Did Neanderthals and our fully modern ancestors, the Cro-Magnons, have sex? This seemingly trivial question has engrossed scientists for generations. Until last week, the prevailing view held that Neanderthals and moderns never interbred. Now a highly respected group of geneticists has compared the Neanderthal genome with the complete genomes of five living humans from different parts of the world. To their astonishment, they found that Europeans and Asians share 1 to 4% of their nuclear DNA with Neanderthals, but Africans do not. In other words, some Neanderthals and moderns interbred after the latter left tropical Africa some 100,000 years ago, but before Homo sapiens arrived in Europe over 50,000 years later.

         “In a sense, the Neanderthals are not then altogether extinct,” says paleogeneticist Svante Paabo. If he is right, how and when did this interbreeding occur? Most likely, it transpired in the Middle East, perhaps some 80,000 years ago, known to us from caves, which contain skeletons of people who look partially modern and partly Neanderthal. Whatever happened, it was on a small scale, and nothing like swapping wives from cave to cave. The sex involved tiny numbers of people, perhaps Neanderthals who came in close juxtaposition with modern hunters by chance.  But why didn’t such interbreeding occur more often? Perhaps there were cultural barriers—feelings of repugnance and distrust, intellectual chasms caused by the vast cognitive chasm between Neanderthals and moderns—we will never know and can only speculate. But whatever happened, there is a little Neanderthal in many Europeans, among them this author, a relic of archaic people who lived alongside moderns and became extinct some 30,000 years ago. At least we can now move on from a preoccupation with ancient sex to a more nuanced study of the relationships between Neanderthals and their successors.

We live in changing times, even in the staid world of archaeology. I vividly remember months of recording artifacts from Iron Age sites in Africa—measuring plotting, drawing plans. Hearths, changing pottery designs, even cow bones: all were grist for the mill, a huge task when over 20,000 objects were involved. Yes, we did it all by hand, day after day, with mind-numbing monotony that was worth it in the end. Now a friend has sent me a press release about archaeologist Richard Walter of the University of Otago in New Zealand, who has developed “Excavation Manager,” which certainly solves part of the monotony problem and is far more accurate. Handheld devices enter the data into site records. Every artifact is recorded immediately and the details transmitted wirelessly to a central server, located on-site. Each item receives a barcode, which allows the excavator to track the object from discovery right through to the moment when it enters permanent storage—and beyond. Machines seem to be taking over so much that we used to do, including the laborious task of marking artifacts with black ink. “Never let the sun set on an unmarked artifact” the late Miles Burkitt used to admonish us at Cambridge many years ago. Now, apparently, bar code machines and computers have taken over the task. I’m sure there are equivalent approaches being tested elsewhere, but apparently the University of Otago thinks this has commercial possibilities. They awarded Richard a $50,000 prize grant from what is called the university’s “commercialization arm.” If nothing else curators will bless the barcodes, which should make finding artifacts from the excavations of yesteryear much easier. When was the last time you spent hours looking for that elusive artifact that you dimly remember from a dig five summers ago?  

The 2010 Society for American Archaeology meetings were a huge circus. Four thousand archaeologists converged on the convention center in St. Louis, Missouri, for the annual 3½-day bean feast. There was one difference this time. The annual gathering was the 75^th anniversary of the Society. I went somewhat reluctantly, hoping for some meaningful commemoration of what is, after all, a significant milestone in the history of a society that started with a miniscule membership during the 1930s. I was sorely disappointed. Instead of a memorable commemoration, a measured assessment of what had transpired since the 50^th meeting, or an evaluation of the present state of American archaeology and its future—and this is a time of changing perceptions and much new research--it was business as usual. Dozens of panels, often on arcane subjects of minimal interest except to a narrow coterie of specialists, a veritable swamp of badly prepared, mediocre papers, often read rather than delivered, and only a handful of sessions that really added something to the broader picture. One left with a portrait of a discipline obsessed in large part with minutiae, with most of the attendees displaying little or no interest in the vital things that archaeology has to contribute to contemporary society and to the future of humankind. I wish that the Society’s leaders, who pay lip service to global issues, had commissioned a series of 30-minute assessments from top experts right at the beginning of the meeting, which would have set the tone for a really outstanding look at the present and future of archaeology. At least one of these presentations would have been well spent assessing the significance of the archaeology we practice it today’s relevance to contemporary society. Once delivered, they should have been published, especially for the benefit of students, the future of archaeology. As it was, there was effectively nothing that did this, despite a commemorative edited volume, with all the usual faults of the breed, and a birthday party (which I did not attend as I was going home) limited to 500 attendees. Is anyone among the 4000 of us who attended really thinking about the future of archaeology? I hate to say this, but I’m beginning to wonder if we have a meaningful future. The danger that we will be marginalized in a world of increasingly scarce resources looms large, unless we engage more closely with the wider world. Certainly the 75^th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology didn’t, and that’s a cause for concern. But at least I talked to a lot of folk about various things--for networking the meeting is valuable. It would be even more useful if it was focused.

Somewhat of a silence because I have been catching with with backlogs and getting ready for another trip next week. The second part of my Alaska journey took me to Kodak Island, one of my favorite places in Alaska. (This was my second visit.) Spending time with the folks at the Alutiiq Museum was the highlight. This marvelous small museum commemorates the history of the Alutiiq people, who have lived on Kodiak Island for thousands of years. Sven Haakensen, himself one of them, is devoting his career to preserving Alutiiq culture, language, traditional skills, and artifacts with remarkable success. To give a lecture in the museum was a true privilege, for the people involved with it, whether staff members or volunteers have a refreshing passion for their important work. I originally came across the museum while working on a book on the Lake Clark National Park for the Park Service, for the history of that area is closely tied to Alutiiq whale hunting, among other things. To visit and spend time with the people behind it was a nice way of rounding off the project. It also gave me a chance to say thanks in person for the help they gave me.

Travel defines my life at the moment—promoting my new Cro-Magnon book, doing radio and TV interviews, and lecturing. For the past four days, I’ve been in Anchorage, Alaska, both doing a book signing and lecture at the University of Alaska bookstore and giving two talks for the Alaska Anthropological Association. One, on ancient water, which I have been working on for the past two years, the other a talk about archaeology and the public to the Association’s banquet. I’m exhausted after all this talking, but it was wonderful to spend time with experts on Aleutian and Arctic archaeology and to interact with numerous generations of northern archaeologists. I love smaller meetings, for it is there that you really have a chance to network with colleagues, many of them working far from the comfortable world of academia. This annual function is especially important in Alaska, where so many archaeologists spend most of their year in complete isolation from one another. So the noise level is high, students cut their teeth on paper presentation and all kinds of new and unpublished data gets batted around. This is what science really is—a continual process of back and forth, or reassessing data and theories, of free-flowing discussion. And this is what the ideologues who condoned hacking into the University of West Anglia’s e-mail choose to forget. All good science depends on personal interaction and electronic dialogue, which is often frank and in your face—as it should be if our knowledge of anything, let alone archaeology or the past, is to advance. If we inhibit such dialogue by eavesdropping illegally, then we do neither science or ourselves any good. And I don’t blame some of my climatological colleagues for making cynical remarks about ideologues and the individuals who clutter their e-mail boxes with agendas, rants, and sometime abuse. I suffer from the same constant background noise. Such people can take refuge in please of freedom of speech if they wish—but they’ll get much more respect, and attention, if they realize that science relies on data and constantly reevaluates it. It is not a matter of making sweeping statements and stating that they are correct.

  

The full impact of the Mt. Toba eruption of about 73,000 years ago will never be known, but there’s no question that it was a major event, which blew most of a mountain into space. The explosion created a crater lake over 60 miles (96 km) long. Huge ash clouds rose high into the atmosphere and fell over much of the South China Sea and far north and west over Southeast Asia and India. In places, the ash deposits were up to 30 feet (9 m) deep. The eruption blanked the sun and caused the equivalent of a 6-year nuclear winter. The details of this devastating scenario are still being debated, especially its global impact on humanity.

         Mt. Toba vanished into space at a critical moment in human history, when Homo sapiens, anatomically modern humans, ourselves, were flourishing in sub-Saharan Africa. Some hypotheses claim there was an evolutionary bottleneck that humanity almost became extinct, and that India was effectively depopulated, but these notions are by no means universally accepted. As always with sensational discoveries, the hype mounts immediately and even minor finds are magnified by University PR departments into huge scientific advances. For instance, a joint Indian and Oxford University expedition has spent seven years excavating a Stone Age living site in India’s Andhra Pradesh, removing layers of volcanic ash, in which stone tools survive. The artifacts occur above and below the Toba ash, tools that are said to be identical to ones made in southern Africa at the same time, proving, we are told, that some modern humans in India survived the cataclysm.

         Casting aside the hype, what does this interesting find tell us? It certainly shows that there were humans living in India before and after the eruption, but there are, as far as I can tell, no precise dates for the tools found above and below the ash. How long after the ash fell did people resettle the area? Was this a group of immigrants or survivors of the ash fall? And how can one possibly claim that simple artifacts found in Africa were made by the same kinds of people in India? One cannot. All that the Andhra Pradesh site tells us that human occupation resumed after the eruption. Almost certainly, some people survived the catastrophe, perhaps in areas sheltered from ash, or spared its onslaught by shifting winds. But to claim more than this, in the absence of more accurate dating and of human fossils, tells us little beyond confirming that some folk occupied the area at some moment after the eruption.

         So the Andhra Pradesh find moves the pieces on the archaeological chessboard slightly, but, in the absence of more precise dates and human fossils, it is but a straw in the archaeological wind. Claims like those made by the excavators, and one can sympathize with their need for publicity as part of the fund-raising game, require much more data, laid out systematically for fellow-specialists to evaluate. But it’s good news to learn that another five years of excavations are planned. India is one of the big gaps on the human evolution map, and more finds like this one are likely to revolutionize what we know about our ancestry.      

The Archaeology Festival (or Conference) held every February is one of my favorite gatherings. The dynamics are totally different from that of an academic meeting, where the presentations tend to be narrowly focused and couched in highly technical terms. The Archaeology Conference is truly eclectic, covering everything from paleoanthropology and human evolution to Scottish heritage and, of course, the Romans. This is a meeting for the readers of Current Archaeology and Current World Archaeology, and, of course, anyone else interested—anyone interested in the past in the broadest possible sense. This year, the meeting was held in the modern conference facilities below the Great Hall in London's British Museum, a marvelous setting for a gathering of people interested in the past. During the two days, I enjoyed presentations on tree-rings and climate change, the evolution of the human brain, steam and water-powered cotton mills in Manchester, and Pompeii—to mention just a few. This is one of the few gatherings where professional and amateur archaeologists mingle freely and exchange ideas. And the evening drinks party after the British Archaeology Awards was a rollicking success, where conversation and networking went hand-in-hand. And where else would the awards ceremony be presided over by a detachment of Roman legionaries, in full uniform? A lovely occasion, and one that hopefully will become an annual event. 

I’m on my way back from a climate change workshop in Venice concerned with the social consequences of climate change. I was the only archaeologist there, my task to provide a historical background for a series of what turned out to be pretty esoteric presentations about such issues as climatic change and education. Many fo them went way over my head. When I first agreed to speak, it was mainly because I had never been to Venice, and, in fact, I spent almost more time wandering through a rain-soaked theme park that is the city—and, let’s face it, Venice is a wonderful one. But I was struck how some of the speakers picked up on some points about adapting to ancient climate change that I stressed—the necessity of efficient infrastructures for distributing food, the success of decisive leadership, the increasing vulnerability of urban societies to major climatic events. In fact, the delegates seemed surprised that archaeology has so much to offer. Again and again, I’m reminded that precious few people really know what archaeologists actually do, nor do they realize that we really can contribute perspectives to contemporary issues based on lessons from the past.

The plane is filled to the gills with people commuting from Venice to London. We are all soaked, thanks to an exceptionally high tide that flooded St. Mark’s Square and a torrential deluge that lasted all day. But the city was still magical. I’m glad I was not a Doge. The ducal palace was bone-chillingly cold on a wet February day! We are about to land at Gatwick, so I desist. .  . .                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I’m tired of King Tut. He’s almost a cliché for Egyptology, largely because his was the only undisturbed pharaoh’s tomb. Various exhibits of his grave furniture have dazzled crowds throughout the world and turned a short-lived, historically insignificant pharaoh into an ancient celebrity. The manner of his death has triggered speculation for genertations. He’s been a war casualty and a murder victim, killed by a blow to the head---the list goes on and on. Every time some new finding about his mummy surfaces, international headlines ensue. Now, at last, we have some decisive hypotheses. Genetic testing and other state-of-the-art radiological investigations that show the young king was a very sick teenager indeed. He suffered from a recent leg fracture, which might have contributed to a life-threatening condition in an immune system already weakened by malaria. An international team of researchers is now pretty sure that Tutankhamun died from a severe bout of malaria combined with a degenerative bone condition. He suffered from a bone disorder called Kohler Disease II, which, in itself, is not fatal. But he also endured avascular bone necrosis, which diminishes blood supply to the bone causing much weakened tissue. His left foot was structurally altered—which may account for the walking sticks in his tomb. Then there’s genetic fingerprinting, which appears to establish that Tutankhamun’s father was Akhenaten, the so-called heretic pharaoh. There are, of course, the inevitable questions about his parentage that will continue as long as there are Egyptologists.

         So the Tutankhamun death mystery appears laid (forgive the pun) to rest. Hopefully, the cliché will recede into history, for there is so much fascinating research on ancient Egyptian society and its many nuances that is just as interesting as the fate of an obscure ruler.

 

Now the fun starts. Canadian archaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger has completed a comprehensive study iof all the small marks and signs on the walls of Cro-Magnon caves. He identifies 26 signs, all drawn in the same style, which appear again and again at numerous sites dating across the whole chronological span of late Ice Age art in western Europe. Many of the signs are simple, others are more complex, but they seem to have some form of meaning, perhaps even being a kind of written communication. Some of the symbols appear in pairs; there are hints of formal groupings, something characteristic of early pictographic scripts. Open angles and dots are found at 42 sites; other signs such as ladders are much less common.  If von Petzinger’s withstands critical appraisal, and it is certainly impressive work, we may have the earliest evidence of symbolic meanings being communicated by signs in human history. This should not surprise us, given the very complex symbolic beliefs of today’s hunter-gatherer groups, but, of course, the question of questions is what did this seemingly simple symbolic system mean? Clearly, if it was a system, the meanings behind it were complex indeed. Alas, we will never know—but the von Petzinger study seems to confirm what we have long known—that the Cro-Magnons lived in a very complex symbolic world, something that their predecessors, the Neanderthals never enjoyed.