Book Review ~ Every Bone Tells a Story

Every Bone Tells a Story
by Jill Rubalcaba and Peter Robertshaw

Are you interested in learning about our ancestors? Have you ever wondered what life would have been like for a Neandertal child, or the first Native Americans to inhabit North America? Maybe you ask yourself more difficult questions- how did language evolve, or when ritual burial developed. All around the world, people are asking those questions. Some people, like the archaeologists and anthropologists in this book, can find out.

Every Bone Tells a Story narrates the tales of four hominin discoveries who are the ancestors of today's humans: Turkana Boy, a young Homo erectus child who lived and died over a million years ago; Lapedo Child, the offspring of a Neandertal and a modern human; Kennewick Man, an ancient Paleo Indian who hints at a dangerous life in ancient North America; and Otzi the Iceman, the mummified remains of a five thousand-year-old man murdered in the icy mountains of Austria.

This skillfully written book breaks each story into three short sections. 'Discoveries' retells the finding of each specimen. In 'deductions,' you learn the facts scientists have uncovered. 'Debates' discusses various arguments and controversies that the hominin finds bring about. In the end, a bibliography lists websites and books commemorated to the hominin in each chapter.

Although Every Bone Tells a Story was written for a younger audience (filed in our library under juvenile nonfiction), it is an excellent read for anyone interested in archaeology, anthropology, paleontology, or just looking for an entertaining, educational work.

~ Blog Author's Insight ~

The story of Kennewick Man was very compelling to me. When scientists attempted to run tests on the bones, local Native American tribes objected. They thought Kennewick Man belonged to them, and took the anthropologists to court. For two years, the courts fought to determine who got rights to the skeleton. All the while, Kennewick Man was drying out and deteriorating. Those with custody did not know how to properly care for the ancient skeleton.

Although I feel enraged with the tribes, I can understand their reasons for disagreeing. The tribes in that area believe that the Creator will someday ressurect their ancestors. In order for that to happen, the skeleton has to be complete. In addition to their religious beliefs, when European-American colonists first came to this country, they nearly destroyed the Native Americans by accidentally infecting them with smallpox. Later, they took their land and forced them to live on reservations. Many years later, America went to war with the Nazis for doing similarly to the Jews what was done to the native tribes. Now, we want to dig up their ancestors and study them. European-Americans tried to wipe out the tribes, and now they want to learn more about these native people. The Native Americans know who they are. Some say they don't need scientists to tell them anything different.

Later on in Kennewick Man's story, the courts hired unqualified individuals to date the skeleton. The scientists took no precautions, destroying whole bones to retrieve samples, which were contaminated. The whole time, they had well-experienced anthropologists who could do the job for them. Qualified scientists are able to run the same tests with minimal damage to the skeleton. For example, before the tribes objected to research on Kennewick Man, James Chatters, the head anthropologist on the research team, decided to run a test on the remains to date them. Chatters went out of his way to find the lab who could run the test with the least amount of bone. When he finally found a proficient lab, Chatters chose a small bone which the lack of would be least offensive to the tribes, assuming the skeleton did turn out to be Native American.

Despite the destruction to Kennewick Man's skeleton, the scientists' work payed off. When the results returned, it was discovered that Kennewick Man was 9,000 years old; too old to belong to any modern tribe. Chatter's earlier test uncovered the same result. The anthropologists were allowed to study Kennewick Man, much to the disappointment of the tribes.

Scientists should be allowed to run radio-carbon dating tests on skeletons as soon as they determine that it is not modern. Then it can be determined who should have jursidiction over the remains without spending time and energy debating in court who gets rights to the find. In Kennewick Man's case, the tribes objected to scientific studies for two years only to discover that the remains were far too old to belong to any of them. 

Who knows how much evidence was destroyed during the two year battle in court. If scientists could run basic dating tests, then other Paleo Indian remains, like Kennewick Man, would not have to degrade. We could learn more about life for these ancient individuals by minimizing time spent in court and maximizing our ever improving science skills and technology.


Written by Gwen McDaniel

Hidden Treasure

Gwen snapped a few cell phone pics last week during the dig. While clean scraping a house basin she uncovered three (of many) artifacts. 

Decorated pottery sherd. Punctated along the top, with incised curvilinear lines. Likely Mississippian.

Madison point with evidence of heat treatment

An undecorated rim sherd, likely Mississippian. 

Here is an interesting page that describes pottery decoration in Woodland and Mississippian pottery: 

http://www.beloit.edu/logan_online/exhibitions/virtual_exhibitions/north_america/woodland/techniques.php

Middle, Late Woodland Mound Survey

Last weekend, Team Paleo members participated in a mounds survey- a tour with on-site lectures of five Middle and Late Woodland and Mississippian Periods burial and temple mounds near Lewiston, Illinois. Presented in turn by Dr. Wiant and Mr. Harn of Dickson Mounds Museum, the presentations took us through Havana, Illinois to Rockwell Mound, the Ogden-Fettie Mound at the south end of Dickson Mounds property, up the hill to the Larson site village. All this before lunch. After lunch, we focused on Dickson Mound and took another short drive to the Morton village site, the Norris Farms cemetery, ending with a beautiful bluff-top view of Thompson Lake at Emiquon. 

If that seems like a lot to take in, it was. Yet the scads of information, while standing in the ancient sites helped to solidify the layers of learning Team Paleo has accumulated. I suppose one could say that we all learn by setting down strata of debris-like bits of knowledge until at some point, we discover we have sedimented an excellent foundation of understanding. That compressed understanding of a particular subject- both in information and in experience- becomes dense and strong, yet still permeable to further elucidation in the same way sedimentary layers of rock may still accumulate workable nodules of flint. I'll drag this metaphor on a little further (forgive me!) to remind how humans can coax tools from these rocks of knowledge, furthering their culture. 

A view from the Norris Farms cemetery, north of Dickson Mounds Museum

Mounds built upon a natural ridge- scallops along the blufftop that can be seen well from the Nature Conservancy's Emiquon walkway on Rt 78/97

Excavation Finds at Morton Village

This week brought some interesting finds at the Morton Village dig site near Lewistown, Illinois....

An unusually large pit feature measuring over four feet deep. It may have been a storage pit that was emptied at one point and refilled with garbage. The depth is typical of storage pits.

At the top of the picture you notice the hole is straight and flat like a wall. This is how the profile (center slice) of the pit feature is exposed. If you look in a profile, you can see the shape and border of the pit, making it easier to excavate the other half of the pit. Some pits have post molds or other pits dug into the same area. Profiles help distinguish these different overlapping features.

In this image it is easy to see the layers and different colors of earth. On the profile wall, you can see 'layers' of different colored dirt. This is likely because the people who used it as a garbage pit would place a layer of garbage down, then 'cap' it with a layer of dirt. This continues until the pit is full. This dig showed evidence of capping, and because the soil content was acidic here, much organic material breaks down. We don't see evidence of the organic remains as whole artifacts. We did, however, find a chunk of red ochre (or possibly hematite) and a huge limestone rock.

Also of note is the whitish colored earth at the bottom of the pit, located in the upper left-hand corner of the excavated hole. On the left side, midway down the hole, a scoop is removed from the wall. This is where several pottery sherds were found, likely from an Oneota pot. 

It might be hard to see, but along the middle of the image are two darker colored streaks going from bottom to top. They look a bit like tire tracks from a vehicle. However they are evidence of wall trenches that form a large circular structure. Here is only a few feet of the wall trenches. When we say LARGE structure, we are talking 40 to 60 feet in diameter!

Wall trenches result when people dig into the soil a certain depth, then place upright logs in the trench to make a palisade-like wall. Think privacy fence made of whole logs. What we see is the discolored stain of either the organic remains of the posts or fill dirt that drifted in after the wall trench was emptied. Some of the graduate students working on the dig mused that this great circle may have been open at the top- no roof.  The trench walls are concentric- one wall within another wall not because there was a double wall, but because one feature may have been constructed first, while a second was constructed to replace or enlarge the first feature.

Around the edges of this image you can see several post mold excavations. 

Here we see an exceptionally dark post mold discoloration, easily defined by the dark blackish soil. You can also see the circular shape. Of course, it could also be the remains of a tree root. Excavation will provide more information. The first post mold Gwen excavated was about 9 inches deep. Some run 2 to 3 feet deep. 

Commentary provided by Gwen McDaniel

Michigan State University ~ Morton Village Blog

Each year, Michigan State University and Dickson Mounds Museum team up to host a dig for student field credit. The students contribute to a neat blog found here!

Summer 2014 Morton Site