SAMPLING BIASES AND NEW WAYS OF ADDRESSING THE SIGNIFICANCE OF TRAUMA IN NEANDERTALS by Virginia Hutton Estabrook A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in The University of Michigan 2009 Doctoral Committee: Professor Milford H. Wolpoff, Chair Professor A. Roberto Frisancho Professor John D. Speth Associate Professor Thomas R. Gest Associate Professor Rachel Caspari, Central Michigan University © Virginia Hutton Estabrook 2009 To my father who read to me my first stories of prehistory ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are so many people whose generosity and inspiration made this dissertation possible. Chief among them is my husband, George Estabrook, who has been my constant cheerleader throughout this process. I would like to thank my committee for all of their help, insight, and time. I am truly fortunate in my extraordinary advisor and committee chair, Milford Wolpoff, who has guided me throughout my time here at Michigan with support, advice, and encouragement (and nudging). I am deeply indebted to Tom Gest, not only for being a cognate par excellence, but also for all of his help and attention in teaching me gross anatomy. Rachel Caspari, Roberto Frisancho, and John Speth gave me their attention for this dissertation and also offered me wonderful examples of academic competence, graciousness, and wit when I had the opportunity to take their classes and/or teach with them as their GSI. All photographs of the Krapina material, regardless of photographer, are presented with the permission of J. Radovčić and the Croatian Natural History Museum. My research would not have been possible without generous grants from Rackham, the International Institute, and the Department of Anthropology. Nor would it iii have been possible without the local hosting of Jakov and Davorka Radovčić in Zagreb and Eugenia Cunha and Paulo Gama Mota in Coimbra. Like every other Anthropology graduate student, I have accepted Laurie Marx as my personal savior and many very bad things would have happened were it not for her help. Finally, I would not have ever been involved in the field of Anthropology were it not for the inspiration and support of many people throughout my life. These include my grandfather with whom I collected “artifacts” from our beach before I ever set foot in a classroom, my parents who constantly provided me with opportunities to explore my interests, amazing high school teachers like Peter Perhonis and Charlie Flanagan who took me seriously, wonderful professors at Bryn Mawr like Rick Davis who convinced me that Anthropology was the most wonderful and fascinating major a person could have, Douglas Ubelaker who taught me osteology and pointed me towards issues of preservation and sampling biases in the analysis of trauma, Janet Monge whose mentorship and generosity has been incredibly important to me throughout my time as her student (which I will always be), my professors and fellow graduate students at Michigan who have been some of the smartest people I have ever met and whose company I have enjoyed and been constantly inspired by, especially Steve Pastner, whose wonderful drawing graces the frontispiece, Beverly Strassmann, Loring Brace, Andy Merriwether, Meghan Howey, Liz Bridges, Daphne Gallagher, Steven Dueppen, Kay Grennan, Anna Williams, and Theo Morrow, and, finally, my dear daughter, Elizabeth, whose smiles are my sunshine on the dark, cold and dreary Ann Arbor days. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………..........ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……..……………………………………………...............iii LIST OF FIGURES……………..……………………………………………………..viii LIST OF TABLES…...………………………………………………………………….ix LIST OF APPENDICES.....……………………..……………….………………….... xv ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………….xvi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION………...…………………………………………………..1 II. DEFINITION AND ASSESSMENT OF TRAUMA...……………………..8 A. Chapter II Introduction……………………………………………...8 B. Definitions of Trauma………………………………………………...9 C. Identifying Trauma in Bones……………………………………….10 D. Description and Recording of Trauma……………...……………..59 E. Patterns of Trauma………………………………………………….71 F. The “Ideal” Population for Assessing Trauma…………………….87 G. Limitations of Neandertal Data for Trauma Patterning………….92 H. Chapter II Conclusion…..……………………………....................101 v III. THE HISTORY OF TRAUMA ANALYSIS IN NEANDERTALS…...105 A. Chapter III Introduction…………………………………………..105 B. History of Observations of Neandertal Trauma………………….105 C. History of Interpretations of Neandertal Trauma..……………..150 D. Chapter III Conclusion…………………………………………...165 IV. ASSESSING PATTERNS OF TRAUMA IN NEANDERTALS………167 A. Chapter IV Introduction………………………………….……....167 B. Materials………………………………………………………...…168 C. Methods: Introducing ACTUS…………………………………...168 D. By Chronology and Geographical Location……………………..176 E. By Degree of Preservation………………………………………...185 F. By Distribution of Injury throughout the Regions of the Body...198 G. By Side of the Body Injured………………………………………209 H. By Severity of Injury……………………………………………...214 I. By Age-at-Death Class……………………………………………..221 J. By Sex……………………………………………………………….229 K. Chapter IV Conclusion…………………………………………...234 V. COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRUMA FREQUENCY IN EUROPEAN NEANDERTALS …..………………………………….239 A. Chapter V Introduction…………………………………………...239 B. Trauma in Context: the European Neandertals Sample………..240 C. Results……………………………………………………………...248 D. Discussion…………………………………………………………...262 vi D. Chapter V Conclusion…………………………………………….264 VI. TRAUMA IN NEANDERTAL REMAINS: NEW APPROACHES A. Chapter VI Introduction…………………………………………..267 B. Materials: Assessing Neandertal Trauma in a Focused Context..267 C. New Methods of Collecting Data in Fragmentary Remains…….287 D. Results: Patterns of Trauma at Krapina and Aljubarrota……...303 E. Discussion: Comparisons between Krapina and Aljubarrota…..314 F. Chapter VI Conclusions.......……………………………………...317 VII. DISCUSSION A. Chapter VII Introduction…………………………………………320 B. Limitations in the Analysis of Neandertal Trauma……………..322 C. Trauma and Knowledge of Neandertal Lifeways..……………...329 D. Evolutionary Implications of the Study of “Paleo-trauma”…….337 E. Future Work……………………………………………………….338 F. Chapter VII Conclusion…………….…………………………….341 VIII. CONCLUSION.………………...………………………………………343 APPENDICES…...……………………………………………………............347 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………..382 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1 Minor cranial depression fracture on the left side of the frontal fragment of Krapina 4 near the coronal suture………………………………………..24 2.2 Perimortem penetrating fracture to right parietal near temporal line, Aljubarrota specimen ALJ 1.134………………………………………...26 2.3 Healed fracture to left ulnar shaft, Krapina 188.8…………………………...29 2.4 Healed rib fracture from Aljubarrota collection, no specimen number……...35 2.6. Taphonomic processes from Andrew and Cook’s (1985) model of taphonomic history………………………………………………………49 3.1 Reconstruction of an imaginary Neandertal family by D. Popovića…….…118 6.1 Individual Blank from a frontal record sheet……………………………….297 viii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1 Summary of potential sampling biases………………………………………..58 2.2. Summary of ways of examining patterns of trauma……………….…...…….85 2.3. Aspects of the “ideal” population for assessing trauma………….…….……..91 2.4. Limitations of the Neandertal Metaset………...……………………………100 3.1 Summary of Neandertals with trauma….………..………………………….106 3.2. Summary of trauma at Krapina……..………...……….……………………125 4.1. Counts of all bones at Krapina distinguished by presence or absence of trauma, and body part……………..……………………………………172 4.2. Numbers of observations expected under the null hypothesis with row frequencies (RF) and column frequencies (CF)………………………...173 4.3. Deviations of observed counts Table 4.1 from expected values shown in Table 4.2………………………………………………………………..173 4.4. In each cell is the number of simulated tables (scaled out of 1000) whose count for that cell was not less than the observed count for that cell…..175 4.5. In each cell is the number of simulated tables (scaled out of 1000 whose count for that cell did not exceed the observed count for that cell……..175 4.6. Neandertal remains with trauma organized by chronology, geographical location and type of site, distribution of trauma on body and sex of individuals……………………………………………………………...178 ix 4.7. Regions of the body with trauma by time………………………………...179 4.8 Regions of the body with trauma by continent……………………………..180 4.9 Type of site containing Neandertals with trauma by continent…………….181 4.10. Sex of Neandertals with trauma by continent…………………………….183 4.11. Results of testing hypotheses about site chronology and location for Neandertals with trauma………………………………………………..184 4.12. Neandertal remains with trauma organized by degree of preservation, site type, sex, and age class…………………………………………………187 4.13. Level of preservation of Neandertals with trauma by site type…………..188 4.14. Level of preservation of Neandertals with trauma by sex………………..189 4.15 Level of preservation of Neandertals with trauma by age-at-death class…189 4.16 Level of preservation of Neandertals with trauma by sex and age-at- death…………………………………………………………………….190 4.17 Results of testing hypotheses about preservation for Neandertals with trauma…………………………………………………………………..192 4.18. Neandertals with trauma, level of preservation and burial status………...195 4.19. Neandertals with trauma, level of preservation and burial status...............197 4.20. Neandertals with trauma, level of preservation