Skull-duggery
For all you boneheads out there (just kidding), there have been lots of stories this week on skulls. The one that I've most kept bouncing around my own cranium was the news that scientists have been given the legal go ahead to investigate Kennewick Man. For anyone who doesn't know, the skull of this 9000-year old man was uncovered in Washington State, and when the face was reconstructed, people were shocked to see that he did not resemble and local native tribe-- but instead appeared Caucasian. The law seems to work in favour of the natives however, in that all pre Columbian bodies are instantly labeled "aboriginal" and sent to face reburial instead of study.
That was the problem with Kennewick man. He seemed obviously to be a member of a complete different set of peoples, but Indian groups were claiming him as one of their own and rushing to get him back into the ground before anyone could find out anything about him. Now, a level-headed judge has ruled that the differences in the features of his skull are significant enough to not have him automatically classified as a member of an existing tribe.
Now there is a worse fate that could befall him. He could end up on a shelf at Marc's Discount Warehouse in Ohio, much like twelve ceramic-encased skulls found this week. The skulls had been bought in an auction. Originally, they were being sent from Peru to Miami but were abandoned on arrival. After the discount chain bought them on Jan. 15th, a worker accidentally dropped one and the discovery was made that there were real human skulls inside. Exactly where they came from is still a mystery. The skulls seemed weathered and old; it was suspected that they had been buried at some point.
Meanwhile in Canada, some Canucks in a Calgary construction site came upon the skulls of 5000-year old Bison. Scientists say they're in pretty good shape and can be used to help determine what vegetation was growing around the area, back in the day.
Not your Daddy? A new study on Neanderthal skulls is out too. Anthropologist, Katerina Harvati, measured 15 points of reference between Neanderthals and early/modern humans. Her conclusion was that the differences between the skulls were greater than those found when comparing differences between other subspecies. It doesn't rule out interbreeding but it does suggest that evolutionarily, they were very distinct.
Saturday, February 07, 2004
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