condition which various medical historians believe Charles Darwin picked up on his voyages and to which he finally succumbed. Moving south from Ecuador, we arrived in Tumbez, a one-horse town famous for the machinations of Pizarro and the Spanish in the 1540s. The small hotel in which we spent the night, had put a shower in a corner of the bedroom, which guaranteed a humidity of 100%. It was a great relief to move south next day to Lima, and then south again to the old city of Cuzco and finally to Puno, by Lake Titicaca. It is a country of great environmental contrasts, from coastal aridity to mountains and tropical Amazonia in the east. Peru presented to me the ultimate arid world of South America, with the magnificent constructions and architecture of pre-Spanish cultures, as exemplified by Cuzco, Pachacamac and Sacsayhuaman (Figure 77). In the National Museum in Lima, walls were stacked with naturally dried mummies, and to my surprise, Dr. Malaga of the university veterinary school was a keen zooarchaeologist, and we were able to collaborate in the study of a series of variable ancient Peruvian dogs. At that time I also became fascinated by the history of the domestication of the guinea-pig. To this day, I remain convinced that this small mammal in a way domesticated us, by becoming a scavenger of human occupations. Only later was it kept in kitchens as a quick snack high protein food. We saw it being sold as a snack food in bus stations (Figure 52). One of the pleasures of travelling to new regions is that there are often unexpected discoveries to be made. Visiting the ‘floating islands’ (in fact compacted reeds) of Lake Titicaca was on the tourist route, but much to my surprise the small local indigenous community were making use of two kinds of bird. One was locally called the ‘fishing martin’ (? Phaeprogne) and was kept to catch the small lake fish. The other was the much larger Puna ibis (Plegadis ridgwayi), whose blood was valued as a local folk medicine. How often do we miss or ignore this kind of information when considering the relationships of ourselves with other species? Later still, I visited Canada to teach briefly in Winnipeg and on the west coast. It was a pleasure to meet old colleagues again, and I was very interested to see

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the developing relationships between anthropologists, who curated collections of indigenous tribal skeletons, and tribal representatives. Healthy compromises were clearly being forged, in which there was access to the dead, both for biological and ritual reasons. It is to be hoped that such friendly arrangements will eventually be applied to other ancient material in other regions of the world. What a vast beautiful country Canada is, but visiting needs to be planned carefully in relation to time of year, as I managed to arrive in Hudson Bay too late to see beluga whales and too soon for polar bears (except for one scavenging waste tips at the town of Churchill). It was a pleasure to see that Inuit communities are still well in evidence in the far north, protected from southerners by the deterrent cold climate. In the 1960s, it would have been possible for me to settle in Canada or the USA, as university posts were in good supply, but I found a gulf between European and American society which I could not easily explain.

Chapter 12

Character Parts in a History In a charming little book by John Mortimer, called ‘Character Parts’, he interviews a range of personalities from the licentious to lords, from Christine Keeler to Alec Guinness. But of course in each of our lives there are many character parts which pass before us, some no-more than interacting briefly, but others having varying influence on our wellbeing or attitudes to life. Each of us could write extensively on the stream of links with others in our lives, some hardly remembered now, but important at the time. As a twelve year old, one teacher whose name I have long forgotten, was greatly supportive of my art interests and pushed me in the direction of Art School. And so, from the many who have been part of the history of influences on me, I have selected a handful of individuals who have themselves now passed truly into history, and who can be said to have been ‘character parts’ at some time to me. They are remembered for different reasons; as friends, educators, or just people who have helped me to reflect a little about what this life is all about. In a lifetime of work in an academic subject, it is usual to interact with a great many colleagues, some fleetingly, others on a regular basis. Some may be important players in the field and others not so. Some will turn out to be pleasant, scholarly and people one can warm to. Others, and I can think of a number, quite the reverse. The history of archaeology is still very much in its infancy, with most people named being major discoverers or famous diggers of sites. I don’t yet know of a history which properly includes those researching in the archaeological sciences, or perhaps in the field of theory. Gordon Childe (Figure 78) has perhaps had more than his fair share of reviewers, while many who have worked in the Americas or eastern Asia remain largely unknown to us in Europe. So my feeling is that each of us reflecting on our lives should attempt to give at least a few recollections of some of our 151

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Figure 78. Gordon Childe, as I remember him in seminars.

colleagues, in the hope that this will help to provide an eventual rounded assessment of them for an eventual balanced history of the subject. I first met Gordon Childe at the medieval site of Thurgarton. I was a young volunteer, and for some reason the excavation was visited by the great man himself. Probably he had been invited onto the site to be shown a wall which had been dug through by a local archaeological group without them realising that there was a structure there at all! But deposits of stone can be misleading, and at the same site, what appeared to be basal rock according to a visiting geologist, turned out to be a large slab above a grave! Later in the year, I was to begin courses at UCL and the Institute of Archaeology, where I was especially taught by Childe, Frederick Zeuner and Kathleen Kenyon. Childe was Director, but seemed to wander around and direct nothing. His lectures were uninspiring, but he was a good storyteller and synthesizer in his publications. I was one of his last students and there were few of us. I found at times that he was unapproachable, but then he could also talk in a friendly and jokey way. When I asked him what would happen to the Regents Park building when the Institute moved to Gordon Square, he chuckled and said it would be converted

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into a brothel for American visitors. It was a great pity that he ended his life, as he was clearly rethinking some aspects of prehistory. Of course his work had been his life, and personally I don’t think Marxian politics was as important to him as some have implied. In lectures and seminars, he was perhaps too complimentary of Russian archaeologists, but I never heard him mention Marxism. Elsewhere I have reviewed aspects of his life and works in more detail (110) and there is no need for repetition here, except on one interesting point. During my student days and later I remained puzzled by the apparent social distance he generally kept from people. My late friend, Dr. Isobel Smith, was his research assistant, but never seemed to have got on easy social terms with him. Similarly, Dr. Ian Cornwall, a senior member of the Institute, told me that in his day, Childe remained distant from his colleagues, although supporting them when needed. I went to dinner with him on one occasion and he seemed more relaxed and friendly then, but I also felt that he was basically lonely. His retirement must have presented him with a serious dilemma. He would not have wished to influence the future Director, and perhaps without the Institute support he was lost. He would have been welcomed on a world lecturing tour, and certainly by American universities, but clearly it didn’t appeal. So lonely, fragile and retired, suicide seemed, incorrectly I feel, the only option. Behind all of this tragedy there was probably something else. His inability to make close friends, including with women, and his workaholic nature and energy to collect information and synthesize into meaningful stories, could well indicate that he suffered from Asperger’s syndrome. Strangely, it probably helped to make him the outstanding prehistorian he was, but in the end it destroyed him. Two of Childe’s distinguished colleagues also taught me to a lesser degree. Dame Kathleen Kenyon indirectly came into my life when I was a teenager, as some years after her excavations at the hill fort of Breedon on the Hill, in Leicestershire, I arrived there with friends to rescue a series of skeletons which were being quarried away. They were in rows, and the ones Kenyon excavated were not considered to be associated with the Iron Age hill fort, but most likely linked to the Saxon church which was close to the cemetery. Kenyon was to excavate other sites in Britain, but none would make her name until she was funded to excavate the tell at Jericho. Perhaps as a result of inheriting the organisational skills of her father, she excavated massively at Jericho, revealing old fortifications deep within the tell. She also found considerable amounts of human remains, Neolithic and Bronze Age, part of which I studied, thus again linking my research interests with one of her sites. In one way life was too kind to her. From being the ‘‘Big sit’, which I’m told the local Arab diggers called her at Jericho, she was promoted to being ‘Master’ of an Oxford college, and was much diverted from Jericho research and publications as a result. From my point of view, the skeletal material was put out to a series of specialists, including myself, with no attempt to coordinate research and results. So there has been no overall review and conclusions about the early people of Jericho, and perhaps now there never will be. Was the Oxford post worth it, when it meant neglecting one of the most important sites in the Near East? Academic status and

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Figure 79. Nigel Barnicot and an innocent young Brothwell at the Etruscan conference in 1958.

power were chosen instead of a really unique series of volumes on early Jericho and its people. In the broad field of biology and bioarchaeology, I was influenced to a varying degree by a number of individuals. Fresh from prison, I eagerly entered university and was lectured to by a surprising band of scientists. First of all, Nigel Barnicot, born in 1914, was to teach me biological anthropology (Figure 79). A friendly but ‘touchy’ man, he had started research in zoology on the early growth of bone in mice, later transferring to anthropology in 1938. His research was broad based, and he studied variation in the human foot, including my own unwashed offering. Serological studies, hair and skin pigmentation, and other physiological variation all came to his attention. Archaeological bones were also not beyond him, and one of my early papers was done jointly with Barnicot on the biology of the early Etruscans (7). Sadly he died prematurely and his wife, a ‘highly strung’ woman, died a week later. Nigel’s strong commitment to careful research and his perceptiveness influenced me considerably. So also did his opposition to arrogance and pomposity in the university environment. Hans Gruneberg, a refugee from Nazi Germany, captivated me with his lectures on vertebrate, especially rodent, genetics. His special interest was the skeleton and dentition, and the information influenced me for life. Even today, in occasional lectures, I refer to this work. Long after graduation, when I worked at the British Museum of Natural History, he contacted me in the hope that I could help to get his vast collection of

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mouse skeletons (of known genetic background) accepted by the museum. This was because he suspected that UCL would not curate the collection very well over the years. Fortunately, I was able to help in the transfer, and he retired a contented man. Another biologist, placed in yet another department, was Lionel Penrose. He was medically qualified, had biostatistical interests, and was professor of human genetics. I still have his important book on ‘The Biology of Mental Defect’, which helped me to understand his not very inspiring lectures. But he came into his own when talking to patients at what was then known as Harperbury Mental Hospital. Later, he was to help me greatly to get access to the hospital and study in detail a series of Down’s Syndrome children, for comparison with an Anglo-Saxon child I had excavated and which appeared to be a Down’s case as well (26). Penrose was always calm and gentle with his patients, and seemed to merge in with them, rather than stand out as a distinguished medical geneticist. He also devised a statistical method, which became known as the ‘Penrose ‘size’ and ‘shape’ statistic’, which I have employed on various occasions in analysing bones. The final biologist I must acknowledge at UCL was the Nobel laureate Sir Peter Medawar, at the time Professor of Zoology. He interviewed me and allowed me to take vertebrate zoology (which I perilously combined with geology and ‘arch and anth’). He was probably the most articulate scientist I have personally listened to, and his books are equally erudite. What is interesting, and causes me some reflection, is that although Barnicot, Gruneberg, Penrose and Medawar were so different in their presentations and detail, all were stimulating to me. Why? Probably because even bumbling lectures can spark off research questions, perhaps at times at a subliminal level. Indeed, the nature of science itself can hardly not provide challenges to the status quo of the discipline. These four men were certainly significant to my maturing mind, as regards bioarchaeology. Kenneth Oakley was my senior colleague in anthropology, when I joined the British Museum of Natural History (Figure 80). I found him to be pleasant, helpful and encouraging, but also protective of his image and position. He was a graduate of geology and his Ph.D. was on fossil sponges, but he had long been interested in human prehistory and was fortunately able to move into this aspect of the past. Stone tools and dating were special interests of his, but he also set up the first laboratory of palaeoserology in Britain. After his retirement, serology was expanded to include modern peoples, but sadly, in their strange wisdom, all this was closed down by the Trustees, some time before it was realised that DNA studies would become so important. While Kenneth was keen on encouraging radiocarbon studies, he also worked extensively in the field of relative dating, and it was the application of this technique to the Piltdown bones that demonstrated conclusively that the bones were forgeries. In a nutshell, uranium, fluorine and nitrogen values on the Piltdown brainbox, lower jaw and associated fauna were all so different that they were not only different periods but from different sites. Sadly, Kenneth had to retire early, at 58, with walking problems which the neurologist Lord Brain considered to be ageing processes acting on old myelitic

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Figure 80. Kenneth Oakley of the British Museum of Natural History, and exposer of the Piltdown forgery.

scarring which had occurred many years before. He died in 1981. Personally I still suspect that his condition was psychosomatic, born of a long frustration with the B.M.N.H. establishment. When I joined the museum, the Director Sir Gavin de Beer was keen on developing anthropology from a sub-department to a separate department. But after his retirement, a new Director and also a new head of palaeontology were against this. Moreover, the relationship between Kenneth and Dr. W. Ball, the new boss of palaeontology, was not good. Ball, a pompous civil servant and useless scientist, belittled Kenneth. To me this proved a point once and for all, that power is given to a name, a position, not necessarily to ability, and that humans do not challenge this often enough. Kenneth contributed significantly to his subject; Ball was a silly man who should not have been appointed. I got to know Eric Higgs after I arrived in Cambridge, and we had a mutual interest in bones. He was an avuncular character, if perhaps slightly roguish, and

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I grew to like him. As a young family man in my first academic post, Eric initially helped me with the mortgage, which I much appreciated. We had a mutual interest in the Mount Carmel Neanderthal site; he from a faunal sequence point of view, and I because I didn’t believe all the human remains were Neanderthal. It is now accepted that although the tool technology was Mousterian, it was also being used both by Neanderthalers and more biologically advanced humans (29). Mutual interest in the sciences also resulted in our discussing the possibility of inviting a series of archaeological scientists to present their work to a broader archaeological audience. Eric had an economics degree and farming experience, and could be viewed as a proto-environmental (or ‘economic’) archaeologist. In 1963, the first of the ‘Science in Archaeology’ volumes appeared, edited by Eric and myself, a new edition coming in 1969. Eric remained in Cambridge and became Director of the British Academy Major Research Project on the Early History of Agriculture, but I had gone to London by then, but kept infrequently in touch. I don’t remember why I went to see him quite near to the time of his death in 1976. His health had not been perfect ever since I first met him, but he was now clearly not well. And sadly, at an academic level, I think he felt let down eventually by Grahame Clark, and perhaps bitter that funding was no longer available for the future. Having given so much inspiration to students at Cambridge, and to the ancient history of agriculture, it is sad that academic contentment escaped him in the end. I first met Bill White about twenty-five years ago, when he came to see me at the Institute of Archaeology in London, with a view to beginning Ph.D. research, combining his background in chemistry (thirty years at Glaxo Smith Kline) with hobby interests in archaeology. He was interested in the citrate analysis of archaeological bone, which seemed at the time to be promising. But it became clear that this was not an ideal research topic, and Bill transferred his attentions to developing human osteological studies at the Museum of London. There, he made a significant contribution to London cemetery studies, not only publishing on them, but also assisting in the development of exhibitions such as the highly successful ‘London Bodies’ (1998). It showed conclusively that people are not put off by viewing human remains, but indeed are fascinated by the degree of information which can be derived from their study. Over the years, I remained in contact with Bill, and he kindly assisted both myself and students in studying the London collections. I always found him to be a pleasant and calm person, with a quiet sense of humour. Inside him I suspected that there was some feeling of insecurity, which I saw in his nervousness when he was called on to lecture. In the end, I believe he will be remembered by all the young researchers he helped, by his retiring friendliness and the unstinting help he gave, to young colleagues as well as the rest of us. I first met Isobel Foster Smith in the 1950s, when I was a student. She was already known for her work on the British Neolithic, a subject she concentrated on for the rest of her life. Later, I was to be a neighbour of hers in Avebury, Wiltshire, and grew to like and respect her. At first, Isobel appeared to be very shy and retiring, but she was a woman of considerable strength of mind, and not

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to be tampered with. She was also a very private person, fiercely independent and unforthcoming about her life! So date of birth was not revealed and when she died, it was thought that she was in her early 90s. Her early years were spent in Canada, and she was a graduate of Toronto University. After a period of study in France at the Sorbonne, the threat of war influenced her return to Canada for a time, but finally she came to Britain and in 1953 became a British subject. After post-graduate archaeological studies, and a Ph.D. supervised by Gordon Childe, she prepared the major work on ‘Windmill Hill and Avebury’ based on excavations by Alexander Keiller (1925-1939), but it was much more besides. Typical of her, the name Smith does not appear on the title page. Finally, she joined the Royal Commission on the Historical Monuments of England, and remained there until retirement. Her life in Avebury remained the same in her little cottage by the manor, although by the time I had arrived to live in Avebury, the two-holer-with-buckets toilet had been replaced by an expanded bathroom. She gave quiet but generous support to various organisations, and although greatly respected as a Neolithic expert, she remained in the background self-effacing to the end. I still think back with a smile to Isobel and compare her to the bluff and bombastic Mortimer Wheeler, and know which qualities of character I prefer. I have had the pleasure of knowing three medical biologists who have contributed to bioarchaeology in rather different ways. I first met Vilhelm Møller-Christensen in about 1961 (Figure 81), when he had just published his classic work ‘Bone Changes in Leprosy’. Three years earlier, I had briefly reviewed the evidence for this disease in early Britain, so we had mutual interests. Vilhelm began as a school doctor in Denmark, but enthusaistically located and then excavated medieval leper burials. One such cemetery turned up in the courtyard to a dairy farm, which sadly lost business as a result! In Graham Greene’s novel ‘A Burnt Out Case’, he refers to a leprosy specialist who took leprosy bones to conferences. This was in fact Vilhelm, who on reading the novel, promptly turned up at Greene’s house, was welcomed in, and received a signed copy of the book. Such was the eccentric Wilhelm. We eventually wrote two papers together, but on ancient amputations and not leprosy (34, 37). Sadly, in 1967, he fell out with me, because I pointed out that, contrary to his belief, he had not discovered ‘facies leprosa’, facial changes in leprosy, because I’d come across a very much earlier reference to it. He never forgave me for this literary discovery. For some reason he also sadly parted company with some of his Danish colleagues as well. My friend ‘Sandy’ Sandison, a Glasgow University pathologist, died prematurely in 1982, at only 59. I had contacted him in the early 1960s because of his excellent work on Egyptian mummy tissue and pathology; indeed he was one of the pioneers in this field. In 1967, after much planning, we edited a book together on medical history and palaeopathology topics, ‘Diseases in Antiquity’ (42). It was fun to do it, but the pleasure was blighted by a vast number of publishers proof errors, which the publishers had the cheek to complain about. Sandy had been an outstanding student and was an excellent pathologist, but he was also a gentle, friendly individual. Some ten years older than myself, he had the qualities of a benign big brother, informative,

Character Parts in a History

Figure 81. Vilhelm Moller-Christenson discussing specimens with me in 1964.

joking and understanding. In one of the accidents of life, his army medical service took him to the Middle East, a time which stimulated his interest in medical history and Egyptology, and he became a senior pathologist in the Palestine Command. Had he lived, I believe he could have become the first professor of palaeopathology, but fate had other plans. From a very different background, Peter Gray appeared on the scene following early retirement as a naval radiologist. Again, it was his publications which first attracted my attention and I became a friend and invited him to contribute to ‘Diseases in Antiquity’ and a conference I was involved with in Italy. Although he had taken up a medical post in Surrey, he had clearly become fascinated by Egyptian mummies, and realised more than anyone else that they deserved systematic radiological study. Peter was a very friendly approachable man, and seemed to have no problems in persuading the British Museum to allow him to X-ray their mummies, a project later to be published as a B.M. monograph in 1968. He also studied mummies in Leiden, Liverpool, and Newcastle, such was his energy and enthusiasm. The surveys also resulted in specialist papers on bone infarction, osteogenesis imperfecta, and pseudoalkaptonuric arthritis. He was lucky to have pushed through so many projects, and I suspect that his access to museum collections today would have been far more difficult. Peter was always good company, especially with alcohol flowing. It was a sad blow when he died in 1984, at the young age of 71 years.

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I first met Aurelio Malaga Alba in Peru in 1977, and finally in 1989 when he came over to receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, for his distinguished work on rabies, as well as being founder of the veterinary school in Lima, and the zooarchaeology laboratory. A friendly, humble man, I warmed to him immediately. His students clearly respected him, even to his idiosyncrasy of believing he could breed back dogs to the forms present in ancient Peru. Veterinary studies had clearly been influenced by his enthusiasm and, dare I say it, the influence of his old Scottish university. His kindness to me was considerable, giving me full access to zooarchaeological material in his care, and eventually we were able to collaborate in a study of early Peruvian dogs (67). There was no early retirement for Aurelio, having been born in Cajararca, Peru, in 1902, and obtaining veterinary degrees in Peru and Scotland in 1919. After periods in the army, including as Director of the Military College of Veterinary Science (1943), he eventually became part of the WHO Expert Committee on Rabies, and received a Mexican Order of Merit in Public Health. Only in 1983 did he retire and become emeritus professor in Lima. At our meeting and lunch in London in 1989, he was as enthusiastic and sprightly as ever, and in terms of the span of his academic life, he is an ideal role model. Professor Nils-Gustaf Gejvall made contact with me during his work on Westerhus in Sweden in about 1959, and I think I modified a little of his English. About that time, he had expressed his concern about the academic threat to osteology in Sweden, but fortunately he had a sympathetic ear in the King Gustaf VI Adolf ’s 80th Anniversary Fund which was able to provide facilities for teaching and research at Solna, near the Royal Castle of Ulriksdal. Teaching and research was broad-based in Stockholm, and Gejvall’s interests extended from human cemetery excavations, to animal bones and even cremations. He retired in 1977 and was followed by Torstein Sjovold who also contacted me, this time regarding the analysis of non-metrical traits on bones. Since then, I have continued to have a special interest in the skeletal research carried out in Stockholm, and it has produced some extremely interesting younger colleagues and studies over the years. It is certainly one of the success stories of ancient osteology. I got to know Leo Biek in the early 1960s when I moved to the British Museum of Natural History (Figure 82). My position included the examination of newly excavated early British skeletal material and he thus saw me as an extension of the scientific studies being developed by the Ancient Monuments Laboratory. The difference was that I was on a scientific officer research grade, and Leo had to fit the lower experimental officer grades established by the Ministry of Works. And indeed, for all his hard work assisting in the development of archaeological science in this country, he was never properly recognised and promoted accordingly. I got to know Leo quite well and liked his eccentricity and the information he provided me with on British excavations producing human remains. His book Archaeology and the Microscope (13) was an early and original work on the sciences in archaeology, and it is a pity he didn’t produce more general publications of this kind (although his writing style was not good). From 1950 until his retirement in

Character Parts in a History

Figure 82. Leo Biek, friend and archaeological scientist.

1982, he remained faithful to the civil service which did not value him, and he should have moved on into a university teaching position. Students would have loved him for his personality, his ideas and his breadth of vision for archaeology. They would also have been intrigued by his history; an Estonian partly educated in Germany, a young concert pianist who left the dangers in Europe and was in the RAF before the end of the war. Educated at Imperial College and fluent in four languages, he became involved in displaced persons camps in Germany after the war for two years, though he never talked to me about it. As I observed, Leo took an interest in a wide range of sciences applied to archaeology, from the chemistry of objects and their conservation, to human and animal bones, to computers and data handling. He continued to some extent after retirement, looking more and more like Father Christmas. I saw him in the university in York not so long before his death in 2002, at the age of 80. I was sad to see him go, a kind humble man, not easy to replace. This brief rogues’ gallery of significant older friends and colleagues provides a mosaic of the influences that all of us have in our lives. Some appear to be very

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marginal to our careers, but I suggest that it is far from easy to assess the impact of many we meet. It is often no more than a brief comment or a critical moment, or the presentation of research potential not realised before. Or the friendliness and support long forgotten, until one ponders the life of someone now long dead. The small sample I outline here, have all helped to shape and mature my own thoughts in the past, especially as regards the archaeological sciences, and these reminiscences are a brief homage to them.

Chapter 13

Theory, Language and Culture To me, theory refers to speculation in the mind, and is an act which presumably most of us carry out to at least a limited degree in our lives. In archaeology, theorising is linked to some extent to facts and more direct research problems. The quality of the reasoning has proved to be somewhat variable. Ideally, the hypothesis should be related by logical arguments to explain known phenomena. When, years ago, I examined the remains of the infamous forgery called Piltdown Man, it was intriguing to think that the abnormally flat molar wear and obvious anthropoid jaw did not cause suspicion. But the prehistorians in 1912 were more concerned about theorising over the nature of the ‘missing link’, which came between ourselves and primate ancestors, to ponder the facts sufficiently. The forger was clearly a better theorist, and had done an excellent job of covering his tracks by speculating and then acting on what biological camouflage was needed to fool the scholars. Theorising in archaeology has been a rough road to follow, and there are now numerous texts to indicate its rise and perhaps fall (127, 169, 170, 261). Theory has tended to concentrate on symbolism, cognitive issues, processual/post-processual differences, meaning in material culture, art, agriculture, gender, spirituality and sociopolitical developments. Archaeology has also been concerned with its relationship with history and evolutionary biology. The nature of ‘Culture’ seems to remain as enigmatic as ever. Reading this growing literature over the years, I have continued to wonder how theory really relates to ordinary people such as myself, but in relation to the past. What are the day to day issues with which we are concerned now and back into prehistory? They may not, of course, be conscious matters, but still drive us, stress us, and demand action. Archaeology presents data and tells stories of the past, including biological ones. My stories have been concerned in particular with people from the point of view of their evolution, variation and health. Other species and 163

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their health and interaction with humans have also concerned me. As a result, I have run into various interesting questions, and they have tended to be beyond what is currently seen as the scope of archaeological theory. This is because current theory as usually presented is too narrow, and suggests that the archaeological sciences are generally devoid of theorising. This, of course, is wrong, and indeed the sciences in archaeology are peppered with questions in need of speculative consideration. My own concerns have been in a number of directions. Evolutionary biology is to some extent boggy ground from an archaeological point of view. We still don’t know what size of brain enables us to be fully human, and hence the fiery debate about whether the late Pleistocene Flores individual with the brain size under 500 cc could have had normal mental ability (Figure 83).

Figure 83. The enigma of the Flores skull. What evolutionary sense is their in evolving or keeping a brain size only a third of our own? a) and b) are alternative lines; c) is the probable alternative of pathology (microcephaly).

Theory, Language and Culture

Theoretically, both on what we know of living microcephalics, but also in terms of the unlikely devolution of brain size, I believe there is good reason to interpret this case as abnormal. The main problem as regards our brain is that it confers considerable creative and technical ability, but our perception of the world around us appears to be defective. We seem to lack the ‘wisdom factor’, or at least most of us. During historic time, we have killed many millions of our own species, to the point where it should be seen as gross social pathology. Yet the majority of people, now and in the historic past, have most likely wanted to live with their families in peace. In that case, something has gone seriously and socially wrong. This seems to me to be one of the most important questions we have to ask, not only for the social sciences today, but for those of us concerned with our long time span. Mass intraspecific killing is not a primate characteristic, but is simply found in us. This complex question is intimately bound up with the development of our large brains. In some recent tribal communities, fighting became symbolic, and only by accident would a weapon hit a combatant. Why haven’t more advanced societies evolved to the same degree? Or does the very nature of complex urban societies somehow prevent peaceful resolutions? Theory is clearly needed in order to formulate major themes from the formidable mass of finds and data now available from world sites. What is excavated may not in fact be easily related to major themes. The find of an arrow head is a long way away from pondering the nature of human aggression. What concerns us in our complex lives today is nevertheless highly relevant to our consideration of lives in the past. In terms of priorities, I would put children and their conception of the world first, then parents and family, food, shelter and protection, sex, conflict and health as the major themes for speculation. The wider world clearly impacts on us all, and there are plenty of theoretical issues here, some of which I have again pondered over the years. Take the question of animal links to human groups. ‘Domestication’ is a term well used in archaeological literature, but it is a far more complex concept than usually appreciated (58). Simply put, it implies the control of animal stock, usually in a farming situation, together with some form of breeding policy. Personally, I think this makes us out to be far smarter than we are, and indeed the beginning of the transformation of animals into so-called domesticates could have begun simply as closer man-animal relationships, as in reindeer exploitation, with perhaps the removal of less fit animals and a reduction in the number of adult males. Just these acts alone would have started to modify the gene pool. Adding other variables for selection, such as size or coat colour and quality, would have further modified the population without intentional ‘breeding’ plans. Splitting larger herds into smaller groups could have introduced founder effect, and mating with the wrong males could have introduced bad variables. I have argued elsewhere that some species may in fact have domesticated us, such as the guinea pig, which could have initially exploited food plant waste near houses. Compared with other South American mammals, it is hardly an ideal food animal in view of its size (73). Considering the contempt with which our own modern cats view us, this is surely another species

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which could have initially adopted us, even though eventually valued for its rodent hunting and as a ritual animal. Of course we are now acquainted with the serious breeding of many species, but the complexity of the beginnings of our relationships with them deserves far more theoretical consideration. Dogs have probably a much longer history in relation to our species than any other. I have long considered the possibility that their hay day was in association with Palaeolithic hunters, when they could have been of great value. What we now see as dog breeds is in some varieties the ultimate desecration of the species; the production of slobbering brutes with severe endocrine pathology. Only our daft species would keep some of these varieties alive, and regard them as acceptable breeds. So the original theory of their domestication was that they emerged in the Near East by Neolithic times and were very quickly adopted as a useful hunting animal right across Asia into the Americas. Fortunately, I have lived long enough to see that DNA studies, combined with dating evidence, will take over this theorising. Vila and colleagues (258), much to my pleasure, have even postulated that dogs may have become differentiated from wolves over 135,000 years ago. Some have suggested,

Figure 84. Normal (lower pictures) and iodine deficient lambs; a) contrasts in body form; b) bone X-rays showing retarded development. As reported by B.J. Potter in 1981.

Theory, Language and Culture

on DNA evidence, that New World dogs even had independent microevolution. Whatever the eventual answer, it is clear that theory will be modified by these new molecular developments. Domestic animals not only have a critical relationship with humans, but also with the environment in general. In studies on their bones and teeth, we measure and compare samples, assessing bone size and shape as well as animal health. There is one element in the environment which I think we are still seriously neglecting, namely iodine. A radioactive isotope of iodine came to the forefront of our awareness with the Chernobyl disaster, but it is also a normal element in world soils, and is vital to us all in growth, as a component of thyroxine (Figure 84). So in animal physiology it is well known, but in archaeology it is so far ignored. It was for this reason that I pointed out that world variation in iodine availability in the past should be taken into account when considering the growth and health of ancient livestock (98). Iodine shortage during growth is just one form of ‘stress’ imposed by the environment. The term ‘stress’ can simply be defined as a state of disequilibrium in an organism, resulting from the action of a stressor, that is, a threatening stimulus. ‘Food stress’ is one term which has now entered archaeological literature, but there are various stressors which also need consideration in relation to past populations (93). At a theoretical level at least, severe stress can lead to death or adaptation in a population. Reactions to stress may be different between species and also between wild and domestic forms. My own interest in this phenomenon goes back some decades (246), and the impact of stress on health has at least been discussed in archaeology. But there is so much more, I feel, yet to consider. We all recognise stress in our own lives in this frantic modern world (Figure 85), yet we underrate its impact on the people in the past. What kind of impact did the Roman invaders have on the British Iron Age populations, not only in terms of personal and food restrictions, but at a psychological level? We know that today, social stress may greatly increase suicide rates. Social stress can even retard growth in children (262). In reviewing the complexities of stress on people, I became convinced that this should be included in archaeological theory. Earlier peoples are sometimes discussed as if they had an easy time of it, but the contrary was more likely to have been the rule. Their world may not have been stressed by taxation and mortgages, but there were plenty of alternatives. Food and winter fuel may not have been guaranteed, their health status was questionable, and their world was peopled by witches and vengeful deities. Modern tribal societies are not free of psychoneuroses, so why should the past have been. John Cawte (119) in a study of Australian aboriginal people wrote: ‘In Australia, for example, whole aboriginal communities have been described in solemn detail without recognition that most of the members were suffering gross stress’ (p97). Archaeology is not exempt from this comment, but I recognise that considering peoples of the past in this way is fraught with special difficulties. In mentioning some theoretical issues which have interested me, I wish to make the point that theoretical archaeology is far more open ended than current publications suggest. In particular, there is serious neglect of theory in relation

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to the archaeological sciences. Unlike any other species, it is probable that we have a special theoretical problem, which is that we are adapted in Darwinian terms to small band interactions in ancient Pleistocene environments. Urban environments and advanced technology are basically foreign to us. In evolutionary terms our perception is adapted to a different age, a time when conflict was resolved with stone tools, not heat-seeking missiles and cluster bombs. We have seriously extended Figure 85. Severe stress beyond our perceptive brought on by attending a capabilities. There is also TAG meeting (Theoretical the problem that although Archaeology Group). Apologies to Jean Cocteau. modern societies believe that we are evolving socially in the right direction, it is in fact very debatable whether we are. The magic word today is ‘democracy’, but is this adaptively ideal? It seems to me that democracy is a policy of rule by mediocrity, decision by majority. But wise decisions could be in a minority. No wonder social order collapses into disorder, because the wrong social mechanism is in place. The ultimate problem of course is how to identify behavioural tactics which are positively adaptive. What appears to be adaptive action has in fact been carried through from the past, and has dubious relevance for today. Violent conflict is repeated time and time again, with vast loss of life and no final resolution. The theoretical physicist David Bohm (16) wrote ‘It seems clear that everybody has got some kind of metaphysics, even if he thinks he hasn’t got any. Indeed, the practical ‘hard headed’ individual who ‘only goes by what he sees’ generally has a very dangerous kind of metaphysics, i.e. the kind of which he is unaware (e.g. ‘You can never change human nature’ : ‘There must always be wars, etc.’). Such metaphysics is dangerous because, in it, assumptions and inferences are being mistaken for directly observed facts, with the result that they are effectively riveted in an almost unchangeable way into the structure of thought.’ (p41).

Theory, Language and Culture

Theorising in archaeology has many dangers, but is an essential part of the subject. Some contributors have had a somewhat anti-science philosophy, but any such attitudes can only be regarded as retrogressive, and not helpful to the proper integration of the archaeological sciences into the subject as a whole. My doubtful place in human culture In Margaret Mead’s (198) debate on the differences between generations, she asks: ‘Is there anything in human cultures as they exist today worth saving?’ (p10). In contrast, Richard Dawkins (129) sees cultural memes as very important building blocks of society, to the extent that these ‘units of cultural transmission’ can be ‘many orders of magnitude faster than DNA’ in their evolution (p158). However, speed is not an indication of their adaptive value, but simply that memes are the product of creative thinking, which can amount to a vast hotchpotch of highly variable thought. And while some ideas and technology have had immense adaptive value, much in our culture today amounts to little more than mass money making trivia. We certainly need to ask some deeply critical questions of the man-made material world we now live in. This demands a serious evaluation of what our lives amount to, now and in the past. What are our basic needs in life, and shouldn’t there be equality of distribution of such items? Should there be ownership of land on this planet? I’m sure the australopithecines and Homo erectus never gave it a thought, although they may have linked themselves economically to territory. I have always found the ownership of land, beyond a personal house plot, deeply unsatisfactory. The planet should not be for sale. Resources are for the common good, and equality of distribution should be attained as far as possible. I am not arguing of course for the absurd situation where, say, carrots grown in New Zealand must be distributed globally, but for the balanced spread of economic essentials not based on large profits for a few. Population increase, linked to urbanism, has given rise to social and religious hierarchies of an exploitative kind, supported by militarism. The common man, including me, has paid the price for this since the Neolithic. The nature of privilege changes, but the phenomenon remains. This is the nuclear essence of ‘culture’ over the last few thousand years. It is the dominance of the alpha male transformed into social, economic and religious differentials, favouring a few. And associated with all of this is the term ‘culture’, which is still widely used, although there is growing doubt about its value (176). These comments sound naïve, but sadly, they are not. The extremes of cultural definition are probably found today in archaeology, where a cultural group may be named simply on a distinctive type of material object. Usually it is defined on the sum total of the material complex, devoid of the non-material aspects of the society. The philosopher Erich Fromm (148) makes the point that social systems supported by material culture evolve to ensure that human populations survive. But what is the nature of this survival? A society can change from benign to malignant, and still be adapted to survive. By persuasion or fear, we can become

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controlled by a bureaucratic elite who can enforce what is clearly a pathological regime. North Korea comes to mind, but how many societies in the past have come close to it? I’m not sure that I would have been very relaxed and happy in England under Roman rule. Today, except for local traditions which provide regional colour, we all take part in a life consisting of mainly common foods, common films, common cars, standard housing, electricity, tap water and sanitation. More and more of us are living without religion, but have a basic moral code to live by. It may be a surprise to political ‘leaders’, but I’m sure that the majority of the world’s population, through time, have simply wanted to live in peace within their family group. Culture, if anything, is the troublemaker. Personally, I would prefer to see myself as uncultured as far as possible, with no allegiances to this or that, them or us. Looking back on my life, I see more clearly how we are carried along hardly thinking about the quality of the life and society we have been placed in. Looking back in old age, much of life seems little more than ‘a storm in a teacup’ which we all experience and are levelled by. The biologist E.O. Wilson (266) has argued for the fundamental unity of all knowledge, and that eventually it will be seen that our world is organised in terms of a small number of fundamental natural laws linking all branches of learning. To me, there is nothing which should prevent human society from being compatible with a broad plan of biosocial integration. In the introductory chapter to ‘Darwinian Archaeologies’, Maschner and Mithen (191) state that the application of Darwinism to archaeological theory has produced much controversy and disagreement. Part of this is due to a lack of knowledge of human biology, psychology and psychiatry. There are also difficulties on the part of some to embrace culture as biology. Yet considering other species in biology, the weed presentation ritual of grebes, the male bowerbird displays of blossoms in his bower, or the elaborate nest constructions of some bird species (3) are completely accepted as ‘biocultural’. Maschner and Patton (192) accept the premise that ‘we should expect that individuals in a culture will be continuously attempting to modify their social landscape in order to better themselves and their close kinsmen’ (p102). This may be true in modern Western society, but I doubt it for many in the past. Father, son and grandson were all more likely to be small scale farmers, or shopkeepers, or even miners. They were more likely to be locked into situations equivalent to states of slavery, dominated by poverty and economics or dominated by elites. To me, the big question is how long these communities lasted without physical or mental breakdown. We already know that few lived to be more than fifty years of age, so what does this mean in terms of the co-evolution of genes and culture in past populations (133)? In so many communities of the past, the stress of just surviving must have been considerable, and in such situations cultural traits could have been maladaptive as much as helpful. There is an island population in the north of Britain which caused high mortality in their babies by traditional but unsanitary procedures when cutting the umbilical chord of newborns. This is cultural creativity at its worst, a maladaptive fashion which nearly killed off the community.

Theory, Language and Culture

Bowlby (19) has argued for the application of ethological principles for a more mature understanding of personality patterns, and especially the degree to which psychological stress differentially impacts on children compared to adults. Earlier British societies over the past five millennia or so, have had to cope with major demographic and social change, and it is reasonable to question how this might have impeded or stimulated social and cultural transformation. Morris Ginsberg (149) has argued that much of human behaviour is irrationally determined. Hilary Callan (116) viewed the relationship between social anthropology and ethology as fragile, whereas there should have been plenty in common. The newly developing psychological anthropology, which includes archaeology in theory, needs to become multidisciplinary in terms of its perspective on culture and the individual (193). Anna Wierzbicka (263) makes a good point that ‘emotions’ are variably expressed or contained in societies, and I remember as a student being told that in studies of taste blindness, using an unpleasant substance called phenylthiocarbamide, young males in some tribal societies stoically denied tasting the substance, even though the result was really positive. The most disturbing aspect of culture to me, is that it reveals again and again, our inadequate perception, and our gullibility to the froth of behaviour developed as explanations and practices. In considering African tribal societies, Richard Shweder (242) questions their ‘deductive-reasoning skills’ and ‘inductive-inference procedures’, rather than their adaptive wisdom. Like me, he is clearly not impressed by cosy just-so explanations, and he acknowledges that ‘Across the ages, across societies, ordinary folk, apparently of sound mind, have believed the most unbelievable beliefs and engaged in the most incredible practices’ (p29). This reality has, I suggest, still to hit archaeological theory. Culture in evolutionary terms has also been sanitised and seen as simply an adaptive means for our species to utilise the earth’s resources for survival, and by the accumulation and transmission of experience, to constantly improve this endeavour (239). What this doesn’t explain is destructive warfare, oppressive hierarchies, torture, over-population, slavery, starvation, and all the other trappings of festering societies. Stephen Boyden (21) sums up the situation nicely when he says: ‘It seems as if we do not possess culture, but are possessed by it….But society as a whole has yet fully to wake up to the fact that the real threats to humanity are posed, not by nature, but by culture’ (p321). Language Robin Dunbar (132) has suggested that language evolved in our species to replace social grooming, because it uses interactive time for social interchange more efficiently. It allows wider close relationships and thus the greater spread of information. Also, unlike physical dominance, especially by males, it was a non-violent and potentially persuasive way for individuals to impress or control others. I would accept this as a sensible reflection on the value of language for Holocene and even Late Pleistocene populations, but does the explanation work for the small bands of humans extending around the world for most of our Pleistocene history? Tool making hardly needed

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large instruction manuals. Art, as I know from experience, initially demands creative vision, hand-eye control and personal reflection. We produced, cared for, and educated our children long before language was elaborated for instruction. Human sexual activity occurred without the need for language (Figure 86). However, if cave art is evidence of growing awareness of the universe and magico-religious explanations, then this may have driven some for an explanation beyond basic technical instruction. Tim Ingold (167) also makes the point that we excel as a species in our capacity to construct imagined worlds, and to ponder and formulate standards of behaviour. Rappaport (231) has in particular supported and developed the view that ritual and religion have demanded creative thought and language. The literature on the evolution of language is now considerable, but still renders down to little real evidence of its deep prehistory. I remain critical of the view that language was adaptationally valuable in the early stages of tool development which extended over two million years or so of our evolution. In contrast, this was the period when brain size significantly increased, and bipedalism evolved. To me, this still argues for the initial importance of the co-evolution of pelvic remodelling, bipedalism, and birth canal changes allowing the increased survival of larger brained babies. Even if a short vocabulary was emerging, an expanded language would have had little critical adaptive value in the early Pleistocene. This may seem a rather kill-joy attitude to the evolution of language, but care is needed in formulating explanations about our distant past. We could just as well postulate that language was created just in order to ‘keep up with Homo erectine Jones’s’!

Figure 86. How essential was language in our distant past?

Chapter 14

Aspects of the Emotions Humans have the extremely bad habit of praising themselves, their abilities, and how superior they are to other species. Primate studies are establishing more and more how close we are to various primates, in one way or another. We are indeed brainy, but other primate genera can be highly observant and even creative when problem solving demands it. There is also evidence that, especially when young, they are fun loving, and even adrenaline junkies. They can be reactive to mortality, recognising death and displaying sadness. Food sharing can occur, as well as mutual de-lousing. But perhaps it is in expressions of empathy and compassion, that we especially see similarities with ourselves. Some of our emotions and actions are not easy to evaluate when it comes to the past, and I find myself speculating like so many of my colleagues, with all too little clear material evidence to call on. Nevertheless, speculation is better than avoiding the issues completely. Evolving Beyond Religions Although my parents were far from religious, my maternal grandfather and some other members of the family were staunch Methodists, and thus I was duly packed off to their church on Sundays. The congregation greatly enjoyed singing together, stimulated by a charismatic minister, but the actual Methodist philosophy was mainly absent. What it did for me was to make me question the nature of the bible, especially as I found it stuffed with questionable comment and stories. Of course it also had sensible things to say about morality, but so did other religions and indeed that of the atheists. In the end, the closest I could get to accepting a Christian point of view was in Quakerism, which seemed a calm, undogmatic, more educated and informed 173

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version of Christianity. I was struck by their friendly support for others beyond their own community, and their commitment to non violence as the only way to avoid potentially violent conflict. By my later teens, I had been reading Tolstoy and Gandhi, and they were essentially compatible with Quaker attitudes to society. In the end, it was these writings which made me determined to resist military call-up. Some years later, I was to wrestle with the problem of Catholicism, as my wife to be had turned to what I viewed as a highly suspect category of Christianity. To me, the Pope had seriously failed to exhort his vast number of European followers to resist fascism and work against the anti-Semitism which was sweeping through Europe. At a more personal level, I was horrified to find myself apparently having to agree to my hoped for children being raised as Catholics. This was quite intolerable to me, their minds brain-washed before they had the capacity to think critically for themselves. If they adopted the church as adults, then that was their choice, but their parents should not instigate such a serious, and to me dubious, move. This was clearly a critical moment in whether the marriage would go ahead, and the church wisely backed off. It was not so long after, that Patricia abandoned her Catholicism, not due to any pressure from me (no, really). It needs little pondering to realise that as a problem solving species, we have for many thousands of years, embraced and developed crude cosmologies in an attempt to explain this unfathomable universe. Moreover, there has been a recurring need to link this vastness with the local, to put ourselves in this cosmology. And as we experience the myriad of life forms around us, it has been inevitable that explanations of creation and death have been themes created again and again in earlier societies. We are now at a stage in our history where most small tribal cosmologies have given way to the bigger religions, perhaps the assumption being that older established beliefs are tried, tested and most reliable. So are we back to the old war between religions and the scientific attitude? Personally I think so. The major religions have embraced science as far as possible, and would argue that there is no real incompatibility, but like Richard Dawkins (129, 130) and others, I feel that this is not far enough. Science is about the need to think critically in a state of educational freedom. Current religion is about still having suspect faith in Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha or other deities, their philosophies and miracles. These inevitably are philosophies of closed minds, whereas science demands complete freedom of thought. Some years ago, Alan Ryan (238), then Warden of New College Oxford, wrote: ‘What is intellectual liberation? It is the condition that people achieve when you follow the best argument, wherever it leads, and don’t find yourself swayed by habit, prejudice, panic, superstition, or what your best friends all think’. Religion can still be repressive of women, cause violence, or be ridiculous about people’s sexuality. In my old age, I see nothing but overwhelming evidence that we would be far better off without religions, and would live in a more peaceful world. The controversy between science and religion will continue long into the future, assisted by the fact that periodically a physicist or biologist, for instance, will state that

Aspects of the Emotions

science is not enough, or scientific facts support this or that in the bible. Bertrand Russell (237) in ‘The Scientific Outlook’, adequately reviews these issues, and fifty years after reading this book, I have seen nothing which draws me away from an atheistic attitude to life. It could of course be argued against me that my belief in disarming conflict by Quaker-Ghandian policies is an act of absurd faith, but as yet there are few social experiments employing non-violent tactics. And I am not denying the need for serious rethinking of the UN as regards violence, militarism and international arms dealing. I see the current situation as socially malignant, born of the easy adoption of weaponry as the only way to resolve the never ending political disputes. This should not be the policy of a large brained primate, who has probably had over a million years to find a better answer to conflict resolution. I have long been dismayed by the astronomical expenditure on armaments by all the advanced societies claiming to be educated, civilised and indeed, for the most part moral and ‘religious’ communities. Many thousands of years of evolution and adaptation to produce what? A world led basically by silly and unwise people. I have selected the words carefully. Believing that God or political theory supports them, that they are right and even moral, they allow pieces of children to fly here and there in conflicts. If there is a God, then it has clearly gone away to another part of the universe. Perhaps there is a glimmer of hope that a few wise and benign thinking members of the UN may eventually shame the others into turning away from such outrageous policies of violence. The problem is that, faith or no faith, fear and mistrust are the ultimate gods of our sick, selfish and greedy society, and to change gear into the right direction needs more than religion now. Personally, I have arrived at viewing our species with deep pessimism, but it is a great pity that such evolutionary promise seems destined to pass into an ultra-technological but generally mindless desert. At an archaeological level, all is not so lost as regards the study of the history of our religiousness over the millennia. Having stood in the painted caves of Lascaux and Altamira prior to their closure, I was moved by their atmosphere of specialness, even of sanctity. The Valley of the Kings in Egypt was no less emotive to me of belief systems long gone, but lingering on in our own receptiveness to these ritual behaviours of the past. And perhaps long before the construction of Stonehenge, there was a creative twinkle in ancient eyes, exemplified for instance by the development of Zoroastrianism in Iran. The Zoroastrians could have been some of the earliest people to suffer from holy wars with the Turanian prophet being killed as a result. My own experience of the archaeology of religion has been mainly concerned with the cemeteries, usually associated with religious or ritual structures (Figure 87). Graves have varied from scratched out shallow holes to giant mortuary structures. Similarly the body postures have indicated a wide range of treatments, from being roughly thrown in, to a carefully placed, clothed and coffined corpse. The narrow body in some wide graves have suggested obesity or bloating when the body was buried. I have found mass graves to be the most moving, from the beheaded

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Figure 87. Ruins of St. Polyeuktos church in Istanbul, with the Süleymaniye Mosque in the background.

possible Vikings on the Dorset Ridgeway, to the young British and Australian First World War dead thrown into holes behind German lines at Fromelles in France, so very far from friends and families. Most of the developments in the archaeology of religion over the past two decades have not challenged my own thoughts, although growing interest in shamanism and bog bodies should perhaps have stirred my old bones more than it actually has (Figure 88). What has put archaeologists off debating religion to any extent has been the absence of hard facts beyond, of course, the later occurrence of structures such as temples and churches. But surely a key factor to a consideration of religious feeling in the past, whether we can name it or not,

Aspects of the Emotions

Figure 88. ‘Shamanism’ comes back into archaeological vogue; or does it?

is whether it tells us of a potential awareness of individuals in something which transcends life and extends into an ethereal plane, perhaps even into another life in the future. To me, intentional burial which is not accidental or to hide a body, is more than likely indicating some view on the continuation of life beyond death. The complexity and degree of refinement of the grave might or might not be correlated with wealth or social hierarchy. So in a way, and without realising it, I have been at the margins of the archaeology of religion for most of my adult life. Love, the Ultimate Chimera Unless I have missed a critical publication, I don’t think the emotional state called ‘love’ is discussed in archaeological theory. It is discussed in social theory (151), and tentatively defined as ‘a strong emotional attachment, a cathexis, between adolescents or adults…..with at least the components of sex desire and tenderness’ (p251). Value judgements make this a foggy issue. If distress caused by loss at death can be counted as an indication, then it is an emotion which occurs in chimpanzees, elephants and perhaps other mammal species. Human burial by the neanderthalers could also be debated as evidence of this special state of mind. The tenderness and commitment of parents for their children is special and clearly has survival value.

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In sexually mature young adults, it draws them away from family into their own separate reproductive units. Admittedly, there is general cynicism in anthropology about love (188, 183). In the past, as in many recent tribal societies, arranged child marriage was a way of ensuring sensible kinship linkages. There is certainly plenty for consideration from an archaeological point of view. For instance, with the availability of aDNA, it could be revealing to obtain information on potential genetic links between long barrow or round barrow communities. My guess is that they were elite components who were sexually linked to one another. This was not ‘love among hay stacks’, but between the tomb group families. Whether this amounted to love or family politics is another matter. In reviewing the long evolution of altruistic emotions which seem to embrace ‘love’, Mellen (200) urges those of us in anthropology and archaeology to continue to consider theoretical issues and possible connections between ancient prehistoric behaviours and familiar patterns in recent human communities. In contrast to this evolutionary literature, the philosophers continue to spin out more aesthetic comment on our emotions, ethics and reciprocity in feelings (177). However, it can be seriously argued that some sciences have major contributions to make to understanding our emotions, including the variable feelings called love (267). While poets and artists give us pleasure in their reflections on love, I have no doubt that our further understanding of this emotion, in evolutionary and adaptive terms, will come from biology. Ethology, the study of animal behaviour, has a distinguished scientific history, and while humans have been rather sidelined, our species also deserves to be viewed by this methodology. Moreover, some ethologists have turned to humans, not always in a complimentary way. Lorenz (185, 186, 187) sees human overpopulation and the constant search for resources as major factors in perverting real social values and time for contemplation. Self-indulgence and intolerance become increasingly destructive forces. With more people, there is also an increased effect of a strong cultural view, or media suggestion. Large bodies of people can also be more easily manipulated. The complex nature of systems of social interaction can result in profound changes in what human populations view as real and true, but which can become distorted images, successfully disseminated by controlled indoctrination. The ethologist Eibl-Eibesfeldt (135) uses the term ‘love’ to mean the emotional and personal bond between individuals, or even the close bond which can arise between members of a particular group. Mother-child and adult sexual bonding are perhaps the strongest bonding of all. In archaeology, perhaps the most difficult task is to discriminate between acts of real love and the institutionalised acts of bonding which mimic an emotional act. The strong mothers love for her child is surely indicated by the spouted feeding bowls placed with twin infant burials at Jebel Moya, in the Sudan? We may never have more than a few examples of special feelings of this kind from the past, but the detection of even uncommon evidence of affection helps to better understand human feelings. Have I been in mature love? I believe so on a number of occasions, but the feelings were certainly mixed up with hormones. Feelings for my parents were

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different, and would be better described as strong concern and respect for them. In relation to my children, the love I have for them is of a very different and richer kind, not dependant on their feelings for me, but in the form of deep unconditional concern for them and their survival. This parent-child bond is surely one of the strongest attachments seen in the animal world in general. In contrast, the intimate sexual feelings, driven by hormones in young adults, combine with a heady romantic ‘love’ to produce the most powerful volcanic explosion of desire unlike any other force within nature. It is a life force which we must surely share with the australopithecines and Homo erectus, living thousands of years before us. So, the word love is used in very different ways, with the state of mind being sometimes fuelled by sex hormones, sometimes by romantic or artistic thoughts, sometimes by our family relationships with others, or other inner drives. Love at times is indeed blind, and thank goodness the madness passes. The intimate love I have experienced with women, even though the feelings passed, I am nevertheless grateful for. The passion, though transient, lifts us to a special level of consciousness and pleasure, which I think is beyond simple lust. Love of family seems to me quite different. The closeness comes of a satisfaction with family links, with special empathy and compassion for those sharing this special bond, and a wish to support and help those so closely associated with oneself. Is the love I’ve expressed simply a social construction, as some believe? Can love develop in arranged marriages? Commitment, empathy, respect and trust surely provide a formula for the development of a healthy intimacy between adults, between heterosexual or homosexual couples. Robert Sternberg (248) would have me split my experience of intimate heterosexual love into seven kinds, including ‘empty’, ‘companionate’ and even ‘fatuous’. This seems to me to be quite unworkable. I confess to having not been aware of major differences in male-female attitudes in this respect, other than perhaps more of an awareness on the part of a particular woman in the possibility of pregnancy and children. Men, I suspect, are generally slower in associating physical intimacy with children, but once established in their minds, it is seen as an ideal sequel; at least I never felt resistant to this possibility. The creation of children has to me always been one of the outstanding and magical things in my life, welding more strongly the relationship with the mother of the child. The break up of this special relationship has not been something to be contemplated without very good cause, and then still very sad. Freud of course was interested in developing a theory of love, but the scientific and psychoanalytic literature on the subject remains limited (take, for instance, the work of Eibl-Eibesfeldt (131); and Lasky and Silverman (178). Ethologists appear to argue that our capacity to love another is formed in the relationship we initially have with our mothers. Bonding is then with family and to a lesser extent with others in ‘our group’. Sometimes, of course, emotional empathy extends beyond ones own ‘people’, to produce a situation exemplified in ‘West Side Story’. Psychological studies sadly tell us that some individuals are not able to have healthy loving relationships.

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Strongly neurotic personalities, for instance, may not be able to establish lasting relationships. In the narcissistic and consumer-driven society we live in, healthy loving relationships with others may be increasingly more difficult. In view of this, I can only feel grateful that my development in a more sober and deprived society of the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, provided a better chance of experiencing loving relationships. Did the neanderthalers have feelings of love? Life was tough for them, which tends to trim away our finer emotions. But parental and child bonding must have been as strong as in ourselves, and while we do not have direct evidence of this, it was surely a feature of Palaeolithic communities, as in higher primates in general. The fact that the neanderthalers buried their dead suggests to me special family bond relationships, even if burial was ritualised eventually. I am also reminded of the observations of the primatologist, Jane Goodall (150), about the reaction of the chimpanzee Flint to the death of his mother Flo. Her death had a considerable impact on him; he became depressed, stopped eating, and after periods of returning to the place of her death, he died. It could be argued that he already had a damaged immune system, but his sad behaviour was clearly indicating the depth of his loss, whether one calls it ‘love’ or a less emotive term. The poets ‘wax lyrical’ about love, and it can even drive some of us to suicide. So why doesn’t it receive deserved attention in current works on archaeological theory? Check an index for yourself and you will find ‘logocentrism’, ‘ley lines’, ‘longue durée’, ‘logical positivism’, but no ‘love’ entry. When my children and others send me their love, it clearly indicates a feeling, an emotion, a regard for me, not worthy of consideration in theoretical archaeology. Did such emotion not happen in the past? Catullus and other Roman writers would seem to indicate that it did. Seneca tells us that love cannot be mingled with fear. Virgil states that love conquers all, and we must yield to it. Ovid says the love-sick can’t be cured by herbs, not good news for herbalism. One can even catch the faint mood of love in letters from a much earlier Mesopotamia (218). Psychology views love as a highly idealised concept. It is seen as a state of mind which is different to infatuation. Contrary to popular myth, it is unlikely to strike like lightening, but mature like a good wine. It is also a state of mind which can produce contrasting and ambivalent feelings, from love to anger and hate. In such a conflicting state, time is against it, so that its decline is usual and its persistence a rare jewel. But in any case, is it one state of mind or many? Was love in the ‘Old Stone Age’ the same as love in the time of George Washington? Was the young Neolithic man returning to his young ‘bride’ in Avebury, having struggled all day with the construction of West Kennet long barrow, having the same feelings as I did when falling in and out of love at a similar age? John Lee (179) suggests that there are different streams of this emotion, and that we may at times paddle at the wrong place. If the fascination has an erotic basis, it may be in for a frustrating time with the calmer and more pragmatic lover, interested more in the soul than the body. Then again, there is the ‘agapic’ lover with compassionate and altruistic feelings with

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no great erotic fire to quench urgently. Strong passionate love may well be the most fragile. Eric Fromm (147) reduces this emotional complex to two major states of mind, ‘symbiotic’ love and ‘mature’ love. In view of the amount of conflict to be seen in families, and the high divorce rate in advanced societies, the evolution of ‘mature’ states still has a long way to go. Because of the ever lengthening life expectancy in human populations, this mature state of love is really essential, though not commonly achieved. It demands that there is no exploitation of one sex by the other, and the benefits of the intimate links between the man and woman should be reasonably well balanced. Respect for the others space and feelings must also be clearly honoured. In the midst of family grouping we are still clusters of very different individuals. Mate or marital choices, and feelings towards these sexual or life partners clearly has a history and prehistory. Viewing chimpanzees and gorillas as perhaps giving us insight into the mating behaviour of the early hominoids, we see family groups with a reproductively active dominant male and a number of ‘wives’. Younger males, when sexually mature, are marginalised – but will eventually challenge the older dominant male. They are clearly driven by hormones rather than romantic love. Females will be receptive again in relation to cyclic hormonal changes – there is no falling in love with Romeo, and not much chance of careful mate selection. Feelings and actions which might be seen more as ‘love’ are perhaps those bonding members of this extended family; the mutual grooming and parasite eating, the care and protection of the young within the group. There are also the developing feelings of the young for their parents, especially the mother. Females sexually accept the dominant male, but seem not averse to a ‘little on the side’ from competitive younger males. Sexual activity was clearly pleasurable, but hardly ‘love’ in most senses of the word. Perhaps we will never have the evidence to indicate when basic sexual activity was transformed into a more personal and intimate act. I could accept that in Homo erectus, there had evolved closer bonds, with more males and females paired for at least the child-baring period. By Upper Palaeolithic times, burial could well have been common, and the archaeological evidence suggests that some bodies were lovingly dressed and decorated, and perhaps even painted with haematite to look their best for the next world. This suggests greater emotional commitments which could also have extended to male-female relationships. Our early hominid ancestors still whisper to us in terms of our sexual – and some would say love – needs. The male personality, still strongly influenced by hormones, struggles to resist straying from monogamy into a dominance mating game. Arguments of love still cover feelings of lust. Across the gender divide, females have, until contraception, been tempered more by the need for caution and different criteria of selection in ‘love’, for reproduction and survival have been matters for herself and any children produced. What has probably been constant, especially in females, right through our hominid history, have been the loving and

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protective feelings for the children in extended family and tribal bands. But there is no doubt that even this love has been toned down or controlled at times when too many children have led to infanticide or neglect or abandonment. Stress and crisis, whether today or in the Pleistocene, have changed the nature of our behaviour, and if ‘love’ appears to have suffered, it is in order to obey the final demand of evolution, that some survive and contribute to the next generation. Having said all of this, the term and concept of ‘love’ may not have a great antiquity. In prehistoric society, where life was lived from day to day, child mortality was high and lucky was the person to survive even 30 years, love and passion were probably different. Whether life was stressful in terms of food availability, it was certainly short, as evidenced by many thousands of skeletons from later Pleistocene to medieval times. With urban developments and more guaranteed food resources, were human emotions nurtured? Was this complex of variable love feelings able to survive? Greek and Roman theatre and literature certainly suggests that human emotions were being pondered and written about, but this in itself does not establish the antiquity of feelings of love. And where do feelings of awe and reverence and religiosity evolve into love for a deity or holy individual? But this brings me back to religion, which I have discussed previously. Robert Youngson (272) has written amusingly about love, as a psychotic disorder and a common state of madness, with delusions if not hallucinations. It is certainly a state of mind which varies over a lifetime, and in one form perhaps finally helping to bring a state of peace. The hormone driven love of the young is for most of us replaced by the calmer love for ones children (and with luck, ones partner), finally transformed in old age into a calmer viewing and appreciation of those remaining close to us, and of the living world in general. During our evolution, sexual drives would still have been a dominant force in the young, as would the care of children, but few would have lived beyond 50 years into a calmer old age. The danger, of course, in any extrapolation from personal experience back in time, is that one is simply transferring living mental experience into the past. But beyond hormonal drives and the experience of reproduction, can we really get close to the mindset of an ancient Mayan or town dweller at Mohenjodaro? The interpersonal engagement of humans must have radically changed during our social evolution, and this has had an effect on the maturing mind. Small australopithecine family groups or small bands would have experienced a security not achievable in the social turmoil of medieval Europe. By the development of town and state, the individual is placed in a less secure and controllable world. With the expansion of militarism, and the experience of state conflict, the world becomes ever more threatening and insecure. The child’s mental development in these social situations can only be different, and the ‘loss of innocence’ in an australopithecine child and one growing up in a medieval slum are very different. In the security of an australopithecine camp, the child had limited challenges, but at least grasped the nature of family and a relatively closed, if complex, world. To the child in a war torn urban medieval setting, reality is more uncertain, threatening and confusing.

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And in the latter case, the child is likely to ‘grow up’ faster, be more aware of the variability of behaviour and how this may impact on itself. Sadly, what is seen as right, acceptable, sensible in the community, may be far from the truth, but the human brain is too well adapted to accepting reality in the wrong behaviour. Attachment relationships may provide feelings of security not only with the parents but with the dubious beliefs of religions. So during the development of the ‘mind’ in the child, various factors influence the final attitudes to itself and others. The quality of mothering, security within the family and tribe, density of people and the extent of conflicts and even the persuasions of religions, all mould the nature of mental development. Peter Hobson (163) rightly argues that to understand the nature of mind, it is essential to begin in the childhood of an individual. But it is also important to consider the development of language, which I suggest was not critical to thought and action in the early hominids. Like wolves, another social and hierarchy-minded species, social engagement in groups has been an important adaptation in both sexes for various reasons. And later, the more elaborate the social interactions, the more valuable language would have been. The exploration of more ecological zones and resources, increase in numbers and territorial conflicts, and the emergence of more complex social hierarchies would all demand creative thought, language, and perhaps emotional changes. The Identification of Humour It seems to me that the essence of life through the millennia reduces down to the loving, the tragic and the humorous. Our brains, for all their limitations for deep thought, all experience situations which cause pain and distress at our conscious level. However, we are similarly sensitive to the ridiculous, funny, absurd side of our lives. Humour, joking, goes beyond the basic thinking concerned with food needs, or work or religion, and is concerned with recognising a special state of mind, the comic, in our lives. And in that respect, has it adaptive value? Darwin (128) was aware that humans and some other primates made specific noises when pleased. Joyous, affectionate noise made by young chimpanzees could be called laughter, and a similar but quieter reaction could be produced by tickling. But Darwin was aware that laughter and joy need not be associated with deep thought, and can be common in severely mentally defective individuals. First published in 1905 (146), Freud’s psychoanalytic study of jokes further established the study of this behaviour as worthwhile. However, he warns that the relationships between jokes and the comic is not very simple. Indeed, the nature of the comic seems to be complicated, in terms of its evolutionary development. A recognition of the humorous is established in childhood, and in her review Sandra McCosh (197) concludes that young humour is an adaptive technique to cope with growing up into the adult world. By joking, the frustrations and frictions of the adult world are better coped with. Myths from the mock-heroic to the ribald can help to bring communities together in laughter, as pointed out by Clastres (122) in reference to his studies of the Chulupi Indians of Paraguay.

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In archaeology we are far more limited to finding material evidence of humour, and sometimes this can be somewhat hidden and subtle. Cartoon type illustrations from Ancient Egypt are an example of this (Figure 15). Probably the Moche pottery of Peru (6) displays the most creative variation of all ancient ceramics, as I found when examining the large collections both in Peru and North American museums. The humour could take many forms, including of a ribald nature. Even one example indicating bestiality, was clearly not only a joke, but probably indicated a more relaxed attitude to inter-species sexuality than is found in our own society (Figure 89). In their introduction to a multi-authored review of the psychology of humour and laughter, Tony Chapman and Hugh Foot (120) point out that to have a good sense of humour is regarded as a healthy and desirable state of mind. There is clearly great variation, which must be society based. I have long been aware that some of my German colleagues seem to consciously work hard at displaying a good sense of the absurd. My own awareness of the humorous absurdities of life I suspect has been strengthened by life experiences since childhood, and surely people of the past have at times been exposed to the ridiculous, or have had to laugh off unfair situations. The Iron Age British child living under the domination of a Roman elite, must have needed a sense of humour to counteract what could have been at times oppressive and intolerable situations. There is perhaps a serious flaw in our perception of the humorous. The sense of the comic and absurd clearly seems to have been an adaptive measure to protect

Figure 89. Is inter-species sex the next world controversy?

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from the mentally destructive feelings stemming from frustrations and oppressive features of society. Unfortunately, recognising and laughing at the absurd also defuses any development of strong outrage at the truth of the absurd. The nomans-land Christmas meeting of British and German troops in 1914 displayed the humane truth of their brotherhood, while the forbidding reaction on the part of the politicians and generals exposed the cruel absurdity of the elite hierarchy in Europe. Mass killing followed for the sake of dubious political principle. It has always been a cause for satisfaction that my sense of the absurd is well developed. It has been a valuable coping mechanism for me in our dubious world society. However, it is not always appreciated, and humour can be misinterpreted as a shallowness or lack of a mature and serious outlook on the world.

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Traversing the mindfield which is life There is an ever growing literature on the mind and its pathology. James Sully, in 1892, writes: ‘This (Darwinian) theory enables us to introduce a quasi-teleological point of view into the organic world, and to interpret what we find to be permanent as owing its stability to its utility or adaptation to life circumstances’ (250, p32). In the more recent literature, even philosophers have been drawn into the debate on evolution, mind and abnormality. Murphy and Stich (212) for instance bring in computers as analogies to brain components, not successfully from my point of view. Sixty years ago, when attending lectures on the biology of mental abnormality given by Lionel Penrose, I became aware of the complex genetics of our brains and the numerous ways in which the environment could influence our behaviour (223). Most of my conscious thinking goes on at a basic level, remembering to buy bread or socialising in well established ways. At another level, these actions ensure a healthy nutrition and well being or consolidate job opportunities or reproductive success. Music choices or visual art interests may seem totally divorced from survival of our genes, but interest in, and active creativity could be seen as an advantage in aspects of the community and even in mate selection. The stimulation of children by all forms of creative thinking and activity can only have a positive effect on a community over time. A chance discovery of human remains at gravel works on the river Trent when I was a boy, has led to countless hours of thought in the field of Bioarchaeology, and jobs which eventually supported the lives of six children and the transfer of my DNA to another generation. 186

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Bringing together studies of mind in relation to the past, now called evolutionary psychology, seems to me to be far too simplistic. Viewing my own life as one small part of this vast flow of mental energy in time, it seems that we are all caught up in a vast evolutionary pin-ball machine, buffeted forwards towards an end which may or may not have adaptive value, and in which chance events may result in failure. There is some basic design in each life, but many variables, not all of which make sense. Two variables which have impressed me more and more over my life, are human stupidity and lack of perception. These have pervaded our actions and influenced the history of our species. Take language for instance, well discussed in archaeological literature, and considered to be a human trait. In fact, it clearly isn’t just human, although it is more complex in our species. This growing literature on evolutionary psychology is providing a clean and tidy version of what I see as a more chaotic picture. Reading these scholarly papers, it is difficult to think that we are not discussing a population of animals which are ideally illustrating Darwinian evolutionary theory. In fact, we are talking about a species which I belong to, which has bumped along a demographic low for two or three million years until about five thousand years ago, when it started to build cities, write, create religions and other hocus-pocus, and evolve militarism. Domestication propped up chronic population increase. Social and ownership differentials accentuated rich and poor. Ownership of territory resulted in organised conflict, and patterns of disease (including zoonoses) changed. Somewhere along these social changes, we became the species par excellence, which massively kills its own kind. Throughout my life I have stated this fact again and again, but there is no longer any public feeling against this outrage of mass killing. World pacifism will never occur, for xenophobic fear and militarism is the ultimate long lasting cancer. Have we in fact entered another evolutionary stage, a kind of mega-hedonism-cum-madness? Behold Homo-ludicrus! Sanity is replaced by a modern electronic age which displays beheadings, children carried off into slavery, and well equipped modern day piracy. Brave efforts are being made to control the madness, but the ultimate fear remains, that atomic weaponry will get into the hands of these poor aggressive lost souls. Should we consider as ‘normal’, the individuals who commit such murderous and antisocial acts? Indeed, what is normality, as it can’t be defined as the common mental characteristics of a society. Am I normal? It seems to me that in archaeology, as in other behavioural subjects, the normality of behaviour has to be critically questioned. Neuroses and other common destructive mental states pose questions about our adaptability or lack of it, and the evolutionary consequences. And there are both studies on tribal as well as advanced technological societies. Cognitive archaeology has been somewhat arrogant in its belief that this scientific approach will tell us what ancient peoples thought. Well they certainly thought about food, sex, conflicts within and beyond the family, children, and perhaps even their place in the universe. But cognition does not operate in a vacuum, but is influenced by other factors. Diseases varyingly influence cognition. Post –traumatic stress is not simply a military state of mind, but can affect all of us who experience shocking events.

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Figure 90. Evidence of ancient terrorism; impaled captives at a city besieged by Assyrians.

Ancient Assyrian atrocities, including art evidence of dead captives impaled on city walls (11) would then, as now, terrorise local communities (Figure 90). Starvation (Figure 14) can affect individuals profoundly, even turning us into cannibals. Lack of food can also enable us to slip more easily into trance states. After living through many years, and pondering our evolution over much of it, I still feel that we do not have a mature outlook on the complexities of our behaviour, to yet dare to reconstruct the cognitive behaviour of the past. First, we need to construct a more viable and complex methodology for understanding our adaptive, maladaptive, nonadaptive behaviours in relation to time and society. Child studies should also be an integral part of this. Their inborn or early learnt behaviours provide the first level in understanding our behaviour. Recently I experienced my six month old grandson, Theo, laughing at a soft toy jumping towards him (myself being the instigator). This sense of humour could only be instinctive, but what did this mean in cognitive

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evolutionary terms? Archaeology must eventually grow up to the fact that only a closer association with other sciences will enable its transformation. In considering the whole range of time during which we have evolved, there is a danger in viewing change as spread evenly over these millions of years, but the fact is that most of our social evolution, our adaptive changes, have occurred within the last ten thousand years, with most links into Palaeolithic communities extending back only fifty thousand years or so. Much has been written on language, but what is the evidence for its adaptive value prior to urban societies? Hunting in mammals is efficiently carried out without a lengthy vocabulary. Similarly, plant knowledge simply needs observation in the family and a memory. Conflict was basic and limited before population increase and the emergence of militarism. And how much needed to be said when small band societies met? Sexual interaction has never needed conversation! Personally, I suspect that in order to construct a good Darwinian story, we have been too creative in explaining increasing brain size in the early Pleistocene as being selectively and adaptively associated with survival needs and increasing social evolution. Viewing social groups such as wolves, elephants and higher primates, can we really argue for the doubling of our brain size in the Pleistocene by the demands of language or increasing band size and social interaction? To me, the demands on the brain do not significantly occur to the extent of needing critical increase until population increase had resulted in the development of urbanism, and with it laws, religions, polity and the developing sciences. I am clearly not arguing against the fact that brains increased in size, but why is far from explained by social and evolutionary theory. As I’ve said before, we may have been sitting on the answer without realising it (77). We should at least give far more consideration to the possibility that obstetric changes resulting from pelvic remodelling in our change to bipedalism, was extremely significant in child and head size survival. Birth is the most important event in any of our lives, and for me and my mother it turned out to be a very bad time. It took my head, seriously deformed by forceps, some considerable time to remodel into a relatively normal shape. Indeed, it remains questionable whether my brain ever fully recovered. In 1931, prior to the rise of Hitler, the cantankerous but colourful biologist J.B.S. Haldane gave a lecture to the Royal Institution in London, on ‘Prehistory in the light of genetics’. For the most part, the facts he presented are well known today. He talks of gene frequency differences in recent populations and their links with human history and movements. The domestication of plants became better known with an increasing knowledge of plant genetics and chromosome variation, so that back in time distinct centres of crop plant origin could be discerned (156). The situation has changed greatly since then, and I think Haldane’s views on biology and prehistory would have changed significantly had he now been alive. Although the systematic murder of defective children and Jews by the Nazis must have greatly distressed him, I believe that he would rightly still see positive ‘eugenics’ as essential to the ultimate survival and improvement of our species. The term eugenics is best avoided without careful definition. Biologically, our species leaves much to

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be desired, and the question is how can it be improved? In considerable contrast, there is no veterinary protest to the selective breeding of race horses, pit ponies or heavy shire horses. The veterinary profession has objected to the selective breeding of some dog varieties, where actual pathology has become entwined with breed definitions. Returning to Haldane, I believe that he would rightly ask what could now be done to improve humans, by one means or another. Looking back over the last century, he would note the massive loss of young fit individuals in the wars and conflicts, and the probability that this could have affected gene frequencies (including differential survival of the unfit). In contrast, medical genetics has urged certain families to consider avoiding or replacing defective genes, and in serious cases (such as Huntington’s chorea) to refrain from having children. With the appearance of genetic engineering, both of humans and other living species, there is again hope for the future, although religion and ignorance is likely to be obstructive into the future. Left to ourselves, with no hope of real change, our species will go nowhere of any significance. More vehicles on the moon, or more elaborate telecommunications, or more medicines, will change nothing really. We have simply come from the Stone Age to the Metal Age, nothing more. Imprinting, the ultimate deterrent to independent thought The psychologist Frederick Smith (243) early on extended animal behaviour studies on imprinting to human young. Caution is of course needed in that we live a much greater time range than most vertebrates, and we continue learning into late adult years. But attachments made at home or school provide a strong educational grounding, if not ‘brain washing’ against independent thought, which then remains an influence throughout life. Even those who mature into a state of religious cynicism, may still be uncomfortable with morality issues, even though openly rejecting Christian, Muslim or Jewish tenets learned in childhood. Perhaps the significant difference in imprinting in humans compared to other vertebrates is that we continue to accept, follow, and believe details into adulthood which are, or are arguably highly questionable as facts, and of no clear adaptive value. In other words, we have a unique capacity to believe a remarkable range of dubious, inaccurate or make-believe facts, as well as real information, from cradle to the grave. The consequence has been many wars, and near close atomic extinction. The millions killed in the First World War were following social imprinting fortunately not common today. After the Christmas truce of 1914, and the jingoism had faded, the armies should all have gone home, telling their crazed leaders to go to the devil. But imprinting exerted a stranglehold on them, and they continued as sheep to the slaughter. A hundred years later, I continue to mourn them for their inability to break away en masse, being held in place by the fear of contravening the accepted behaviour of their societies. What would I have done at the time, had I been from a wealthy family, educated, say, at Eton rather than as a working class lad from the ‘mucky Midlands’? As officer

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class material would I have been concerned to serve King and country, to lead my men to fight the Bosche? Perhaps. But I can only hope that I would have tried to strengthen the ranks of the pacifists and other objectors to this biological madness, even at the risk of being dishonoured and financially disowned. In this ‘war to end wars’, more than at any other time, the Victorian ‘imprint’ of a man replaced the individualistic critical thinking men. Daniel Boorstin (17) has given an excellent critical account of the unreality of a modern technological society. It seems to me that archaeological science has the challenge of unravelling the long history of our past societies from the perspective of the complex mess we are in today. Crowd Behaviour I have never felt at ease, comfortable, in a large group of people, or a crowd. And perhaps that is not the primeval state we are still basically adapted to. In the late Pleistocene, with a world population of perhaps five million, there was perhaps a limited degree of interaction between hunting bands. Avoidance of close family mating and sharing territory would have brought groups together, and it is clear from the similarities in tool technology that there was common acceptance of some standards in size and shape of tools. This could be seen as the earliest example of group or ‘crowd’ psychology and conformity, the spread and acceptance of ideas in small populations. Subtle individual variation in tool manufacture would have been subjugated to the more generally accepted ideal artefact forms, although I like to feel that mavericks made their mark from time to time. How creative were our Pleistocene forefathers? New tool styles in the Upper Palaeolithic would suggest that new technological challenges (? Including from conflict) were being met by the adoption of some new ideas. Cave art would seem to indicate the development and application of artistic skills, but also magico-religious thought. Pottery styles by the Neolithic and Bronze Age can be seen as modestly successful fashions, linked to tribe or locality. Bronze weapons are a different order of creative design, linked to fear, conflict and conquest. Below this level of material culture, we still need to identify simple neutrally adaptive crazes. Did the decorated stone balls or carved spiral designs on tombs (Figure 91) indicate a prehistoric equivalent of the recent hoola-hoop or yo-yo; ideas with an unexplainable infectious quality, but of no real behavioural or ritual value? Fashions or styles have yet to be considered behaviourally in archaeology, yet like crazes, they are transient although sometimes recurring. Initially, a cultural feature may be adopted, but still turn out to be of mistaken value. Lionel Penrose (222) gives the example of thallium therapy, which became medically fashionable in 1925, but had totally declined by 1940, when the toxic effects were realised. Religious crazes are another variant, as exemplified by the Victorian Doukhobors, who were initially infected with religious fervour, which eventually subsided. Depending on the size of a group and its composition, degree of isolation and persecution, it is easy to see how religious fractionation and even hysteria occurred in the past. Penrose includes panic reactions as an extension of

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Figure 91. Design crazes or specific symbolism? a) Part of a carved stone at prehistoric New Grange; b) Ornamental stone balls with incised patterns from prehistoric Scotland.

the craze, in that it is an acute and rapid behavioural change in a group. Initially, fear may only be in a few individuals but may be transmitted rapidly to others. Cantril’s (117) description of the widespread panic and disturbance in the USA following the transmission of an all too realistic play ‘Invasion from Mars’, clearly illustrates our potential gullibility and hysteria. Penrose concludes his analysis of crowd behaviour by suggesting that larger populations are more easily controlled than small groups. Larger stratified or hierarchical systems would also be at an advantage in the economic control of a population. Moreover, as a whole, communities can accept perpetrated untruths even in the face of evidence against them, as in the fictional Mars attack. Human gullibility seems to have no limits, as in the long history of anti-Semitism. These facts seriously call into question the adaptability of much of our elaborated cultural behaviour. Our limited perception, and inability to quickly identify truths against an evolving background of social stratification supported by a web of half truths and propaganda, places our species in a perilous position for the future. The past provides no reassurances, and while agriculture seemed a smart adaptive move ten thousand years ago, the demographic consequences have been catastrophic. The apex of technological development has been to support militarism and incomparable mass killing. For much of our evolution we were free of this, even if

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minor conflict occurred. Perhaps our one saving grace has been in the related medical and veterinary fields, although even here, links to warfare have probably been a stimulus since early urban times. Mind and Malfunction I remember very little detail of my childhood, yet we are told that this is a highly formative period of ones life. There are vague memories of breaking greenhouse glass, of being severely cut on the leg with glass, and thus having a lifelong cautiousness in handling it. I remember young school friends, vague recollections of holidays, sleeping in our air raid shelter, and a range of uninspiring teachers. My parents were ‘loving’, ‘committed’, calm and no nonsense people. I remember the street parties at VE and VJ day at the end of the war, but none of these recollections are strong or appear as formative on my developing mind. Yet out of this hotchpotch of experience, combined with that of adult life, my brain has mellowed and matured an attitude to my species which I hope is healthy, but at the same time is critical if not cynical. As one of the human sciences, it is important that archaeology not only provides a story of our biological and social evolution, but contributes to an understanding of our mind and its limitations. Evolution, mind and reality There is no reason to believe that the soul, the mind and the brain are not all part of the same thing, providing an awareness of ones self, of our surroundings and problems of survival, and even our awareness of the universe. Our consciousness is still not fully understood and we know far less about this phenomenon in other species. The brains of birds and mammals of a similar size are not wired in the same design, which raises a further question of similarities and scaling in consciousness. In the case of our own large brains relative to body size, it is questionable how much of the brain is normally used or even vital to life. We all function well enough with brains of 1000cc’s, so why do a few of us grow them nearly twice as large without becoming multi-faceted geniuses? And when did our cerebral humanness come about? Did we begin to think as modern humans, but of course without our education, two million, one million or half a million years ago? Plato viewed the soul as tripartite, part immortal, part mortal and spiritually courageous, and part passionate and pleasure seeking. To Aristotle the soul was a part of biology, and was the behavioural essence of each species. To him, the soul was intimately linked to the body. The unconscious workings of the brain were considered by Leibniz, Freud and others, and in this computer age, we need to view the complex working of a computer as rather comparable to the hidden world of the subconscious, which again quietly computes by means of complex neural networks. It seems to me that much of the nineteenth century and earlier debate about brain and mind is now superfluous.

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Alexander Bain in his ‘Mind and Body’ published in 1873 (4), takes a philosophical position, holding on to a trinity division of mind into feelings, volition and intellectual thought. But basically, we need to think in biological terms, of brain growth and development under DNA regulation, also affected by nutrition and toxins, and modified by hormones and the social environment. Both absurd and wise aspects of cultures will impact on the brain and behaviour, to the extent that one has to question at times the extent of true perception. How else can one explain the mass war killings in the twentieth century or the mass suicides of 914 people in a religious cult in Guyana during 1978? For all the adaptive survival value of our surprisingly large brains, they appear at the same time to be fragile in terms of how they evaluate and react to situations. Mild malfunctioning of our brains, perhaps also influenced by education, appears to be common, as if our cerebral computers are poorly wired. In T.S. Clouston’s classic Victorian work ‘Mental Diseases’ (123), which describes more severe forms of mental abnormality, he nevertheless acknowledges that we are all variable. This variation he sees as linked to heredity, education, disease and perhaps to the adaptive stresses and strains of evolution. Anyone who has had children knows that even when they are no more than one or two years of age, they can be acute observers of their small worlds, their sibs and parents. Far from being neutral in behaviour, they can be irritating, provocative and manipulative. At puberty, the world changes in that hormonal influences transform the world into a sexual environment. Later, responsibilities of family and eventually the need to face ageing and death, demand further changes in thinking about reality. During our evolution, with brain expansion and the increase in the time we have to reach maturity, our lifetime passage through age-related realities must also have changed. In Baron Feuchtersleben’s ‘Principles of Medical Psychology’ (1847) (141), he suggests that during our biological and social evolution there has been increasing ‘psychical sufferings’, changes from states of reality in our lives, into forms of abnormality. So what were the attitudes to life in ancient Mohenjodaro or Rome or Teotihuacan? We know from studies in the last century that ecological changes can result in swings in mental illness (115), so what could have occurred in these much earlier societies? More recent studies on economically stratified societies again show that the poor have far more psychosomatic ailments, insomnia, depressive states but, surprisingly, no greater tendency to suicide (241). The problem, of course, in considering modern data, is how far we can use recent facts in reconstructing the past. In his critical evaluation of evolutionary psychology, Stephen Rose (236) questions whether we yet understand how significant change can occur in relatively short periods of human history. This problem of explaining the surprising increase in human brain size, in fact a doubling within three million years, has troubled me for many years. It is one thing to ponder at a theoretical level, the strong selection pressures needed to bring such brain increase about, but far from an easy task to provide convincing explanations. One can suggest the importance of language, but why should this have been so important in the early Pleistocene? Modest changes in social structure, food sharing, emerging band hierarchies, seem

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unlikely to have been so critical, that they produced major cerebral changes. My current feeling is that these explanations are now rather tired and not scientifically impressive. Admittedly, there could have been ten to twenty thousand generations to evolve the brain increases from the australopithecine to advanced Homo erectus groups, but is this just thanks to the need for a vocabulary and basic technology? I suspect not. So when the evolution of mind is considered in relation to the Pleistocene period and both biological and cultural evolution, then the question becomes highly speculative. What do the modest changes in brain size mean, if anything, when one is considering the human mind? Similarly, can we equate modest stone tool changes, and other early cultural changes, with shifts in mental abilities? Cultural changes are especially difficult to assess because much may have been in the form of perishable objects. Was the red ochre found in some prehistoric graves sprinkled ritually or was it evidence of body art lovingly placed on the individual for a journey to the next life? Are symmetrical stone tools simply to be viewed as crude digging or butchering tools or as an indication of visuo-spatial technical and artistic abilities? Steven Mithen (206) attempts to provide an evolutionary scheme which shows changes from a ‘domain-specific’ mentality to ‘social complexity’ and a variable higher intelligence. My feeling is that prehistorians can easily slip into the error of making simple changes appear far more complex. Through time we have been held down by our environment and demography. Brain size changes could have been the result of very specific selection for survival skills such as, say, hunting ability and increased knowledge of plant foods and poisons. But the overall pay-off could have been the emergence of novel cultural traits, language complexity, body ornamentation and cave rituals. The Palaeolithic potential Mozart or Van Gogh remained undiscovered because they remained enclosed within their limited cultures. As I get older and more cynical, what puzzles me about the human mind is how little we seem to use it in resolving problems. The prisons are full, international trade in armaments is rampant, our politicians are hardly people of peace and wisdom, and this is after a million or so years of social evolution. There is clearly more to this question than brain size, and perhaps the critical and unseen factor is that the enlarged brains had to evolve some restructuring, to adapt to technological, social and linguistic challenges. Indeed, John Maynard Smith (244) makes the point that cerebral changes must have occurred to allow the language part of the brain to develop. But in other respects also, changes in emphasis in hominine growth, nutrition, technical skills and creativity, all demanded gradual adaptive changes in neural networks. Such changes needed time and appropriate selection factors. And while language may have started as ‘body language’ (215) and basic primate calls, visual art was perhaps the ‘purest’ of new adaptations. Finally, I still suspect, as I have indicated elsewhere (77) that the beginning of cerebral change and brain increase was critically linked to bipedalism and the relative pelvic remodelling. If this assisted in the survival of babies with larger heads and bigger brains, then we

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have identified the primary change which has allowed subsequent neurological and cognitive adaptations. I suspect that ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’ are not viewed in the same way by all of us. They are certainly concerned with brain size and function, but should we view them as different, and if so, to what degree? If we view the brain in computer terms, then could the ‘mind’ be equated with what is presented on the computer screen, representing the complex evaluation of the computer programming. To me, my consciousness is different in that it is not what I present to others regarding my mental activity, but my inner awareness of myself and the world around me. In computer terms, it is alive to itself and its program limitations. Language has miraculously allowed us to communicate our brain activity as never before, and tell one another that we are live thinking beings. But there is a need for caution. The Japanese primates who learned to wash potatoes before eating them, were not thinking in language ‘potato’ and ‘wash’, but visually and cerebrally understood that the washing act removed gritty unpleasant particles. Looking and understanding does not demand language, or is there a critical threshold of complex thought which demands explanatory symbols? Psychological archaeology emerges In the 1950s when I attended lectures in social anthropology, it was clear that cultures were more than the sum of individual personalities, and shared beliefs, but it was still some way from recognising that it was really an evolving behavioural science. But in the next two decades, it became clearer that the subject was really the social psychology of tribal peoples (as opposed to high density, technologically advanced, urbanised societies). Francis Hsu (165) was an enthusiastic supporter of changes, and proposed that ‘psychological anthropology’ was a suitable title for the evolving discipline. In archaeology, it was to be a further two decades before a ‘cognitive archaeology’ began to be recognised generally, and as this term does not embrace abnormal behaviour, it would seem more sensible to look for an alternative name such as ‘psychological archaeology’. Personally I would prefer ‘ethoarchaeology’, from ethology (136), which emphasises behavioural aspects. In Henry Maudsley’s ‘The Pathology of Mind’ (1879) (194), he writes: ‘A perplexing impression was produced on my mind when I first began to study mental diseases…..by the isolation in which they seemed to be. On the one hand, treatises on psychology made no mention of them, and gave not the least help towards an understanding of them; and, on the other hand, treatises on mental disorders….. treated their subject as if it belonged to a science entirely distinct from that which was concerned with the sound mind’ (preface, v.) Similarly, archaeology which is also concerned with the evolution of mental processes and variation, has until recently largely ignored these two related subjects. E.B. Tylor’s classification of human communities into ‘savage, barbaric and civilised’ (1881: 24) (256), adopted by many earlier prehistorians indicates how behaviourally unscientific thinking was

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in archaeology until more recent times. But the situation is at last changing for the better, as some recent publications indicate (232, 215, 118). The first question I have asked myself about human cognition and the past is, are my intuitive feelings about the world similar to those of a Neolithic farmer, or neanderthaler or even a Homo erectus hunter? Do we all share identical basic biological reasoning abilities? And how similar is our perception of the world, when our knowledge of it has changed so radically over the millennia? Pondering mind and reality My children greatly enjoyed reading ‘Catweazle’ by Richard Carpenter. In it, a Saxon sorcerer miscast a spell and was projected into the 20th century. Except for a few basic needs, such as housing, pottery and food, the world was completely foreign to him (cars, trains, electricity). The use of language was different (even allowing for the updating of Saxon words). I was surprised to find that it was a very good example of how different reality could be – exemplified by two English societies separated by a thousand years. One entrenched in science and technology (though still ‘religious’ and superstitious), the other with a simple technology, an earlier Christianity, and with life much more controlled by superstitions, leech craft, and a basic social structure. Life revolved around a very limited knowledge of the world, hard physical work, fear of the known and unknown. We can see their material lives, but we can only guess at their little worlds, and the fears and superstitions and powerful social forces which surrounded them. Archaeology has also been good at story telling, but there is a real need to critically evaluate the actual nature of past reality, as far as it can ever be reconstructed from the material objects which represent fossil behaviour and beliefs. Archaeologists, psychologists, and perhaps psychiatrists, assume behaviour and reality can be understood because we are all rather the same. But if I was brought up to fear a cluster of gods, believe in witchcraft, sense evil places, believe in curses and accept ghosts, back in a pre-literate time long gone, how can I today ever hope to understand their world. Similarly, schizophrenia can drop a person into a frightening, threatening and dangerous world. All we can do is to be continually sensitive to these potential differences, extrapolate from the present to the past when possible and accept that the worlds of the past could be very different indeed. Socio-economic changes and mental stability It seems debatable whether the transformation from small band hunting and gathering communities to early farming societies would have caused much social unrest, as populations were small at first. But with the increasing density of urban developments, distrust, avarice, jealousy and other emotional traits could have given rise to conflict and serious mental disturbance. Greek, Indian and Arab

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physicians were aware of disturbed states of mind, and the fourteenth century Arab historian, Ibn Khaldun, made particular comment on the psychological changes which had occurred with the changes in social structure and the poor adaptation of old tribal systems to the new demands of integration in towns (214). Today, there are considerable differences in prevalence rates in different societies for types of neurosis, and to a lesser degree even for schizophrenia. Such differences now and in the past must be linked to the nature of social stresses and the degree of adaptation on the part of individuals and groups to adapt to the factors responsible. While it is debatable if the changes in tool technology, and perhaps language complexity in the Pleistocene, resulted in changes to the overall prevalence of mental abnormality, it would seem undeniable that the last ten millennia have seen an escalation in behavioural problems, from warfare to depression and eating disorders. It could be argued that the protective as well as emotionally destructive environments of evolving urban cultures have allowed the ‘relaxed selection’ and survival of neurotic as well as psychotic tendencies in people to an extent which will seriously impede better adapted changes in our societies. Horacio Fàbrega (2002) (139) is right to urge an evolutionary perspective when considering the range of mental illnesses in human populations, but we are not seeing a steady gradient in their occurrence, but a complex interweaving of variant DNA, biological selection factors and the fluctuating nature of cultural pressures. Of the growing archaeological literature on mind, Dominic Murphy and Stephen Stich (212) produced a useful overview of evolutionary aspects of mental disorders. While I am hesitant to employ some of the jargon used, such as ‘information-processing modules’, the brain is clearly organised to handle a variety of different adaptive problems, but it is clearly able to malfunction. The problem is to provide a satisfactory classification of mental disorders, and to view them in possible evolutionary terms. But there is considerable variation, with perhaps phenylketonuric mental defect at one end of the range, being a biochemical anomaly under simple Mendelian control (223). At the complex end, the variation would include schizophrenia and autism. To what extent all mental disorders will eventually be explained in biochemical terms, remains a primary concern of ongoing research, but this will not deny evolutionary relevance of course. The situation could be far more complex than yet appreciated in archaeology. For instance, severe autism is extremely disabling, but the mild form called Asperger’s syndrome, which I believe Gordon Childe had (110), probably assisted in his dedication to prehistoric studies. The most difficult forms of mental abnormality to identify, which are not normally viewed as abnormal, and certainly not psychopathological, are concerned with aberrant states of perception. The top of such variables is the human capacity for murder and mass killing. Because it is so common in our species, it is viewed as normal variation, mass killings usually being excused as politically justified. This is the great delusion of our species, which could eventually lead to our extinction.

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Mind and conflict The year 1933 not only saw my birth and Hitler come to power, but the famous meeting of the Oxford Union, when the motion was ‘That this house will in no circumstances fight for its King and country.’ It was carried by 275 votes to 153, but in view of the political developments in Europe in the next six years, it turned out to mean nothing. But at the time it greatly irritated Churchill, whose surprising remarks do not sound anti-fascist, but against British youth. ‘My mind’, he said ‘turns across the sea. I think of Germany with its splendid, clear-eyed youth demanding to be conscripted into an army burning to suffer and die for their Fatherland, I think of Italy, with her ardent fascists, her renowned chief, and stern sense of national duty….One can almost feel the curl of contempt on the lips of the manhood of all these peoples when they read this message sent out by Oxford University in the name of Young England’. (160). This is the same confused Churchill who called Ghandi a ‘half naked Fakir’, and was against independence for India and other parts of ‘the Empire’. So 15 years after the first world war, at least the educated young of Britain were clear headed and morally responsible. But they were naïve in not appreciating that the leaders and other parts of the elite of Europe remained in a mentally retarded past. Europe remained governed by suspect people, as it has been for millennia. In the past 3000 years of recorded history, only in about 15% of the time have communities been at peace with one another. The first world war killed over eight million troops alone, with three times that figure wounded. Civilian deaths were substantial but not as astronomical as in the 1940-45 war (126). Current wars are becoming even more destructive of civilians, and reflect even more seriously, the lack of feeling and perception on the part of the political figures and those with bombs and other weapons who carry out all the destructive madness. In a letter to his mother in May, 1917, the poet Wilfred Owen wrote: ‘I have comprehended a light which never will filter into the dogma of any national church: namely that one of Christ’s essential commands was: Passivity at any price! Suffer dishonour and disgrace; but never resort to arms. Be bullied, be outraged, be killed; but do not kill. It may be a chimerical and an ignominious principle, but there it is.’ (Owen, 246pp) (220). In this comment he exposed the distorted perceptions of churches and states, which allowed Christendom to fight within itself in two world wars and destroy at least 38,000,000 individuals, men, women and children (138). This is the primate species which named itself not Homo Iudicrus or Homo sociopathologicus, but Homo sapiens, man the wise. Psychopathology and archaeology While psychopathology could be defined as behavioural deviance from what is considered normal in society, the first problem is to define normality. Some reviews have been undertaken on what appears to be evidence of mental illness in texts from

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Mesopotamia and the Classical World (208, 268), but there is a real need for more assessments of ancient texts, preferably with the collaboration of text specialists and psychopathologists. At a personal level, an individual can display pathological behaviour divorced from cultural factors, such as murder within the family. In the end, definitions of psychopathology will depend on who is evaluating the deviance, sociologist, psychologist, politician, psychiatrist or whoever. I would argue that the archaeologist should also be involved, in order to provide a timescale and evolutionary perspective. This question of pathology in relation to the mind is a complex problem, as indicated by the work of Szasz , and Bennett and Sanchez (251, 9) and others. This does not mean that it should be ignored in archaeology, and indeed, it is time to seriously challenge the current situation where the actions of ancient individuals and societies are simply viewed as normal and acceptable human behaviour. Of course, it is possible to find in earlier writings probable cases of individual hysteria, age-related mental deterioration and even schizophrenia. But what of deviant behaviour affecting whole societies? The social violence called ‘amok’ was first described in south-east Asia by the early fifteenth century, and seems to indicate violence in bands of individuals who reached a critical level of social frustration and then ‘ran amuck’ (213). This exotic example makes the point that the mind at an individual or society level results in a complex range of behaviour involving us all, and back into the past. And what we may now see as individual pathology not relevant to our understanding of behavioural and social evolution, might in fact be very relevant. While full-blown schizophrenia is an extreme mental state which is undesirable in human societies, have there been schizoid-paranoid personalities who have been especially vigilant to dangers and have thus assisted in the survival of their group? But our paranoid, xenophobic society has gone too far, and in the view of Szent-Gyorgyi (252), we have become ‘crazy apes’ as a result. Looking at world societies today, it is understandable to feel that at the end of the long road over many millennia, from small tribal societies to the violent ‘one world’ of today, that we are going nowhere of significance. And any attempt to change this sad situation will demand a far better understanding of our minds than the international political community seems capable of. Schizophrenia, which I have personally seen ‘in action’, can be an impressive and unexpected change of gear at a mental and behavioural level. In its paranoid state, a person can become fearful and persecuted by voices to the extent that life is not worth living, and indeed is hell. In the past, this chronic condition, not recognised by earlier communities as a serious illness, must have had a variety of social repercussions. How many witches, or accusers of people, were really displaying schizophrenic tendencies? How often were the voices interpreted by families or communities as contact from God or the devil? And this slide of the mind from one reality to another can occur quietly, and eventually embraces many sub-states of mind; disgust, moroseness, meaningless overactivity, cursing, talking to inner voices and so on. Today, low prevalence rates vary between about 3 and 10 per thousand, but the sexes vary and there are urban-rural contrasts. Bipolar

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conditions appear to be twice as common as schizophrenia, again producing fluctuating changes in mental reality. These changes in mental ‘reality’ have an evolutionary history which should not be ignored in archaeology, especially by those talking about ‘mind’. I have always been impressed by the apparent willingness or gullibility of people to accept information which is questionable or highly debatable. The many hundreds of so-called ‘witches’ killed on no sane evidence, or the non-existent ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in Iraq which fooled many and again resulted in countless deaths. These cases of ‘collective insanity’ do not fit the original definition of the syndrome ‘folie à deux’ which referred to a shared delusional state on the part of a limited number of people (140). Perhaps at a political level, the term should be modified to ‘La Folie à Mille’. But can mild and more extreme delusional states be totally separated, and if it is politically associated, is it any less a delusional state, a ‘contagious insanity’? I have long held the view that mild insanity affecting many should not be viewed as normal because it is dominant in a community, as Nazism clearly was in Germany in the 1930s. Politics has long avoided this issue, because people are led to believe that those in politics are ‘normal’ in thought and behaviour, although the evidence, supported by history, is that this is not so. As a student, I was fascinated by descriptions of hypnotic and trance states in tribal societies. In the dwindling tribal societies of today, with increasing culture contact, psychological disorders are changing (134), but there can still be fear of sorcery and other delusions. A short time before my third daughter, Judith, was born in 1964, my world seemed to collapse about me, although I had no idea what was happening. Acute and deep depression is a state of darkness, despair and imprisonment which simply can’t be described. It has to be lived through to be understood. Those around me must have wondered, but neither my wife, nor anyone else, made comment or urged me to see a doctor. What caused the episode is unknown, perhaps it was influenza earlier. All I know is that some weeks later, I came out of hell, into sunshine once more. Over forty years later I am still puzzled by its appearance and total eclipse, and in a strange way am grateful for the experience, which gave me brief personal experience of an unpleasant state of mind. My father was highly anti-social to the point that I have questioned his normality. Within my own family, I have seen the suffering resulting from anorexia and schizophrenia, and how normal happy children can move into states of mental devastation by these conditions. Do we blame genes, brain chemistry, or what? And how much more serious can it be, if people with power are struck down by conditions which produce unbalanced views of life, in one form or another. Would Anthony Eden have contributed to the Suez crisis, had he been in a ‘normal’ state of mind? The problem, of course, is to differentiate between the drive for power, in its various forms, and pathological states of mind. Or is the wish for power a suspect state of mind anyway? When power and mental disturbance meet, then there is potential for a major crisis.

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Fluctuations in states of mind are not just relevant to recent history of course. Herod became increasingly fractious as he got older, and this could have been due to a deteriorating vascular supply of blood to his brain. Even ergotism could have had disastrous effects on the mental wellbeing of both leaders and their communities in the past.

Chapter 16

Conclusions on a Life Looking back, time has gone so quickly that I wonder what filled up the nearly 30,000 days of my existence. And what a transformation has happened since I sat between my parents, George and Constance, on the sands at Mablethorpe so long ago (Figure 92). Social changes were still in progress after the First World War, and as a boy in Beeston, I was still very aware of subtle distinctions even within the middle class of Britain. But they were to be replaced by a growing concern for the pathological militarism of Germany and Japan, and later by the profound consequences of the atomic bomb and threat of an oppressive communism. Archaeology might be seen as an escape, but it equally reminds us that the past displays far from ideal ancestral societies. Indeed, the ultimate question is whether we have now deviated too far from what might have become an ideally adapted society, to survive for more than a few more centuries. Archaeology, and especially scientific understanding of our past, has a contribution to make to establishing a realistic perspective on our long history. In particular, I believe the quality of science within archaeology is challenged, and it is essential that it presents a high standard of teaching and research in universities in the future. This is not the case at present, and sadly, too few students elect to take courses with a strong science background. On a cold March day of 1953, prior to my call-up, a group of us doing science A Levels at Nottingham Technical College were fired with enthusiasm to repeat Thor Heyerdahl’s Kon Tiki expedition in the Pacific, but somewhat more modestly (Figure 93). Empty oil cans were lashed together and we set sail down the River Trent aboard the ‘Kong Techi’. No South Sea beauties seduced us, unfortunately, and we later retired to a pub, wet and cold. But it was my first experience of experimentation, a further important aspect of science. Later that year, I was to experience a loss of innocence and come face to face with the complex phenomenon called ‘punishment’, in prison. 203

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Figure 92. Calmer times, with my parents at Mablethorpe, 1934.

Figure 93. The departure of the Kong Techi expedition, March, 1953.

Conclusions on a Life

One advantage archaeology confers on those working in the subject is a bird’s eye view of the whole history of ourselves, from the splitting off of the human line from other primates to the dubious world of today. More than in any other discipline, we have the chance to look critically and realistically at our geological and social career. While politicians, religious leaders and philosophers serve up their limited versions of the world, we have a chance to view us as we really are. Sadly, few of us can break away from the limp, uncritical education and brainwashing which adapts us to this unpalatable social world. Like the rest of humanity today, I have been influenced by the imprinting we are exposed to from birth, and which few of us can fight against. Archaeology at least provides an account of the total human career and its follies, but we are left to sift and sort out reality from the rest. The easy part of archaeology is the excavation and analysis of finds, the most difficult being the forensic reconstruction of the living people at any period. How far can we assume that they were mentally similar to us, a million or even just five hundred years ago? There is a danger that archaeology, in attempting to tell the ‘truth’ about ourselves, will instead repeat the self-congratulatory success story about a brainy, inventive mammal. But a serious zoological analysis of us would also need to state that our species is distinguished by being the massive killer of its own kind, with a population increase out of control, a vastly biased distribution of resources, and with highly variable societies which had evolved non-adaptive religion and politics working against the overall good and survival of the population as a whole. As a highly creative animal, we have produced a great range of artefacts to support agriculture, violent conflicts, and many other aspects of life, even including a world market in ‘sex toys’. Except for the support of food production, much technology could be greatly reduced, but there would need to be social techniques for conflict resolution, and an acceptance of a simpler standard of life. In my short stay with native Americans in Guyana in 1966, I was impressed by how little of the western world they had got or truly needed. Food was local, especially maize and cassava. Water was clean, even though partly from rain water. Crime was minimal. Housing was basic but fine, and built by themselves from local materials. Only medical aid and medicine linked them essentially to advanced scientific knowledge. As a result of contact with towns and advanced western society, they were becoming restless, and wanted all the gadgets of our appliance-ridden society. Like us, they were acquiring the motto: ‘I haven’t got it, but I have the right to own it, and I want it’. In our society, it is of course linked to capitalism and profits, and keeping an ever-growing world population busy, rather than state supported. As yet, historical demography is little considered in archaeology, but is worthy of far more attention, for population is the curse of our time. Although urbanism has been a major theme of archaeology, have we always asked the right questions? The houses I have lived in with my children have all been a reasonable size, but the first cottage we had in Avebury had accommodated a much bigger farming family in the nineteenth century. A well in the garden had provided water, and that same garden was used to bury the ‘night soil’ from the

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external latrine. Increasing urban density meant increasing environmental stress (93), a subject still to be fully explored in relation to the past. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was plenty of local craftsmanship to provide for the ordinary family home. I have a wooden Orkney chair which was known as ‘Muckle Geordie’s chair’, as it had been constructed for his large body form. Factors of this kind must have influenced a wide variety of ancient cultural objects, including pottery, and we still need to develop what might be called ergonomic archaeology. Religion and sex have been uncomfortable bed fellows in at least Christian times, and most of us have been affected to some degree. As a youth with his fair share of testosterone, I viewed the church with suspicion on these matters. Jesus had an effeminate quality suggestive of a gay individual. But this, and his pacifism, clearly didn’t appeal to western Christianity, where church elders to me were pompous and self-righteous and their religion linked to the glories of war. The enormous pleasures of youthful sexuality were not to be expounded on, except in talk of marriage and family. The celebration of pure sex was not for us Methodists. Fortunately, in archaeology I was delighted to see in the prominent erection of the Egyptian god Min, and in the sexually inventive pottery of the Peruvian Moche people, a far more relaxed, if not fun, attitude to sexuality. As far as God and an afterlife are concerned, the Neanderthalers could have initiated our interest in the supernatural. But by Pre-dynastic times, strong leadership had worked hard creatively to fill in the gaps in the world of the supernatural. The reason for all this effort was to explain the unexplainable in ways acceptable before the advent of the mature sciences. It was also to establish a social class within the commonly growing hierarchies developing in strongly peopled urban areas, which would be seen and supported as a religious faction. These God specialists would also provide support for the elite kingly and political class, who would feed off the worker levels of society. As I have found in my own lifetime, religions easily associate with large conflicts, on both or all sides in the conflict, calling on the same god or other gods to support them and bring them victory. Advanced scientific societies of today still call on a mysterious god in this way, and we carry through these rituals as if there is sense in it all. It shows that our society, for all its knowledge and critical scientific ability, can remain partly in a world of schizoid make-belief (Figure 94). Fear can be a strong supporting force in these situations, and again this self-hoodwinking clearly extends back into prehistory. One of the problems I sensed when a student marching against the Suez fiasco in 1956, was that parliament, and to some extent the press, did not like protest against democratically elected authority. Society has changed a little since then, but there is still this strange phenomenon that we give names to positions in our social hierarchy; MP, Lord, Judge, and the person takes on the power of that authority. Today, the ordinary person is fed up of being told to respect authority demanded of them. But this is not new, as it extends back into antiquity. Giving a name to a person in authority does not make them upright; the history of popes and politicians make this very clear, but we carry on in this naïve way, knowing full well that very few are capable

Conclusions on a Life

Figure 94. God eating a carrot; the child’s creative mind. Courtesy of Lynn Johnston.

of being truly world leaders or thinkers, and this demands the construction of a new world politics. This will eventually extend society beyond its basic democracy to a new world political system. One of the pleasures of having fewer teaching commitments now is that there is more time for reading broadly. In archaeology it has become increasingly clear to me that my early education in the subject was somewhat biased, and the situation has not changed greatly in the universities. Of course, we are all exposed to a limited range of world archaeology, but in Britain for instance we are far too exposed to the archaeology of these islands. As a student, Europe and the Near East were important as regional influences, but Egypt, China, and especially the complex nature of New World societies were seriously neglected. Only by personal travel did I come to realise the distorted view I had. The superb art and architecture alone of the Aztecs, Incas and Maya, transformed archaeology for me, and I feel strongly now that world archaeology should be a much stronger basis of all departmental teaching, and specialist staff in these fields is urgently needed. Although antiquities have been plundered and commercially exploited since Napoleonic times, there is today a darker cloud emerging which is introducing a new level of terrorism and

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social pathology. About twenty years ago in Avebury, I saw, to my horror, paint splashed all over the prehistoric standing stones. Recently I read of the intentional destruction of priceless stone monuments in the Near East by Muslim fanatics. We are entering a new era which combines archaeology with a new level of community madness. But perhaps I am forgetting the malicious damage I saw in the hot sidechamber of tomb K35 in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. Three bodies of the XVIIIth Dynasty lay side by side. One was the elderly Queen Tiy, still beautiful with her long hair flowing down by her face. Next to her a boy, Prince Tuthmosis, with a distinctive royal lock of hair and perforated ears. Lastly, a young woman who was probably Nefertiti, wife of Akhenaten, a radical who attempted to change traditions.

Figure 95. Protest art, seen on the Berlin Wall in March, 1986, when at a symposium.

Conclusions on a Life

On his death, the social backlash was considerable, and I still wonder if this explains the deep vindictive cuts I found into the two younger bodies (144). I really believe that it is through science that most progress will now be made in archaeology, but I am aware that in my lifetime there has been surprising resistance to this view, partly due to a misunderstanding of what science is in archaeology. Science demands a critical and experimental outlook, not an aesthetic one, and for this reason, these two opposing attitudes will continue to face one another for some centuries to come. This does not mean that I am against the ‘Arts’, far from it. In particular, protest art (Figure 95) can be most uplifting to a community in times of hardship. On the Possible Scenario for my Descendents Long in the Future One of the questions I would have liked to ask Darwin, in view of his interest in the domestication of animals, was, in view of his knowledge of animal breeding, to what extent could this knowledge be applied to the improvement of human populations? It is a question which might have been asked in Victorian times, but today is fraught with danger and politically is a non-starter. It has shades of Nazi experimentation about it, but in fact is a serious biological question. In the case of dogs, for instance, we have produced a range of dog breeds derived from wolves, and with increasing knowledge of their DNA, we will understand more and more about their variation, to the extent that we will continue to eliminate some of their defects and still improve them. Surely in the same way, we should be considering the ‘improvement’ of humans, getting rid of their common murderous inclinations, limited perception, frequency of neurotic and psychotic disorders, back troubles, inclination to develop cancer, and so on. A lifetime of observing humans leads me to conclude that there will be little progress in our microevolution to a better species unless we really begin to consider at a United Nations level, the general biological improvement of humanity. I say this fervently, but have grave doubts about it ever happening. What will get in the way of a policy for the people of this planet is regional politics, religions, and the general belief that we are fine as we are. Science, the great potential force for improvement, remains the Cinderella under the control of suspect world politics. Animals have been domesticated and transformed for food, labour and clothing, but nothing more should be considered on ethical grounds. But ethics is man made, and leaves us much to ponder (Figure 96). Medical science is of course helping to improve the general health of people, and trim away defective genes. It may at times also be protecting genes by medication, so that conditions such as diabetes survive and increasingly affect the marrying young; what one professor called ‘love among the sweet pees’. Medical genetics has such a long way to go, especially as regards the genetics of the mind, before any major action could be taken. It may take centuries, and only begin to be relevant to my great-to-the-power-of-ten grandchildren, but it must come; or we will continue as we are, murderous, greedy and with the majority coping on happy pills. Is this all

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Figure 96. Humankind; to be, or not to be, that is the question.

that three million years of evolution can produce? Are my descendents committed to the same scenes of social pathology as I have experienced in my lifetime? We no longer hang sheep stealers or burn witches, but we remain essentially in a Dark Age, compared to where I believe we could be. Today, there is talk of ‘gene editing’, and there is no doubt that researching our DNA holds great prospects for the future, including the slowing down of ageing. Perhaps in a century from now, my current ‘mature’ appearance (Figure 97) would not occur until I was 200 years old. At that point, there will be an urgent need to rewrite our reference works on the archaeology of ancient skeletons.

Conclusions on a Life

Figure 97. At King’s Manor, York, recently.

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30. Brothwell, D. 1962. The dental health of the Etruscans. British Dental Journal, 110: 207-10. 31. Brothwell, D. 1963. Evidence of early population change in Central and Southern Africa: doubts and problems. Man, 132 : 101-4. 32. Brothwell, D. 1963. The palaeopathology of Pleistocene and more recent mammals. Pp 275-8. In: Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E. (eds) Science in Archaeology. Thames and Hudson, London. 33. Brothwell, D. 1963. The macroscopic dental pathology of some earlier human populations. Pp 271-88. In: Brothwell, D. (ed) Dental Anthropology. Pergamon Press, London. 34. Brothwell, D. and Moller-Chisensen, V. 1963. A possible case of amputation, dated to c 2000 BC. Man, 244 : 192-4. 35. Brothwell, D. and Spearman, R. 1963. The hair of earlier peoples. Pp 427436. In: Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E. (eds) Science in Archaeology. Thames and Hudson, London. 36. Brothwell, D.R. 1963. Digging up Bones. British Museum (Natural History), London. 37. Brothwell, D. and Moller-Chrisensen, V. 1963. Medico-historical aspects of a very early case of mutilation. Danish Medical Bulletin, 10 : 21-5. 38. Brothwell, D. 1964. Further comments on the right parietal from Swanscombe; anomalies endocranial features. Pp 173-4. In: Ovey C.D. (ed) The Swanscombe Skull: A Survey of Research on a Pleistocene Site. Occ Paper No. 20. Royal Anthropological Institute, London. 39. Brothwell, D. and Molleson, T. 1965. The frequency of middle phalangeal hair in Britain. Eugenics Review, 57 : 131-5. 40. Brothwell, D. 1966. The human remains from the Fussell’s Lodge long barrow: their morphology, discontinuous traits and pathology. Archaeologia, 100 : 48-63. 41. Brothwell, D. 1967. The Amerindians of Guyana, a biological review. Eugenics Review, 59: 22-45. 42. Brothwell, D. and Sandison, A.T. (eds). 1967. Diseases in Antiquity. Chapters 24 (Pp 320-45), 26 (Pp 349-51) and 34 (Pp 423-43). Thomas, Springfield. 43. Brothwell, D. and Brothwell, P. 1969. Food in Antiquity. Thames and Hudson, London. 44. Brothwell, D. 1969. The study of archaeological materials by means of the scanning electron microscope: an important new field. In: Brothwell, D. and Higgs, E. (eds) Science in Archaeology. Pp 564-6. Thames and Hudson, London. 45. Brothwell, D., Sandison, A.T. and Gray, P.K. 1969. Human biological observations on a Guanche mummy with anthracosis. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 30 : 333-48. 46. Brothwell, D. 1971. Palaeodemography. Pp 111-30. In: Brass, W. (ed) Biological Aspects of Demography. Pergamon, London. 47. Brothwell, D. 1971. Forensic aspects of the so-called Neolithic skeleton Q.1 from Maiden Castle, Dorset. World Archaeology, 3 : 233-41.

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64. Brothwell, D. 1978. Possible evidence of the parasitisation of early Mexican communities by the micro-organism Treponema. Bulletin, Institute of Archaeology, London, No. 15, Pp 113-30. 65. Brothwell, D. and Burleigh, R. 1978. Studies on Amerindian dogs, 1: Carbon isotopes in relation to maize in the diet of domestic dogs from early Peru and Ecuador. Journal of Archaeological Science, 5 : 355-62. 66. Brothwell, D., Thomas, K. and Clutton-Brock, J. (eds). 1978. Research problems in zooarchaeology. Institute of Archaeology, Occasional Publication, No. 3 : 47-57. 67. Brothwell, D., Malaga, A. and Burleigh, R. 1979. Studies on Amerindian dogs, 2: variation in early Peruvian dogs. Journal of Archaeological Science, 6 : 139-61. 68. Brothwell, D. 1979. Roman evidence of a crested form of domestic fowl, as indicated by a skull showing associated cerebral hernia. Journal of Archaeological Science, 6 : 291-3. 69. Brothwell, D. 1981. The Pleistocene and Holocene archaeology of the house mouse and related species. Pp 1-13. In: Berry, R.J. (ed) Biology of the House Mouse. Academic Press, London. 70. Brothwell, D. and Dimbleby, G. (eds). 1981. Environmental Aspects of Coasts and Islands. BAR International Series 94, Oxford. 71. Brothwell, D. 1981. Microevolutionary change in the human pathogenic treponemes: an alternative hypothesis. International Journal of Systematic Bacteriology, 31 : 82-87. 72. Brothwell, D. 1983. Petrology and archaeology: an introduction. Pp 1-25. In: Kempe, D. and Harvey, A. (eds) The Petrology of Archaeological Artefacts. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 73. Brothwell, D. 1983. Why on earth the guinea-pig? The problem of a restricted mammal exploitation in the New World. Pp 115-119. In: Proudfoot, B (ed) Site, Environment and Economy. BAR International Series 173, Oxford. 74. Brothwell, D., Tills, D. and Muir, V. 1986. Evidence of micro-evolution in the Orkney Islanders. Pp 54-88. In: Berry, R.J. and Firth, H.N. (eds) The People of Orkney. Orkney Press, Kirkwall. 75. Brothwell, D. The human bones. Pp 374-398. In: Harrison, R.M. (ed) Excavations at Sarachane in Istanbul, Vol 1. Princeton University Press, Princeton. 76. Brothwell, D. 1986. The Bog Man and the Archaeology of People. British Museum Press, London. 77. Brothwell, D. 1987. Biophilosophical aspects of archaeology. Bulletin of the Institute of Archaeology, No. 24 : 177-190. 78. Brothwell, D. 1988. The problem of the interpretation of child mortality in earlier populations. Antropologia Portuguese, 4/5 : 135-143. 79. Brothwell, D., Liversage, D. and Gottleib, B. 1990. Radiographic and forensic aspects of the female Huldremose body. Journal of Archaeology, 9 : 157-178. 80. Brothwell, D. 1991. Malocclusion and methodology: the problem and relevance of recording dental malalignment in archaeology. International Journal

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Index Achondroplasia 105 Adams, B. 37 Addyman, P. 26 Afalou 101 Akester, R. 113 Akhenaton 80,81 Aleutians 101 Alkaptonuric arthritis Altamira 40,41,44,175 Amarna, pig 140 Amenhotep (KV35) 136 America sites 144 Amputation 113 Andrews, P. 22 Angel, L. 145 Animal X-rays 139 Anthracosis 71,72 Apicius 118 Arbour, L. 62 Art 39-52 Art Brut 52 Asbestosis 87 Asperger’s syndrome 153,198 Australopithecines 100, 169, 179, 182 Autism 198 Avebury 130,131,132,158,180,208

Babesiasis 66 Baker, J. 122 Bank vole 100 Barker, H. 27 Barnicot, N. 19,91,94,154 Bazarsad, N. 142,143 De Beer, G. 21,156 Beresford, M. 37 Berkeley, 98 Berry, S. 128 Biek, L. 160, 161 Bipedalism 189,195 Bipolar disorder 20 Birth trauma 8 Black maria 32,33,36 Black, S. 64 Blombos Cave, 47 Boas, F. 46 Bog bodies 70-83 Bohm, D. 168 Botulism 122 Bourget, S. 49 Boxgrove 85 Boyce, A. 128 Boyde, A. 91 Bradley, S. 26 Brain size 172,189,195 227

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Brcko 61 Breedon on the Hill 16,111,153 Breuil, A. 44 British Museum (Natural History) 21 Brockway, L. 11,32 Brooke, W. 113 Brothwell, Ben 13 (uncle) Brothwell, C. 7 Brothwell, Don 8,9,10 Brothwell, Dexter 134 Brothwell, G.S. 13 (father) Brothwell, N. (Gregory) 39 Brothwell, William 134 Brothwell, W.P. 13 (grandfather) Bulldog skull 33 Byron, G. 34 Caddeo, S. 84 Calcified tissue 94-109 Calculus 90,101 Caries 98,99 Çatal Hüjük 108 Cawte, J. 167 Cerebral hernia 124 Chagas disease 149 Chaplin, C. 14 Chapman, A. 184 Chehr Abad 78,79 Chiarelli, B. 79 Childe, G. 3,18,24,25,151,152,158,198 Cholesterol 88 Choukoutien 56,58 Chulupi Indians 183 Clark, G. 20 Clarke, D. 144 Coca 93,121 Cockburn, A. 118 Cognitive archaeology 187 Cohuna skull 56 Cole, S. 22 Conclusions 203-211 Conflict 199

Coobool 57,58 Cook, R. 26 Cornwall, I. 18,24,153 Cox, M. 103 Crane, Jack 63 Crawford, S. 7 Crazes 191,192 Croghan body 75 Crowd behaviour 191 CT scanning 88,89 Culture 163-172 Cunliffe, B. 123 Curt prize 110 Cuzco 149 Dallas, E.S. 4 Dahlberg, A. 99,102,144 Danebury 123 Daniel, G. 3,20,119 Darwin, C. 5,14,124,149,183,209 Dawkins, R. 169,174 Dawson, W. 70 Deerness 128,129 Degas, H. 50 Deir el-Madina 42 Delday, A. 128 Demography 96,97,103,104,192,195 Denston, B. 54 Dental archaeology 98 Dental trauma 101 Dickson mound 145,146 Digby, A. 19 Digital X-rays 137 Dimbleby, G. 24,25,26,27 Disease antiquity 110-126 Dobney, K. 73,101 Dogs, Americas 97,107,166,167 Domestication 107,165,187 Douglas, M. 18,19 Down’s syndrome 17,112,155 Dragodan 65 Dunbar, R. 171

Index

Dyschondrosteosis 75 Dyslexia 8 Elliot Smith, G. 70,104,136 Emotions 173-185 Ergonomic archaeology 206 Ergotism 202 Erotic art 48 Etruscans 95 ‘Eugenics’ 189 Evans, C. 145 Evolutionary psychology 187,194 Experimental trauma (pigs) 137,138 Fashions, 191 Fazeli, H. 79 Feuchtersleben, E. 194 Fiennes, R. 117 Fletcher, J. 80,88,136 Flores site 56,164 Food residue 74 Foot, H. 184 Forde, D. 18,19 Forensic studies 59-69 Fortes, M. 20 Fossil, human 53-58 Founder effect 165 Frankincense, in graves 89 Freud, L. 49 Freud, S. 179 Fromelles 133,176 Fromm, E. 169, 181 Galilee skull 55,56 Gandhi, M. 10,30 Gardar 140,141 Gas masks 8 Gejvall, N-G. 160 Gene editing 210 Gibraltar I skull 55 Gobi desert 142 Goodall, J. 180 Goodman, P. 14

Gracanica monastery 68 Grant, A. 123 Grauballe body 72,107 Gray, P. 79,89,159 Green monkey 100 Greene, G. 158 Greenland bodies 140 Grigson, J. 119 Grime, G. 76 Grimes, P. 18,24,25 Grinsell, L. 3 Gruneberg, H. 17,98,154 Gaunche 70,71 Guatemala 147 Guinea pig 108 Guyana 144,145,205 Hackett, C. 114,115, 116 Hair analysis 91-93 Haldane, J.B.S. 35,189 Hansen, H. 75 Harris, D. 25 Harrison, Tom. 53 Harvey, R. 92 Hawass, Z. 81,82,137 Head injuries 28,29,71,73,106,114 Halbaek, H. 72 Henn, R. 75 Herodotus 86 Hickingbotham, Arthur (uncle) 12 Hickingbotham, Constance (mother) 12 Hickingbotham, Harry (uncle) 12 Hickbotham, Hilda (aunt) 12 Higgs, E. 27,53,156 Hill, C. 48 Hills, M. 55 Hobson, P. 183 Hohokam 102 Holdsworth, V. 128 Homo erectus 28,29,100,169,179,181 Hookworm 87 Hot Springs mammoth 109

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Hudson Bay 150 Huldremose 73,74,75 Humour 183 Huntington’s chorea 190 Huxley, T.H. 107 Hypothyroidism 126 Iceman (Otzi) 70,75,76,127,140 Impetigo 102 Imprinting 190 Inuits 101 Iodine deficiency 166,167 Isotopes 93 Iwo Eleru 54 Iximche 148,149 Jebel Moya 104,178 Jericho 112 Jewbury 114 Jones, A. 89 Kaberry, P. 18 Kahun papyrus 124 Keaton, B. 14 Keiller, A. 158 Keith, A. 141 Kenyon, K. 3,16,18,25,152,153 Khan, Genghis 142 Kharakhorum 142 Knight, L 10,50 Knip, A. 105 Kong Techi 203,204 Kosovo 64,65 Kow Swamp 5,56,58 Krzanowski, W. 103 Kurukabaru 146,147 La Chapelle-aux-Saints 54 Lake Titicaca 149 Language 163-172 Lascaux cave 40,44,175 Leach, E. 20 Lee, J. 180

Leprosy 105,112,126,128 Les Eyzies art 41 Lewis, M. 7 Lewis-Williams, D. 47 Lincoln prison, see Prison Lindow bodies 72,73,107 Liverpool art assessment 50-51 Liversage, D. 73 Llullaillaco mummy 93 Locusts (food) 119, 120 London (UCL, I of A) 16 Loret, V. 81 Lorimer, D. 128 Love 177-182 Lowry, L.S. 50 Lynford 109 McKnight, L. 79,139 Madura foot 105,106 Magnus, Saint 130 Maiden Castle 59,60 Malfunction (mind) 193,194 Mallaga, A. 95,107,149,160 Mallowan, M. 3,25 Malocclusion 124 Mammoth 109 Margetts, E. 113 Marianas Islands 116 Marquesas Islands 116 Matjes River bones 54 Maudsley, H. 196 Maxwell, R. 27,36 Mayan art 46,47 Mead, M. 169 Medawar, P. 17 Meggars, B. 145 Mellaart, J. 108 Mellanby, M. 99 Mertola cemetery 74 Microbe (SEM) 90,91 Microtus oeconomus 109 Mill, J.s. 30

Index

Min, Egypt 49,206 Mindfield of life 186-202 Mitchell, P. 118 Mithen, S. 43,195 Moche, Peru 49,206 Mohenjodaro 182,194 Moller-Christenson, V. 158,159 Molleson, T. 23 Mongolia 141 Moore, H. 50 Montaldo symposium 79,80 Morris, D. 43 Morse, D. 145 Mourant, A. 21 Muir, E. 94 Mummy humour 83 Namatjira, A. 44 Napier, J. 22 Neanderthal 13,28,29,89,91,97,99,101,1 07,118,127,177,180,206 Nefertiti 80,81,82,136,137,208 Nematode worms 107 Nettleton, C. 65 Newton, I. 5 Niah Cave 53,54 Nicholson, Ben 50 Nottingham College of Art 10,39 Nottingham Technical College 16,39 Oakley, K. 19,21,53,155,156 Obesity 121 Odontology Museum, London 16 Orahovac mortuary 67 Orkney Islands 13,26 Orme, N. 7 Ortner, D. 145 Osteoarthritis 105 Osteogenesis imperfecta 105,159 Osteometrics 95 Osteopetrosis (avian) 123,124 Oxford Archaeology 134

Pacifism 187 Palenquez 47 Palaeopathology 123 Palaeoserology 98 Parsons, R. 21 Pearson, K. 112 Penrose, L. 17,19,111,155,186,191 People and places 127-150 Peru 89 Petrie, F. 89,103 Phenylketonuria 198 Piltdown forgery 53,155 Pima reservation 99 Pituitary adenoma 141 PIXE 92 Pizarro 149 Plague 105 Plasmodium 105 Platzer, W. 75 Pliny 86 Pollard, M. 27,79 Ponte, Carla del 67 Powell, T. 46 Power, C. 43 Powers, R. 21 Precocious puberty 55 Predmost 45 Primary school, Beeston 9 Prison, Lincoln 11,28,30,32,33,34,203 Protest art 208 Pseudopathology 58 Psychological anthropology 171,196 Psychological archaeology 196 Psychopathology 199 Pulmonary fibrosis 86 Qat 78,121,136 Quakerism 10,30 Rabies 93 Rahtz, P. 3

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Rappaport, R. 172 Read, H. 88,135 Reid, R.W. 130 Religion 173-177 Resource exploitation 84-93 Rhodesian skull 53,54,120 Rickets 121 Ridgeway mass grave 87,176 Robert the Bruce 112 Roberts, C. 103 Rose, S. 194 Royal College of Surgeons 98 Rubens, P. 41 Ruffer, M. 104 Russell, B. 175 Ryan, A. 174 Saccsaihuaman 148,149 Saint Polyeuktos 134,176 Santa Isabella 149 Saldanha skull 54 Salt bodies, Iran 78 Sana’a University Museum 77,78,135 Sandison, A.T. 27,70,158 Sanden, W. van der 75 Saqqara, famine scene 42 Saraçhane 134 Sarajevo 60,62 Scanning electron microscope (SEM) 49,89,90,101 Schizophrenia 197,198,200 Schreve, D. 109 Scott, P. 51 Scurvy 121 Serology lab (BMNH) 23 Sex controversies 184 Shamanism 177 Shanidar trauma 29 Shaw, T. 55 Sheldon, J. 25 Shields, W.G. 16 Shovel incisors 99

Singa skull 55,57 Sjovold, T. 160 Skhul site 53,54 Slagslunde tumour 111 Smith, I. 130,153,157 Smith, J.M. 195 Smith, M. 21 Social pathology 208 Soils, graves 87 Soyer, A. 119 Spall, C. 138 Spearman, R. 91 Spetrophotometer 91 Spencer, S. 49 Spindler, K. 75 Spitalfields 114 Starvation 188 Stead, I. 72 Stewart, D. 145 Stress 167,168,198 Stringer, C. 22,23,58 Suez crisis 34 Sully, J. 186 Swanscombe 19,53,55,85 Syphilis, see treponematosis Tabun cave 53 Taforalt 101 Tattoos 76 Teare, D. 59 Tell el-Amarna 79 Teotihuacan 194 Terrorism 188 Thomas, K. 25 Thurgarton 26,152 Tiy, Queen 81,82,137,208 Tolstoy, L. 10,14,30 Tooth evulsion 101 Trachoma 102 Trauma 105,106 Trent gravel works 15 Trephination 81,105,112,113

Index

Treponematosis 105,114-115,117,126 Trevor, J. 20,79,103,104 Trigger, B. 43 Tristan da Cunha 100 Tuberculosis 102,105,126 Tumbez 149 Tumours 105,110 Turkic peoples (Mongolia) 143 Turner, C. 99 Tuthmosis 81,82,137,208 Ucko, P. 25 Ulaanbaatar 142 Uley 124 Visoco 61 Vitrification 84,85,86 Walker, A. 22 Washburn, S. 144 Wells, C. 110 Weiner, J. 89 Westbury-sub-Mendip 16 Westerhus 160 Wharram Percy 36,37 Wheeler, J. 108 Wheeler, M. 3,25,59,158 Wheeler, W. 89 White, E. 21 White, W. 157 Willendorf 45 Willett, J. 50 Wilson, A. 93 Wilson, E.O. 170 Wilson, T. 4 Winnipeg 149 Wright, C.B. 23 ‘Yellow jaundice’ 10 Yemen bodies 77,88 York Archaeological Trust 26 Zanjan Museum 79

Zeuner, F. 3,18,25,152 Zoonoses 117,126,135 Zoroastrianism 175 Zweeloo body 74,75

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