7Chapter 1
A Historical Introduction
Jane E. Buikstra
I. BEFORE 1900: THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL RECORD AND MUSEUMS AS EARLY RESEARCH CONTEXTS
In North America, the systematic observation of ancient excavated skeletal materials to investigate alternative interpretations of past lifeways can be traced to Thomas Jefferson (1853), one of the Founding Fathers and the third President of the United States.1 Jefferson opened a burial mound located on his property in order to explore different contemporary explanations for their purpose. Commenting upon the “Barrows” or mounds “found all over this country,” Jefferson outlined alternative interpretations:
That they were repositories of the dead, has been obvious to all; but on what particular occasion constructed, was matter of doubt. Some have thought they covered the bones of those who have fallen in battles fought on the spot of interment. Some ascribed them to the custom, said to prevail among the Indians, of collecting, at certain periods, the bones of all their dead, wheresoever deposited at the time of death. Others again supposed them the general sepulchres for towns. (Jefferson, 1853:104)
Did the mounds contain the dead accrued from ancient battles or were they ossuaries or perhaps community cemeteries? Indian traditions, Jefferson stated, 8supported the last alternative, whereby mounds were said to contain sequential burials placed erect and then covered with earth. Jefferson’s excavations, however, led him to define four superimposed ossuary episodes, based on: “1. The number of bones. 2. Their confused position. 3. Their being in different strata. 4. The strata in one part having no correspondence with those in another. 5. The different states of decay in these strata, which seem to indicate a difference in the time of inhumation. 6. The existence of infant bones among them.” In reaching his conclusion, Jefferson thus utilized information that combined the observation of human remains within an archaeological context to select between alternative interpretative models. Today this approach would be considered bioarchaeological.
Following Jefferson there were many important 19th-century contributions that integrated the study of human remains within broader investigations of American Indians. Three examples from this period are cited here, beginning with a cautionary tale. These three examples serve to emphasize the fundamental importance of contextually based interpretations.
In 1839, Samuel George Morton, M.D. published Crania Americana, a work designed to address an important 19th-century issue — the physical diversity of the American Indian (see also Chapter 2). Assuming that similarities in skeletal morphology reflected heritage relationships, Morton considered, for example, the identity of the “Moundbuilders” of North America (Buikstra, 1979). Were the “authors” of the prominent tumuli that lined the major river systems of eastern North America ancestors of the Indians encountered by early explorers and settlers or were they associated with Old World creators of monumental architecture, perhaps the Egyptians (Silverberg, 1968; Stanton, 1960)?
Based on his observations, which have been the subject of intense 20th-century criticism [Gould (1978a,b, 1981); but see Michael (1988) and Chapter 2], Morton emphasized the fundamental unity of the “American race.” His five Mound-builder skulls were grouped with other Toltecan builders of monuments in Mexico and Peru. According to Morton (1839), these North American Toltecans were driven south by migrants from the north, the true ancestors of living Indians.
Morton’s work was acclaimed by many contemporary medical and natural scientists (Grant, 1852; Meigs, 1851; Patterson, 1854; Wood, 1853). In his eulogy read before Philadelphia’s Academy of Nature Sciences, for example, Charles D. Meigs (1851:20) described Morton as “America’s Humbolt.” Morton’s conclusions were, however, criticized by the archaeologists Squier and Davis (1848), who argued that the true Moundbuilders were much more distinct from other American Indians than Morton had claimed. Morton, lacking definitive spatial and temporal data for the materials he studied, was led to reverse his opinion in a posthumous publication, which concluded that due to the great age of the mounds one would rarely find preserved remains. He had probably never seen the skull of a mound-building Indian, he opined (Morton, 1852). Thus, because 9his skulls had been procured without detailed archaeological information, he was forced to equivocate. This underscores the importance of contextual knowledge in bioarchaeological study.
The pursuit of ancient American skeletal materials led another medical doctor, Joseph Jones (see also Chapter 11), to engage directly in archaeological recovery of remains from “Mounds, Earthworks, and Stone-graves” from Tennessee during 1868 and 1869 (Jones, 1876:v). His observation that representations of the so-called “pigmy race” were, quite simply, children’s remains was astute (Jones, 1876:9–11), but it was his careful diagnosis of syphilis in pre-Columbian remains that drew 20th-century attention to his work (Baker and Armelagos, 1988; Cook, 1976; Jarcho, 1966a; Powell, 1988, 2000). As Jarcho remarked (1966a:9), Jones’ “diagnoses rest upon gross criteria that are nearly identical with those in use today, and the conclusions stand as well as any other landmark in this battleground of controversy.” In reaching his conclusions, Jones (1876) not only relied on gross observations of skeletal material, but also observed thin sections and conducted experiments with hydrochloric acid designed to address the relative age and overall antiquity of the interments. Jones continued his archaeological interests until his death in 1896, expanding his observations to shell mounds of the Louisiana and Mississippi (1878). As a result of his ongoing observation of skeletal disease in excavated materials, coupled with scholarly evaluations of published sources, he formulated a well-informed theory specifying New World origins for a syphilis that “was a pestilential fever, which was communicable through the genitals, and otherwise” (Jones, 1878:932). He thus endorsed the presence of a nonvenereal syphilis in the pre-Columbian New World, a view substantiated by more recent studies (Cook, 1976; Powell and Cook, 2005; Chapter 11). Clearly, Jones’ careful attention to archaeological contexts, especially their antiquity, markedly enhanced his conclusions.
Another 19th-century medical doctor, Washington Matthews, included not only archaeological data but also information derived from ethnology, ethnohistory, and oral traditions in his analysis of ancient human remains (see also Chapter 5). Research developed through his collaboration with the ethnologist–archaeologist Frank Hamilton Cushing exemplifies Matthews’ integrative approach.
In 1897, Cushing embarked upon an archaeological expedition grounded in his more than 5 years’ experience with the living Zuñi2 (Cushing, 1890; Hinsley and Wilcox, 1996, 2002). Cushing’s remarkably creative intellect had been immersed in Zuñi culture and he now wanted to learn of their unwritten past through archaeological investigations. Having gained support from Mrs. Mary Hemenway, he began fieldwork in February 1887 near present-day Tempe, Arizona. This site was ultimately named “Los Muertos” due to the presence of large numbers of 10human remains (Cushing, 1890; Hinsley and Wilcox, 1996, 2002; Matthews et al., 1893; Merbs, 2002b).
Cushing interpreted his archaeological discoveries in relationship both to the living Zuñi and to broader theoretical and historical issues (Cushing, 1890; Hinsley and Wilcox, 1996, 2002; Matthews et al., 1893). He was convinced that oral traditions and hence his ethnographic knowledge were valid bases for interpreting ancient pasts (Hinsley and Wilcox, 2002:89). He also sought interpretations from members of the Zuñi community. According to Cushing: “[The Zuñi] also taught me the importance of testing whether the myth of the Lost Others was founded on fact, as there seemed reason to suppose, and in this the Zuñi could be of great help, confirming, for instance, my identification of ruins and the symbolic meanings of such pictographic and other art remains as might be found” (Hinsley and Wilcox, 2002:89).
Cushing also defined ancient and modern American Indians in terms of a primordial Idea, which was fundamental to all human groups and emanated from the “living soul of a dead culture.” All American Indians had developed the Idea from the ancient Zuñi (Cushing, 1890:151). Peruvians, according to Cushing, were quite closely associated to the Zuñi, based on observations of guanaco pictographs and excavated terra cotta figurines, bolas, quipus, and Inca bones (Cushing, 1890; Matthews et al., 1893; Merbs, 2002b).
Due to Cushing’s poor health, the U.S. surgeon general was petitioned by Mary Hemenway to send Dr. Washington Matthews to visit the excavations in Arizona in August of 1887. The month that Matthews spent at Camp Hemenway led him to ask that the anatomist of the Army Medical Museum (AMM), Dr. J. C. Wortman, be sent out to conserve the fragile human remains. Following recovery, the remains were sent to the AMM in Washington, DC for further study (Matthews et al., 1893; Merbs, 2002b).
The final osteological report (Matthews et al., 1893) was notable for several reasons. While subtly distancing himself from Cushing’s more controversial interpretations (Cushing, 1890; Hinsley and Wilcox, 1996, 2002), Matthews discussed both the rationale for the excavations and the preliminary archaeological results as background for his skeletal biological analysis. Thus, they reported Cushing’s identification of vertical status distinctions between those interred without cremation (sacerdotal elite) and those from the “pyral” or cremation cemeteries (commoners), even though their skeletal analysis was not similarly partitioned.3 Cushing’s interpretation of “killed” vs unblemished grave goods in terms of soul release was also discussed, as was his assertion of alleged Peruvian–southwestern U.S. (Saladoan) links. The latter was formally tested by Matthews, Wortman, 11and Billings (1893) through observations of the os inca4 in a worldwide sample. They concluded, based on similar high frequencies of the Inca bone, that the Saladoans “out-inca[’d] the incas” (Matthews et al., 1893:190; see also Matthews, 1889; Merbs, 2002b). Matthews and colleagues’ (1893) analysis also carefully evaluated measurement methods for estimating sex in skeletal remains and considered the impact of cradle boarding on cranial shape and development. They invoked both environmental and cultural observations in associating platycnemia (tibial medio-lateral flattening) with carrying heavy loads, explicitly rejecting other biomechanically plausible interpretations, such as long distance running or moving over vertically differentiated landscapes. Septal apertures5 were also interpreted behaviorally as possibly being due to repetitive grinding of maize upon a metate. Thus, Matthews’ emphasis on contextually sensitive analyses and interpreting skeletal analyses in a rigorous, problem-orientated manner serves as a valuable precursor to 20th-century bioarchaeology.
Recovery and systematic laboratory analysis of prehistoric skeletal material postdates Jefferson’s explorations in Virginia. Increased numbers of archaeological initiatives, such as the Hemenway Expedition, encouraged institutional support for the collection, preservation, and study of excavated materials, including human remains. While the retrieval, analysis, and curation of skeletons and associated artifacts would become controversial during the 20th century (see Chapter 15), 19th-century museums actively sought and retained human remains as a valuable source of information about the unwritten past. Although “cabinets of curiosities” and local historical societies had previously held and displayed such materials, it was the systematic collections begun in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC during the 1800s that set the stage for 20th-century bioarchaeology in North America. However, the manner in which archaeological collections were accessioned, maintained, traded, or dispersed varied considerably.
The Morton collection, which numbered 867 (Meigs, 1851:23), 951 (Patterson, 1854:xxx), or 968 (Hrdlička, 1914a:513) human skulls at the time of Morton’s death in 1851, still survives today,6 unlike many other contemporary collections. According to Patterson, by 1854 it included an additional 51 human crania, along with the skulls of other mammals (278), birds (271), reptiles, and fishes (88). By that time, the citizens of Philadelphia purchased the collection for $4000 and donated it to the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences (Patterson, 1854:xxx; 12Hrdlička, 1914a:523). While the Philadelphia Academy attempted to engage two scientists, Joseph Leidy and J. Aitkin Meigs, in furthering Morton’s work, their ability to achieve this goal was limited (Hrdlička, 1914a). By 1914, Hrdlička (p. 523) described the collection as a “sad relic” still held by the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences. Hrdlička (1914a:523) attributed the failed research legacy to a lack of scholarly attention or “other reasons,” among them the failure to gain further systematic accessions. Such “other reasons” certainly must have also included the lack of detailed provenience data, incomplete sampling of archaeological sites,7 and the bias introduced by restricting the sample to adult skulls. These factors limited the Morton collection’s value for 20th-century bioarchaeological research.
Joseph Jones’ collection appears to have been dispersed and lost. Following Jones’ death in 1896, his widow, Susan Polk Jones, corresponded (1901–1909) with a number of institutions attempting to sell his archaeological collection (Jones and Jones, 1901–1909). The “Abstract of the Catalogue of the Archaeological Collection of Joseph Jones” indicates that the “greater part” of the collections was composed of materials from Jones’ 1868–1869 excavations (Jones, 1901). While artifacts apparently formed the core of the catalog, the caption for Figure 100, the final illustration in the catalog, indicates that this “collection contains a large number of Moundbuilders’ skulls, carefully numbered and measured … also a large number of those of various nationalities of modern times” (Jones, 1901:35). Sectioned postcranial bones are not mentioned, although they appear to have been present at Jones’ presentation to the New Orleans Medical and Surgical Association on Saturday evening, April 27th, 1878 (Jones, 1878). As reported by Susan and Joseph Jones’ grandson, Stanhope Bayne-Jones:
The bones were kept in the house in New Orleans for a long time. When my grandfather died in 1896 the family needed a little cash and the specimens were sold for what they would fetch. They were bought for the Heye Museum in New York. Most of them now are in a warehouse in Brooklyn; the rest are distributed through the display cases in accordance with some artistic scheme, I think, rather than with a palaeopathological scheme. It seems to me that this whole large collection ought to be re-examined by the new methods. But in this case there is a little difficulty. My grandfather pasted paper labels on the foreheads of the skulls and on the bones. These labels don’t withstand climatic changes too well and most of them have come off. It is going to be difficult to identify them again, but I don’t know why they couldn’t be examined by these new methods to see what sorts of lesions they present. (Bayne-Jones, 1996:39)
While restudy would indeed be a desirable goal, facilitating the resolution of Jones’ diagnosis of widespread syphilis and placating his skeptics, it appears that 13the collection was dispersed following acquisition in 1906 by the Heye Foundation/Museum of the American Indian (MAI). According to records currently at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI), Mrs. Jones received $4500 for the collection (Rachel Griffin, personal communication, 2004). The history of dispersal is unclear, although the “physical collection” of the Heye was of sufficient significance for Franz Boas (1972), at the recommendation of Bruno Oetteking, to approach George G Heye with a request for a long-term loan to Columbia University, a transaction that never occurred. However, the Jones collection was said by Herbert U. Williams to be composed solely of skulls and only one with syphilitic changes by the time of his observations (Williams, 1932). However, given the relatively rare occurrence of diagnostic cranial lesions in North American skeletal materials presenting postcranial changes attributable to treponemal infection, Williams’ observations cannot be considered definitive proof that the Jones collection of crania had dispersed by that time. The records of the MAI that were transferred to the NMAI after 1989 indicate that nine skulls from the Jones collection had been deaccessioned to the New York University (NYU) School of Dentistry in 1956, while two were still present in the NMAI collections, as of 2004 (Rachel Griffin, personal communication, 2004). While records at NYU indicate that materials were received from the MAI in 1956, the Jones collection is not specified (Eric Baker, personal communication, 2004). Thus, from the “large number” reported in 1901, the only skeletal materials remaining from Jones’ collection appear to be the two skulls housed with the NMAI in Suitland, Maryland.
Although excavated in the Southwest, the skeletons from the Hemenway Expedition were also curated in East Coast museums. Wortman returned to the AMM with human remains in June of 1888 (Lamb, 1915:630), thus significantly increasing the museum’s holdings. The AMM had been founded on May 21, 1862, during the Civil War, beginning as “a set of three dried and varnished bones resting above an inkstand on the desk of Brigade Surgeon John Hill Brinton,” the first curator of the Museum (Henry, 1964:1). Medical officers were subsequently directed to collect and forward to the Office of the Surgeon General “all specimens of morbid anatomy, surgical or medical, which may be regarded as valuable; together with projectile and foreign bodies removed, and such other matters as may prove of interest in the study of military medicine or surgery” (Henry, 1964:1; Sledzik and Barbian, 2001:227). The mission of the museum, however, was soon to expand.
In 1868, George A. Otis, in charge of the AMM anatomical collection, sent letters to medical officers, noting that the museum already had 143 (Indian) skulls and requested concerted collection of more (Lamb, 1915). The stated purpose of such efforts was “to aid the progress of anthropological science” through cranial measurement of American Indians (Henry, 1964:58). The next year, Otis reached an agreement with secretary Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution (SI) 14such that the Smithsonian’s skeletal materials would be transferred to the AMM in exchange for ethnographic and artifactual items.8 Transfers began the same year and, by April 12, 1870, Otis reported to the National Academy of Sciences that the AMM possessed over 900 crania, 376 of these having been transferred from the SI. Cranial measurement and evaluation of cranial deformation were emphasized in Otis’ papers, although septal aperture morphology was mentioned in 1878 (Lamb, 1915). Clearly, at this time, the AMM-collecting strategy, conducted as it was by remote medical officers who lacked archaeological expertise, focused on broad regional coverage rather than detailed provenience data. Curation of remains and artifacts in administratively and spatially removed institutions also would have encouraged interpretations of skeletal remains only generally linked to their cultural or environmental contexts. Thus, these early SI and AMM collections suffered many of the same limitations as those of Samuel Morton, after whom Otis modeled his collecting strategies (Lamb, 1915).
Following Otis’ death (in 1881), J. S. Billings became curator of the museum (in 1884) and was soon joined by Washington Matthews. Both Billings and Matthews actively engaged in descriptive and methodological study of the collections. For example, prior to AMM involvement with the Hemenway Expedition in 1887, Matthews experimented with methods for measuring cranial capacity and cranial form, while Billings investigated composite photography and its craniological applications (Lamb, 1915; Billings and Matthews, 1885; Matthews, 1898). By 1886, Matthews had also accumulated 21 years of medical experience among Indians within a dozen states and territories. His systematic observations of consumption frequencies among Indians with distinctive lifeways (Matthews, 1886, 1887, 1888) foreshadowed Hrdlička’s (1909a) more recent study of tuberculosis among five Indian tribes.
Why was the report on the Hemenway Expedition materials much more culturally and behaviorally nuanced than earlier AMM studies? As also emphasized in Chapter 5, both Matthews and Wortman had actually visited Los Muertos and Wortman is described by the home secretary to the expedition, 15Sylvester Baxter (1889:33), as one of “two Doctors9 … found grubbing in the pits, industriously at work over the skeletons, over whose anatomical characteristics their enthusiasm is aroused to a high pitch. They are intent on securing and saving every bone, and are regardless of personal discomfort, not only their clothes being covered with the dust, but their faces begrimed and their hair and beards thoroughly powdered, making them look like some strange burrowing animals. The result of their painstaking is one of the finest and most complete collections of ancient skeletons ever brought together ….”
Matthews, Billings, and Wortman’s 1893 report undoubtedly also benefited from Cushing’s ethnographic knowledge of the Zuñi and his stimulating speculations, as well as Bandalier’s ethnohistoric information. Cushing’s emphasis on understanding the lives of the people who created Los Muertos, rather than simply reporting architectural plans and finely crafted material culture, is aptly summarized by Baxter’s statement: “It will be seen that the results of the Hemenway Expedition are of importance, not so much through what has been found, as by what has been found out in the progress of the work” [Baxter (1888), reported in Hinsley and Wilcox (1996:134)]. This individualized approach to the past led Cushing to keep grave lots together and separately identified.
By a study of these accompaniments to each burial (which I at once determined to keep the identity and interrelation of distinct), the sex, often the condition in life, and in fact many other personal items relating to the individual buried may be definitely made known when these collections, if ever, are minutely studied by me, and cannot fail to give vivid, as it were, even historic knowledge of the people and phase of culture represented by these wasted and buried cities. [Cushing, reported in Hinsley and Wilcox (2002:200)]
Thus, even though Cushing would never develop his detailed report, the manner in which he collected grave lots facilitated later scholarship, including dissertations by Haury (1934) and Brunson (Brunson, 1989; Hinsley and Wilcox, 2002).
Unfortunately, however, by the mid-20th century, no records existed to link the Hemenway’s inhumed remains with burial contexts (Brunson, 1989). Cushing’s personal secretary, Frederick W. Hodge, had indicated that he was creating such a list, but it has never been discovered. When the skeletons were transferred from the AMM to the Smithsonian Institution, accession numbers were assigned 16without reference to field contexts. In 1957, T. Dale Stewart, curator of physical anthropology, reported that skeletons could not be associated with either field locations or grave lots (Brunson, 1989:146).
Billings was lauded by Lamb (1915:631) for holding “tenaciously to the belief … that it was best to hold the osteological collections together until a complete study could be made of them, and not to scatter the specimens by donations and exchanges.” This goal was not, however, fully met for the Hemenway Expedition skeletal collections. There were two exceptions. First, only 35 of 200 remains recovered from the circum-Zuñi sites traveled to Washington (Matthews et al., 1893). Presumably, some 25 (Peabody Museum, 2001) of these are referred to by Putnam in his curator’s report to the trustees of the Peabody Museum for 1890 (1891:90): “It is with pleasure that I also mention a collection of human crania from the ruins near Zuñi, collected by the Hemenway Southwestern Archaeological Expedition, and kindly presented by Mrs. Mary Hemenway.” A second group of bones arrived at the Peabody Museum with less fanfare. Numerous “incendiary urns” recovered from the bases of Cushing’s (1890) “pyral mounds” were part of the ~5000 specimens from the Hemenway Expedition loaned to the Peabody Museum of Salem upon completion of the expedition in 1888. They were transferred to the George Peabody Museum at Harvard in 1894 upon the death of Mary Hemenway (Haury, 1945). The fact that the cremated remains from Los Muertos (n = 129) and Las Acequias10 (n = 1) were not accessioned into the Harvard Peabody collections until 1946 (accession #46-73: Peabody Museum), the year after Haury’s study11 of Los Muertos and neighboring ruins, including the cremations, was published, suggests that the bones may have entered the museum with or within the burial urns. Haury (1945:45) reported that “the contents of many of the funerary jars were saved,” but not the point in time when they were removed from their containers. Nor is there a collection date for the cremations given in the Peabody accession records (Peabody Museum, 2001).12
While published documents do not directly state why the burned and intact skeletal samples were divided between the AMM and the Peabody museums, 17the following quotation from the Matthews, Wortman, and Billings report leads to the inference that 19th-century researchers considered only intact, unburned remains suitable for study.
It is believed that those of the priestly race were not cremated because they had the power to release their own souls from their bodies while the laity, having no such power, had to have their bodies burned to effect the desired release. Whatever may have been the creed that thus preserved some bodies for simple interment, anthropology owes it gratitude, for without it the unique skeletons of this archaic race would not have been preserved for modern study and comparison (italics added). (Matthews et al., 1893:150)
This argument is reinforced by Haury’s observation that Earnest Hooton encouraged him to “examine the cremated human remains, evidence which heretofore has been generally neglected because of its supposed uselessness” (Haury, 1945:xii). Thus, at this time in the history of bioarchaeological study, practitioners felt that there was little to be gained through the study of cremated remains. Fortunately, the cremations were retained and were thus available at Harvard’s Peabody museum when Haury developed his dissertation project.
While other sets of skeletal remains associated with Harvard University clearly have a longer history in the anatomical collections of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement13 and the Warren Anatomical Museum (Jackson, 1847, 1870; Beecher and Altschule, 1977), systematic curation of human skeletal materials from archaeological contexts dates to the founding of the Peabody Museum with Jeffries Wyman as the curator. In the first annual report to the trustees, Wyman characterizes a rather unpretentious inception:
On the 9th of November 1866, a collection of various objects pertaining to the purposes of this Museum was begun, and temporarily deposited in one of the cases of the Museum of Comparative Anatomy, in Boylston Hall. The collection consisted of crania and bones of North-American Indians, a few casts of crania of other races, several kinds of stone implements, and a few articles of pottery, — in all, about fifty specimens. Of these, about one-half belonged to Harvard College, and with the consent of the President, were transferred to this Museum, the others were from the collections of the Curator. (Wyman, 1868a:5)
Wyman was the curator for the Peabody from 1868 until his death in 1874. His approach to collections acquisition, contextual detail, and the significance of human remains, as represented in his curator’s reports and his publications on Florida shell mounds, appeared to be well ahead of its time. In the first 18annual report (Wyman, 1868a), for example, he expressed enthusiasm over two relatively large collections of skulls, one from Peru and another from Hawaii. In the former, provenience data are considered important and, in the second case, concern over the age of the specimens is expressed. His discussion of explorations of the East Coast of Florida, beginning with the first report, are remarkable for their integrated observations of stratigraphy, artifacts, faunal and floral remains, and human bone. While he may not necessarily have collected all bones from all skeletons excavated at a site, there is a clear emphasis beyond the cranium. For example, Wyman (1869:18), in discussing the collections made and transferred to the Peabody by S. S. Lyon from “ancient mounds in Kentucky,” noted that the materials included “large numbers of crania and extensive collections of the more important bones of the skeletons.…”
In an analysis of crania and “other parts of the skeleton” presented in the fourth annual report, Wyman (1871:10) concluded “… brain measurement cannot be assumed as an indication of the intellectual position of races any more than of individuals.14 From such results the question is very naturally forced upon us whether comparisons, based upon cranial measurements of capacity as generally made, are entitled to the value usually assigned them.” This prescient statement came at a time when other American and European scholars were obsessed with craniometry as a measure of innate intelligence (Gould, 1981). In addition, he reported several postcranial attributes, including the first observations of “flattening of the tibia,” in remains from the Western Hemisphere.
Wyman’s most extensive discussion of human skeletal materials appeared in his consideration of cannibalism from the St. John’s River “shell heaps” (Wyman, 1874, 1875). Wyman approached the issue with characteristic rigor, having noticed a number of human bones found under “peculiar circumstances” and not interred in articulation (1874:60, 1875:26). He details broken remains that were treated just as were animal bones from the same deposits and fragmented in a predictable pattern (1874:60, 1875:27). In another example, he reported a femur that was separated into proximal and distal segments by first “cutting a groove around the circumference of the bone and thus weakening it and then breaking the remainder. This is a common method of dividing [animal] bones used by Indians” (Wyman, 1874:63). Wyman (1873) supplemented his arguments with ethnographic and ethnohistoric observations of cannibalism, primarily in the Americas. While his analyses are not as detailed as those of more recent scholars (Turner and Turner, 1999; White, 1992), evidence of cannibalism among ancient American Indians remained a highly visible and controversial topic in the late 20th century (Billman et al., 2000; Bullock, 1991; Darling, 1999; Dongoske et al., 2000; Walker, 1998).
19The remarkably “modern” nature of Wyman’s contextualized and problem-oriented approach to the study of ancient human remains is underscored by comparison with that of his successor, Frederic Ward Putnam. For example, during Putnam’s tenure, accessions 13116–13565 were described as “[a] number of human skeletons and a large and valuable collection of implements and ornaments of stone, bone and shell of native manufacture . . .” (Putnam 1878a:216). Such statements stand in marked contrast to Wyman’s (1873:6) discussion of “… the large and very valuable collection of ancient Peruvian skulls, obtained by the Hassler Expedition …” and his conclusion that “[t]he most important addition to the Museum during the year is the archaeological and craniological collection of Dr. Giustimano Nicolucci, of the Island of Sora, Naples.” For Wyman, human remains were of at least equal significance to artifacts. In parallel, although Putnam solicited, influenced, and published reports on skeletal remains, e.g., “Measurements of Crania Received during the Year” (Putnam, 1878a:221), “Observations on the Crania from the Stone Graves in Tennessee” (Carr, 1878), “Notes on the Anomalies, Injuries, and Diseases of the Bones of the Native Races of North America” (Whitney, 1886), and “The Madisonville Prehistoric Cemetery: Anthropological Notes” (Langdon, 1881), these studies lack the innovative contextual sensitivity and problem orientation of Wyman’s earlier work. Jarcho (1966a:12), for example, characterized Whitney’s study as a “systematic compendium” and Langdon’s as “good of its time.”
Thus, by the turn of the 20th century, medical doctors, anatomists, and other scientists were addressing several issues that would be reflected in later bioarchaeological studies. Biological distance investigations, particularly those on a continental scale and focused primarily on the origin of American Indians, continued to dominate the field. The numerous studies of artificial cranial deformation, a form of cultural modification, reflect an emphasis on the cranium. Although most biological distance inferences were based on cranial measurements, Matthews et al. (1893) also considered a non-metric variant, the Inca bone, in their comparisons of Los Muertos skeletons with those from Peru. Paleodemographic inferences of population numbers and age distributions had been important for Jefferson’s remarkable 18th-century investigation. During the 19th century, Broca’s six-stage age grades (first period of childhood: birth to 6th year; second period of childhood: 7–14 years; youth: 14–25 years; adult age: 25–40 years; ripe age: 40–60 years; and senility: 60+ years) had been imported and detailed by scholars such as Matthews et al. (1893). The Matthews investigation also addressed metric evaluations of sex differences in the bony pelvis (Hoyme, 1957b; Matthews et al., 1893; Stewart, 1979a15). Melding contemporary medical knowledge with the study of the past was well illustrated in 20Jones’ (1876) investigations of syphilis among the stone box grave interments from Tennessee. While Wyman (1871) was the first to note “flattening of the tibia” among American Indians, the relationship of long bone shape to daily activity stresses, including sex-based differences, was initially emphasized in the study of Los Muertos (Matthews et al., 1893). Dietary issues were also addressed in the American Southwest, with the authors concluding that “[w]ith this evidence before us it can not [sic] said that a meat diet is injurious to the teeth or a vegetable diet especially beneficial” (Matthews et al., 1893:201). The way was thus paved for the development of a topically diverse bioarchaeology in the 20th century.
In closing this overview of 18th- and 19th-century scientists, their problem orientation, and their collections, it is important to underscore a point also made by Cook in Chapter 2. While these contributions were made by North American scholars, working with North American materials, their perspective was not provincial. Jefferson traveled extensively and corresponded globally. Morton’s second medical degree was awarded in Edinburgh (1823) and he also studied in France. He was well respected in Europe and building his collection generated an extensive international correspondence. While Washington Matthews may have never ventured from the boundaries of the region that would become the United States, he was well informed concerning methods and conclusions being generated in Europe. Cushing and Matthews’ colleague, Baxter [1888, reprinted in Hinsley and Wilcox (1996:133)], wrote about parallels between the Los Muertos discoveries and those made in Almería, Spain, both excavated during 1887.16 The Harvard Peabody scholars were similarly well informed and widely respected. While the political and religious climate developing in the new nation doubtless affected the way in which some research problems were framed, this American scholarship should not be viewed as insular.17
21II. HRDLIČKA AND HOOTON: CONTEXTS AND CONTRASTS
Two major figures, Aleš Hrdlička and Earnest A. Hooton, dominated early 20th-century physical anthropology in the United States. These two scholars, however, had very different orientations to archaeological contexts and anthropological problem solving. Given their enormous visibility and prominence, their contrasting attitudes toward archaeological contexts and bioarchaeological problem orientations are addressed here in detail.
T. Dale Stewart (1940a:20), mentored by Hrdlička from his undergraduate days and chosen to succeed Hrdlička as curator of physical anthropology at the Smithsonian Institution, notes nine “underlying aims” of Hrdlička’s work. Among these were determining the range of normal variation for the human skeleton, preserving older American skeletal materials, and resolving the subject of geologically ancient man in the New World. This last-mentioned goal was undoubtedly influenced by Hrdlička’s Smithsonian Institution mentor, W. H. Holmes (Spencer, 1979:289).
Hrdlička actively conducted fieldwork to measure remote skeletons and skeletal series, to gather collections for the Smithsonian, and to evaluate archaeological sites reputed to contain evidence of early man. It was during his critical review of early man sites in the New World that Hrdlička was most contextually sensitive. He actively collaborated with geologists in evaluating stratigraphy (Hrdlička, 1912a, 1916, 1917a, 1937a) and based arguments critical of proposed early finds on soil formation processes.
The occurrence of isolated fossil animal bones or fragments in contact with, or even above, the human skeleton would have no significance. In digging a grave the earth thrown out might well contain fossils even of considerable size, which, after the body was introduced, would be thrown in about or above it. The apparently undisturbed condition of the partial and irregular sandy layers which occur in the muck where the skeleton No. II was discovered would hardly be regarded as sufficient proof that the bones were not introduced from above. The muck and sand thrown in over a body would tend in the course of time so completely to assume the appearance and characteristics of the original deposits that distinction between the two would be quite impossible. (Hrdlička, 1917:48)
While Hrdlička also evaluated allegedly ancient New World skeletal remains for evidence of morphological features distinctive from those of more recent Indians, his critiques frequently began with contextual information. For example, in considering skeletal remains attributed to early man in North America, he argued that such materials should “be photographed in situ, and should be 22examined by more than one man of science, including especially a geologist familiar with the particular formations involved; and the chemical and somatological characters of the bones should receive the closest attention with the view of determining their bearing on questions involving the antiquity of the remains” (Hrdlička, 1907:11). In his summary statement for the same article, he argued that the identification of human remains as those of early man “demands indisputable stratigraphical evidence, some degree of fossilization of the bones, and marked serial somatological distinctions in the more important osseous parts” (Hrdlička, 1907:13).18
Such concerns for fine contextual control are not conspicuous, however, in Hrdlička’s work with more recent skeletal materials. When he was just beginning to amass the collection that would grow from approximately 3000 skulls and other bones in 1904 (Lamb, 1915) to more than 15,000 human skulls or skeletons by the time of his death in 1943 (Schultz, 1945), Hrdlička (1904:22) sought to enlist the aid of “medical men,” especially those “who travel, or have charge of hospitals, colleges, dissecting rooms, and remedial institutions.” Reminiscent of assistant surgeon general George A. Otis’ 1868 memorandum to army medical officers “to aid in the progress of anthropological science (Lamb, 1915:625),” Hrdlička (1904:22) created a set of instructions for the collection of skeletal remains by foreign missionaries and teachers, explorers, miners, prospectors, surveyors, and engineers of railroads, “men engaged in trades that take them into virgin regions; and travelers of means and leisure.” Designed to “help the science of physical anthropology” (Hrdlička, 1904:5), this pamphlet discussed the manner in which collections should be made. “The further back in time we recede from the actual period, the more essential become the preservation of the specimens and of all objects associated with them, and the correct localization of all with reference to geological formations … [a]ll explorations for the skeletal remains of early man should be intrusted [sic] to thoroughly trained men only” (Hrdlička, 1904:11). Hrdlička’s reports of his own collecting expeditions to such 23venues as Peru and Alaska do not provide clear evidence of concern for careful recording of contextual information (Hrdlička, 1915, 1927b,c, 1941a,b).19 In creating his remarkable collection of recent materials, the acquisition of large quantities of skeletons and mummies rather than archaeological control clearly remained Hrdlička’s priority throughout his professional life. “Everywhere and at all times he indulged in his absorbing passion for collecting knowledge and potential new data in [sic] form of specimens. To the very last of his field-trips he derived the keenest happiness from every new skull which he could carry back to his boat to be added to the thousands of others he had already amassed at home” (Schultz, 1945:314).
Hrdlička did, however, eschew the selective collecting patterns of the 19th century.
All parts of the body, from all stages of life, are fit subjects for physical anthropology, because racial, tribal, or other group differences are found in all of them. Thus far, however, but little attention has been paid in the United States to anything besides the racial, particularly Indian, skeletal constituents, and especially the skull, objects which are of more general interest, more abundant, and comparatively easy of collection and transportation. But even with the skulls and skeletons no systematic collection on a large scale, or a collection comprehending all the important elements of the population, has ever been attempted. All of this explains the condition of our collections and should indicate the way to their improvement. (Hrdlička, 1904:7)
In sum, Hrdlička must be credited with amassing a remarkable collection of human skeletal remains and beginning a tradition of skeletal study at the 24Smithsonian Institution. Given his background as a “medical man” and as an anatomist, his emphasis on description and variation is understandable. As Schultz (1945:311) remarked, Hrdlička “concerned himself properly and exclusively with the primary question: What are the variations of man? He left the secondary, though more fascinating, questions, beginning with how and why, to his successors.” And indeed, his successors, such as T. Dale Stewart, Lucile St. Hoyme, J. Lawrence Angel, Donald Ortner, Douglas Ubelaker, and Douglas Owsley, have all developed a more nuanced approach to the archaeological record.
Despite his dedication to the development of the institution’s holdings, Hrdlička’s relationship with archaeologists who contributed to the Smithsonian’s collections was not without tension. For example, when archaeologist Gerard Fowke sent his materials from Missouri mounds to the Smithsonian for analysis, Hrdlička grumbled about the condition of the remains.
On the whole the material is very defective; there is not an entire skull, and there are only a few entire long bones. The specimens were damaged for the most part during excavation, as shown by fresh breaks, and in most cases important parts thus broken off were lost. More than nine-tenths of the bones of the skeletons are missing altogether. Moreover, the surfaces of the skulls were treated with a glue-like substance which has since begun to crack and scale off, doing further damage. (Hrdlička, 1910:103)
Fowke, however, had expressed an opinion critical of physical anthropologists and their approach to the study of skeletal remains. In describing the contributions of physical anthropologists to archaeological issues, Fowke opined:
It is a beautiful scheme; the only trouble with it is that no one has ever been able to reduce it to a system from which it is possible to obtain any certain or definite results. When this difficulty is overcome—no special progress appears yet to have been made in that direction—we may look for the announcement of some interesting discoveries. (Fowke, 1902:132)
A closer working relationship between archaeologists and physical anthropologists is exemplified in the early 20th-century research of Earnest Hooton. In contrast to Hrdlička’s general concern for human variability, Hooton’s work with skeletal collections was closely linked to focused, regional questions currently being asked by archaeologists. He himself had conducted archaeological recovery of both artifacts and human remains in the Canary Islands (1915) as part of the Harvard African Series (Hooton, 1925). In discussing this project, Hooton emphasized its problem orientation and his engagement in field research.
The first field effort incidental to the production of this series was an expedition to the Canary Islands, designed to clear up the much argued question of the affinities of the Guanches, an extinct race of cave dwellers alleged to be remnants of the famous Cro-Magnon artists of Upper Palaeolithic Europe. Upon this expedition the writer was forced to gather his own data, both physical and archaeological. . . . On the whole, this 25study seemed to confirm the necessity of an intimate cooperation of the archaeologist with the physical anthropologist. (Hooton, 1935:503)
Hooton’s emphasis on integration of archaeological and physical anthropological knowledge had also been encouraged by his experience with North American remains housed in the Peabody. His frustrating experience with the Madisonville Cemetery collection is recounted in Chapter 4 (Hooton, 1935:501).
As the Pecos project developed, Hooton spent 2 months during 1920 working with the archaeologist A. V. Kidder at the site. Kidder took advantage of Hooton’s presence to open additional trenches in burial-rich areas (Kidder, 1924; Givens, 1992). As emphasized in Chapter 2, Kidder thus became an advocate for physical anthropology, underscoring the importance of temporal control in studying changing demographic and heritage patterns over time. He also expressed interest in issues such as infant mortality, length of life, and the impact of disease (Kidder, 1924:33).
Hooton’s emphasis on anthropological integration was also reflected in the training program at Harvard.
The development of physical anthropological studies at Harvard and the advance of research in other anthropological fields have resulted in progressive encroachments of each specialty upon the preserves of the others, in order to secure significant explanatory data. Thus the archaeologist is driven further and further into interpretation of his cultural data in connection with skeletal material; the physical anthropologist finds himself perforce delving deeper and deeper into the collection and correlation of sociological data or of archaeological facts; the ethnologist advances steadily into the fields of his colleagues for the same reason. It is a significant fact that almost none of the anthropologists recently trained at Harvard can be forced to relinquish to their specialist colleagues the data in allied fields which they themselves have collected in expeditions. Thus the archaeologist insists upon working up the skeletal material which he has exhumed; the ethnologist prefers to correlate his own anthropometric data with his cultural findings, and the physical anthropologist raids in all directions and utilizes miscellaneous booty. Such a development is most healthy. . . . (Hooton, 1935:511)
Thus, with Hooton as with Jeffries Wyman before him, the Harvard/Peabody scholars presented a tight integration between physical anthropology and archaeological problem solving. Physical anthropologists participated in fieldwork and learned contemporary field excavation methods.26