stone age institute publication series Series Editors Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth
Stone Age Institute Gosport, Indiana and Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana
Number 1. THE OLDOWAN: Case Studies into the Earliest Stone Age Nicholas Toth and Kathy Schick, editors
Number 2. BREATHING LIFE INTO FOSSILS: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain Travis Rayne Pickering, Kathy Schick, and Nicholas Toth, editors
Number 3. THE CUTTING EDGE: New Approaches to the Archaeology of Human Origins Kathy Schick, and Nicholas Toth, editors
Number 4. THE HUMAN BRAIN EVOLVING: Paleoneurological Studies in Honor of Ralph L. Holloway Douglas Broadfield, Michael Yuan, Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth, editors STONE AGE INSTITUTE PUBLICATION SERIES NUMBER 2 Series Editors Kathy Schick and Nicholas Toth
breathing life into fossils: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain
Editors
Travis Rayne Pickering University of Wisconsin, Madison
Kathy Schick Indiana University
Nicholas Toth Indiana University
Stone Age Institute Press · www.stoneageinstitute.org 1392 W. Dittemore Road · Gosport, IN 47433 COVER CAPTIONS AND CREDITS.
Front cover, clockwise from top left.
Top left: Artist’s reconstruction of the depositional context of Swartkrans Cave, South Africa, with a leopard consuming a hominid carcass in a tree outside the cave: bones would subsequently wash into the cave and be incorporated in the breccia deposits. © 1985 Jay H. Matternes.
Top right: The Swartkrans cave deposits in South Africa, where excavations have yielded many hominids and other animal fossils. ©1985 David L. Brill.
Bottom right: Reconstruction of a hominid being carried by a leopard. © 1985 Jay H. Matternes.
Bottom left: Photograph of a leopard mandible and the skull cap of a hominid from Swartkrans, with the leopard’s canines juxtaposed with puncture marks likely produced by a leopard carrying its hominid prey. © 1985 David L. Brill.
Center: Photo of Bob Brain holding a cast of a spotted hyena skull signed by all of the taphonomy conference participants. © 2004 Kathy Schick, Stone Age Institute.
Back cover credits.
Top: © 2004 Stone Age Institute.
Bottom left: © 2004 Kathy Schick, Stone Age Institute.
Bottom right: © 2005 Greg Murphy.
Published by the Stone Age Institute. ISBN-10: 0-9792-2761-5 ISBN-13: 978-0-9792-2761-5 Copyright © 2007, Stone Age Institute Press.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher. CHAPTER 2
RATHER ODD DETECTIVE STORIES: A VIEW OF SOME ACTUALISTIC AND TAPHONOMIC TRENDS IN PALEOINDIAN STUDIES
GARY HAYNES
BSTRACT A something that helped me recognize how the detective During the last three decades of American Paleoin- work can bedevil our imperfect minds. dian research, some taphonomists played a mug’s game I fi rst met C. K. Brain in 1982 when I went to Africa while others knew all about the game’s ambiguous rules. to fi nd fi eld sites and agreeable governments willing to After Paleoindianists discovered a string of infl uential issue research permits for a planned study of elephant 1970s publications by researchers working mainly in Af- bones. My research plans came together in Zimbabwe rica, they changed their attitude towards taphonomy. But instead of South Africa, so I did not see Bob Brain again many Paleoindianists idiosyncratically used taphonomy until 1984, when we met in Carson City, Nevada, at a to create support for unusual propositions or to lend plau- conference about animal-bone modifi cations. One day sibility to off-beat theses such as an unexpectedly early Dr. Brain, while eating lunch with Kate Scott and me human presence in the Americas, instead of testing hy- at an A&W Root Beer stand across the street from the potheses through taphonomic analysis. After the 1980s, soon-to-be-bankrupt casino where the conference took taphonomic research has greatly advanced in allowing place, warned us that “Taphonomy is a mug’s game.” clear and defi nite interpretations of Paleoindian bone as- Here’s what I think he meant: Too many taphonomists semblages, but stubborn personalities and the tendency were duping themselves into serving causes instead of to “brand” certain sites continue to discourage the most seeking the more complex truths about site-formation rigorous skeptical inquiry that is taphonomy. The pro- processes. In fact, maybe ultimate complex truths were cess of explaining archaeological contexts through ta- unattainable, which is an insight reached by other con- phonomy is a make-or-break step that must be applied scientious taphonomists. In spite of years of study of all to the earliest sites. the variables, no single predictor could tell us how to ex- plain every example of bone settling, bone survival, bone subtraction from assemblages, bone marking by human INTRODUCTION butchers and feeding carnivores, or the other end-effects This is a detective story, but a rather odd one. of taphonomic processes. C. K. Brain (1981) In this paper, I offer a personal view of the last three decades of American Paleoindian research, some of America’s deep prehistory is a very foreign country, which was carried out by taphonomists who may never and clever detectives are needed to uncover how people have realized they were playing a mug’s game, and some did things then.1 Some Paleoindianists have been able to of which was done by au courant researchers who knew show us through taphonomic research what the world of all about the game’s ambiguous rules. Readers will soon foragers was like in the distant past, but not all the detec- understand that because I was a participant in this recent tives have been equally canny. Years ago C. K. Brain said period of history, my viewpoint has affected how I inter-
1 Apologies to readers of L. P. Hartley’s 1953 novel The Go-Between (Hartley, 2002). 26 Breathing Life into Fossils: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain pret the scientifi c activity and opinions of the time. But gist and geologist (Miller and Dort, 1978) as an example having convictions is an unavoidable part of the practice of how prehistoric people deliberately fl aked mammoth of science. bones into tools. While the process of fl aking bone was replicated and thus plausible, it still needed actualistic FIRST FLUSH OF AMBITION testing to show whether noncultural processes could be eliminated as potential causes of the same results. I take it you are in the fi rst fl ush of ambition, Also in the 1970s, thanks to Professor C. Vance and just beginning to make yourself disagreeable. Haynes (who is not related to me) and then-graduate You think (do you not?) that you have only to student Jeff Saunders, both at the University of Ari- state a reasonable case, and people must listen zona, Paleoindianists could clearly see how relevant to reason and act upon at once. It is just this age-profi ling can be in explaining the possible agencies conviction that makes you so unpleasant. that contributed animal bones to fossil sites. Saunders F. M. Cornford (1908) (1977) thought the mass mammoth site of Lehner, AZ, contained the remains of a herd of related animals killed The starting point of my review is the middle of the together, because the age distribution was so similar to 1970s, when I was a graduate student learning about what is seen in modern African elephant herds. When the fi rst native cultures in eastern North America. The I went to Africa a few years later to study elephant bi- themes that occupied my Paleoindianist colleagues and ology and behavior, I was determined to see how age teachers were primarily (1) the timing of the earliest hu- profi les could vary in elephant bone assemblages when man colonization and (2) the technology and subsistence the causes of mortality varied. After a few years of fi eld- of the fi rst peoples. Both themes were ripe for the appli- work in Africa, I suggested (Haynes, 1987) that mam- cation of taphonomic principles. moth age-profi les in Clovis sites such as Lehner might Contemporary developments in hominid paleontol- refl ect climatic stresses on the populations rather than ogy were barely given notice in the papers and publi- mass-hunting by humans, an interpretation at odds with cations written by Paleoindianists of those days. Yet by Saunders’ (1980).2 1976, thanks to the Wenner-Gren Conference and the re- A hinge point in Paleoindianists’ changing attitude sulting Fossils in the Making book, which “crystallize[d] towards taphonomy developed during the key years 1978- the new science of taphonomy and [helped] to chart its 1985. Within this span, perhaps 1981 was most critical: future course” (Brain, 1981: ix; Brain, 1980:73), Paleo- C. K. Brain’s The Hunters or the Hunted book appeared indianists discovered a string of infl uential publications in the same year as Lewis Binford’s Bones book, Pat by Andrew Hill, Kay Behrensmeyer, Pat Shipman, and Shipman’s book Life History of a Fossil, a Science paper others. To me in my Paleoindian program, which in those by Stanford and colleagues about an elephant they butch- days had the status of a déclassé suburb far from the bus- ered to create bone fl akes—thus in their opinion proving tling metropolis of hominid evolutionary studies, the ta- that pre-Clovis people fl aked mammoth bones in North phonomists seemed to be training through one of two America—and the hiring of A. K. Behrensmeyer at the axes—Harvard’s or rival Berkeley’s. Without mentoring Smithsonian Institution’s Natural History Museum, or training and without peers sharing interests within which slimly avoided a federal hiring-freeze (Harrison, my own Paleoindian program, I ingenuously entered 1981). My own doctoral dissertation was completed that the arena with a few observational papers about carni- same year, to far less effect than the other publications. vore-gnawing, based on a series of studies of Pleistocene Other products of the year were the fi rst announcement fossil bone collections, a zoo-animal-feeding study, and of a Clovis-associated mastodont killsite in eastern North some actualistic work in American wildlands. These pa- America (Graham et al., 1981), and the fi rst description pers were often given harsh treatment by Paleoindian- of the Lamb Spring site in Colorado (Stanford, Wedel, ist referees and paleontologists trying to prevent them and Scott, 1981) that had yielded a component of stacked from being published. I look back on the taphonomists and fl aked mammoth bones. I was co-author of a second of those days as avatars of the maverick Hollywood de- Lamb Springs paper the next year (Rancier et al., 1982), tectives whose mulish supervisors stall their homicide which added fuel to the debate about bone-fl aking and investigations. the possible existence of a pre-Clovis human presence in The 1970s saw the appearance of several of Brain’s North America. taphonomy papers preceding the Hunters or the Hunted The main use of taphonomy in Paleoindian publica- book, as well as Rob Bonnichsen’s Pleistocene Bone tions—the word taphonomy being loosely and implicitly Technology monograph, in which he set out his proposi- defi ned as bone-modifi cation analysis—was to serve a tions about bone-fl aking in prehistory and its relation- very narrow cause, namely fi nding support for unusual ship to the pre-Clovis stage of America’s colonization. propositions or for lending plausibility to off-beat theses In 1978, tying in neatly with Bonnichsen’s proposals, the such as the evidence for an unexpectedly early human Owl Cave site in Idaho was described by a paleontolo- presence in the Americas, based on fl aked bone speci-
2 It is worth noting that one later study of some mass mammoth Clovis sites now may indicate that the dead animals came from different source ranges and were not all related family members (Hoppe 2004). Haynes 27 mens. These were not really examples of detective work, become scattered. Hill and Behrensmeyer (1984) soon as Brain had called his own taphonomic studies—they found the disarticulation sequences to be consistent in were one-sided editorials with taphonomy added to in- a wide range of African mammals. A year later Hill and crease the plausibility. Many papers with a taphonomic Behrensmeyer (1985) looked at the sequence of Ameri- bent seemed to be polemical rather than truth-seeking, can bison disarticulation at the Olsen-Chubbock late intended to advance opinions without addressing the Paleoindian site, and suggested that a few differences strengths and weaknesses of competing hypotheses. from the natural sequences they had recorded for Afri- Some developments in Paleoindian taphonomic work can mammal skeletons might refl ect human actions at were considered pivotal at the time, but in fact they might the archaeological site. Overall, however, most human have defl ected the fl ow of research, like the investigative and nonhuman processes were recognized as producing work of an obsessed but blindered detective. An example very similar sequences of separation. is small-scale elephant-butchering, which nearly became Infl uenced by this desire to know how animal skel- a cottage industry in actualistic research. The refereed etons are altered by different agencies in nature, and Science paper by Stanford, Morlan, and Bonnichsen following the lead of both Brain and P. R. K. Richard- (1981) summarizing the Ginsberg experiment (also see son (1980), I sought data to produce fl owcharts that Callahan, 1994) could not elevate the elephant-butcher- combined information on how the grey wolf in North ing projects (for example, Matyukhin, 1984; Rippeteau, America damaged skeletal elements of American bison, 1979) from makeshift or impromptu happenings to repli- moose, and deer and how the bones naturally disarticu- cative science. None of the experiments was ever written lated (Haynes, 1980, 1982). As far as I can tell these pa- up adequately. These events achieved an almost folkloric pers have very rarely been referenced by taphonomists presence as background in some of the ensuing literature and archaeologists. about butchering marks to be found on megamammal el- ements and the expectable ways that prehistoric people BAD NEWS must have sectioned huge prey carcasses. Yet these and other individual bone-modifying experiments were too In some ways taphonomy is ‘bad news’ to easily transformable into lawlike generalizations about archaeology. It shows us just how much we don’t human behavior (as in Bonnichsen,, 1979). All too often, know about the archaeological record… as shown in these examples, and following the precocious Sarah Colley (1990) post-processual trend of the times, taphonomic studies involved a novel but reckless form of induction. Refer- In 1984, a bone-modifi cation conference was held ring to the observable traces created by an individual’s in Carson City, Nevada, hosted by the Nevada State Mu- unmatched acts (such as Bonnichsen’s bone-breaking or seum and partly funded by Rob Bonnichsen’s Center for other archaeologists’ attempts to butcher carcasses and the Study of Early Man, then located at the University of produce cutmarks), these studies then proposed univer- Maine, Orono. The conference scheduled the actualistic salities about butchering practices in the past. and taphonomic papers early in the program, to be fol- Of course not all work was driven by scholars trying lowed by several half-days of presentations by people to advance unyielding points of view. A very interesting who, it appeared to me, had paid inadequate attention to and less slanted literature was also being produced in this the taphonomists. Even in the book that eventually re- period. For example, Dinah Crader in (1983) and (1984) sulted from the conference (Bonnichsen and Sorg 1989) described Bisa elephant butchering—very pertinent for some authors displayed this same selective forgetfulness. Paleoindianists trying to understand mammoth-butcher- For example, early in the book (as at the conference) Oli- ing—and the resulting traces of carcass sectioning and ver (1989) discussed bones showing noncultural impact bone-processing created by people having a real econom- marks, surface incisions, and other effects of natural ic interest in the meat and bones. When Hill (1976, 1984) processes, as did Behrensmeyer, Gordon, and Yanagi described the testing of competing hypotheses about fos- (1989), yet in the book’s later articles similarly modifi ed sil animal-bone accumulations, he showed the process to specimens from other sites were said to be affected by be extremely challenging and requiring a rigor not seen human actions only, and fi gures such as of tooth-mark- often enough in the scientifi c literature. A fl ow was not ing on bones were interpreted as cultural in origin. When yet underway of taphonomic writings closely relevant to I mentioned the lapses in a journal review of the book, Paleoindian studies, but nevertheless the 1970s and early I was made to realize that I was facing lasting hostility 1980s did see a turning point in awareness of how such from participants and interested parties who had staked studies could relate to emerging interpretations. their careers on the interpretations. Most Paleoindian re- One major emphasis in that decade was on skel- searchers intended to be very selective in trying to apply etal disarticulation sequences in small and large mam- the taphonomists’ results for many more years to come. mals when different agencies affected the carcasses. Hill At another conference held two years later at Lub- (1979) devised a statistical technique for describing the bock Lake, Texas, I overheard a remark from a prominent African topi sequence and modeled how the elements archaeologist who advocated mammoth-bone-fl aking as 28 Breathing Life into Fossils: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain proof of a pre-Clovis presence in the Americas. When I tions are acceptable, and that criticisms of such outland- approached the podium he said “Here comes a taphono- ish stories are merely “culturally relative” judgments and mist to tell us everything we say is wrong.” I realized this therefore not valid. Frison had learned from personal ex- was the prevailing attitude among the other participants perience and from his intellectual control of the ethno- as well—taphonomy was spoiling their stories. I was graphic literature that human butchering practices were nettled at the time, but now I can point out that much of rational, patterned, and understandable. what was said really was dead wrong. Frison is an example of a Paleoindianist who wisely I remained exasperated through the mid-1980s, es- and early paid attention to the taphonomists, even when pecially after unsuccessfully applying for NSF money they spoiled some of his stories. In earlier publications to support a project to study elephant-bone-fl aking. This by Great Plains archaeologists (such as Frison, 1974) happened in 1984.3 An NSF proposal I submitted was writing about prehistoric bison sites, cultural causes returned unfunded, along with comments from anony- frequently had been assigned to bone modifi cations that mous reviewers who did not understand the specialized were more likely carnivore-caused. But Frison’s ex- vocabulary of taphonomy or who speculated that maybe periments and his unusual curiosity opened his eyes and I was making up some of my results. Taphonomic studies those of his students to the varied end effects of noncul- were indeed bad news for many of these people, whose tural processes. Frison made two trips to Zimbabwe to neat stories about mammoths and whose attempts to re- throw spears at culled elephant carcasses and take part in invent Paleoindian culture-histories were weakening. large-scale elephant-butchering at the time I was doing my fi eldwork there. UNHELPFUL AND UNPLEASANT At one point in his writings, George Frison tried to introduce a word—“taphonomics”—which could have …nothing is ever done until every one is convinced given a convenient name to the chapter every book should that it ought to be done, and has been convinced contain discussing the origins of fossil bone modifi ca- for so long that it is now time to do something else. tions—but it was never adopted by other authors. Fri- F. M. Cornford (1908) son’s experiments in bone-fl oating and spear-throwing produced a limited set of unreplicated data, but the work In 1986, Paleoindian archaeologists George Frison is still valuable. Thanks to Frison, we know something and Larry Todd published a very short but infl uential important about elephant-bone buoyancy, spear penetra- book about a mammoth killsite at Colby, Wyoming. In tion, and especially the expected lack of cutmarks on el- one chapter Frison and Todd described an experiment ephant bones when they are butchered by experts. with elephant bones, reminiscent of Voorhies’ (1969) Larry Todd also continued the taphonomic work by and Hanson’s (1980) experiments to measure the extent painstakingly documenting patterns in bison bone dam- to which moving water can displace different elements of age and element attrition, thus helping to clarify the pre- mammal skeletons. Frison was a true leader in applying historic cultural and noncultural processes at work on the taphonomy to Paleoindian studies. He had come from American High Plains (Todd, 1987; Todd and Rapson, a ranching and hunting background, and he confi ded to 1988, 1999). students and friends that he thought 99% of archaeolo- In 1986, Johnson and Shipman published a short gists didn’t know near enough about animal behavior to description of a study that many Paleoindianist readers interpret human hunting behavior. He made sure his stu- hoped would provide a guide for distinguishing incised dents began learning about the animals that prehistoric bone surfaces cut by butchers from specimens cut by people hunted. He entered the taphonomic business with noncultural agents. This study was part of a family of a fl ourish, becoming an ever-present voice in Paleoin- other valuable SEM studies of the time (such as Ship- dian research, encouraging students and colleagues to man and Rose, 1983a, b, 1984). Paleoindianists made devise methods for determining how much the animal use of these works, but eventually began wondering how bones in High Plains sites had been affected by human many hours of searching under the microscope or how versus nonhuman processes. many marks were examined to fi nd the clearest matches Frison was (and still is) right about how little ar- between fossil marks and experimentally produced cuts chaeologists know of animal biology and behavior, as illustrated in these guides. Paleoindianists also wondered seen in much Paleoindianist literature. Astonishingly, about how the documented cutmarks had been created some archaeologists still believe that prehistoric people (were they deliberate attempts to mark bone, or were butchered large mammal carcasses any way they wanted they by-products of economy-based butchering?). More to, depending on ethnic or cultural preferences presum- discussion was needed about the range of variability in ably, without regard for effi ciency or basic anatomical both true cuts and the fossil marks. Only the best match- limitations; an example is Storck and Holland (2003: es and sharpest differences were featured in the widely 299, 300) who suggest that even “illogical and unrealis- used guides, so the ambiguity was downplayed. Paleoin- tically extravagant” proboscidean-butchering interpreta- dianists learned to be a little more cautious over the next
3 It was not long afterwards that I began writing sometimes biting book reviews for the journals American Antiquity and North American Archaeologist. Haynes 29 decade when they found that no taphonomic guide was turned out to be Stuart Fiedel.4 infallible. Fiedel’s valid querying of the Monte Verde site’s The 1980s and 1990s were notable for the increas- ambiguities was publicly brushed aside (Dillehay et al., ing volume of publications about essential taphonomic 1999a, b), as had been my own private questions. When I issues. By the end of the 1980s, taphonomic research had commented on a pre-publication chapter (“Zooarchaeo- greatly advanced in allowing clear and defi nite interpreta- logical Remains”) meant for the now well-known sec- tions of Paleoindian bone assemblages. By then, instead ond volume about the site (Dillehay, 1997:661-758), the of anecdotes and conjecture, we had on hand multiple author wrote me a testy letter rejecting my questioning, empirically documented records about bone representa- and proclaimed that “after 30 years [of experience as an tion at different kinds of sites, bone subtraction due to archaeologist] I can recognize an artifact.” A peremp- scavenging carnivores, and so forth. It had begun to seem tory dismissal of a taphonomist’s caution is a common that archaeologists and paleontologists regularly applied reaction, but an archaeologist’s proclamation of personal these studies in their own research and that the research skills does not obviate the need to test the reliability of to that point had made a start in defi ning (even if not interpretations. clearing up) the important ambiguity in fossil bone as- Monte Verde’s huge second volume (Dillehay, semblages. The overlooked classics of the older litera- 1997) contains an impressive amount of data and inter- ture (such as Weigelt, 1989 [original 1927 in German]) pretations, but it is more imperfect than the fi rst volume were revived in print as interest exploded in taphonomy. in many ways (see Fiedel, 1999, 2000). The book is Solid and well reported actualistic studies inspired some frustrating because of the frequent impossibility of fi gur- Old World researchers to go to war with adversaries over ing out where certain key items were found (such as the the deeper meanings of early hominid bone assemblages seemingly unmapped handful of indisputable lithic arti- (such as Lewis Binford and Rob Blumenschine versus facts) or ambiguity about the specifi c items that were ra- Henry Bunn over Plio-Pleistocene hominid scavenging diometrically dated, although it is a very large book full behavior [Binford, 1986; Blumenschine, 1986; Bunn and of outstanding information. The site yielded hundreds Kroll, 1986], or Curtis Marean versus Mary Stiner over of minimally modifi ed stream-rounded stones, about Neanderthal diet [Marean, 1998; Stiner, 1994]). Cau- 400 animal bones or fragments looking like noncultural tionary tales stressed the remaining ambiguities—such debris, diverse plant remains including wood fragments as equifi nality in bone survival or element distribution or with a decidedly wave-washed look, “structures” made surface-marking—but these were often roughly treated of what appear to be strewn wood pieces (for example, by critics: see the probable career-stalling responses to Dillehay, 1997: 775), and possible mastodont skin frag- Rob Gargett’s (1989a, b, 1999) rethinking of Neander- ments. Overlying the materials interpreted as cultural is thal burial and Nicola Stern’s (1993, 1994) cautions a peat layer that preserved the organic remains. The site about assemblage structure at Olduvai Gorge. Paleoin- is fascinating and unique, but “bizarre” would also be an dianists also went to battle over the interpretations of as- appropriate word. semblages such as the pre-Clovis broken bones from Old Paleoindianists are tough fi ghters when it comes to Crow, Yukon, and Lost Chicken Creek, Alaska, but these changing other people’s paradigms and defending their debates possessed a lower international profi le because own. Yet too often the sampling of taphonomic literature cautionary tales were often ignored or dismissed behind offered to support one set of interpretations is overly se- an authoritative sniff rather than attacked head-on with lective. The Monte Verde report contained a limited liter- data and strong arguments. ature review as well as descriptions (Dillehay, 1997:695- Celebrity dissidents in Paleoindian studies seem 703) of neotaphonomic experiments and observations to to have developed broadly similar careerist strategies. uphold some of the interpretations of broken bones as Aggressive self-promoters rely more on a strong, thick- being culturally produced. But such experiments must be skinned personality able to stay the course while re- coldly evaluated, because they can be narrow and faulty counting unorthodox claims, and less on a willingness if they consist of limited bone set-ups to test possibilities and ability to carry out adequate actualistic/taphonomic for bone movement and noncultural modifi cations. research—sustained detective work—which would up- Roosevelt (2000) observed that the discontinuous hold their questionable interpretations of the past. When strata at Monte Verde were complex and contained possi- asked about the fi ner details of their fi eldwork practices ble contaminants along with the questionable “artifacts.” or the replicability of their interpretive standards, celeb- Thus not only are the cultural materials doubted by a rity dissidents in Paleoindian studies often may not re- number of New World archaeologists, but Monte Verde’s spond, perhaps implying that they are infallible. When- dating procedures themselves are now being questioned. ever they do claim to be responding, they mainly attack Monte Verde is not the only possibly pre-Clovis site their inquisitor, which in Paleoindian studies frequently with lingering contextual problems. The Meadowcroft
4 Unpleasant disagreements between archaeologists with different interpretations has a long history. For example, when J. L. Lorenzo claimed Irwin-Williams’s fi eld crew had fraudulently planted artifacts at Valsequillo, Mexico, in the 1960s, Irwin-Williams (n.d.:12) accused Lorenzo of “distorted personal animosity and irrational inability to change an opinion.” 30 Breathing Life into Fossils: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain rockshelter site in Pennsylvania has been known for de- become a widespread belief instead of a testable (and cades as a stratifi ed site containing unquestioned lithic in-need-of-testing) possibility, even though we all know artifacts associated with pre-Clovis radiometric dates. that archaeological stories are unproven. Eventually, the Excavator James Adovasio is the site’s long-suffering belief comes to be shared by people who know little to archaeologist who has had to face down the skeptics for nothing of the original evidence behind the interpreta- nearly 30 years. He spent the 1970s and 1980s becoming tion. In the case of the South American site called Monte a well-known dissident in Paleoindian studies, due to his Verde, the belief that the site is reliably interpreted rests advocacy of Meadowcroft’s early dates, and over time fi rmly in many people who may not have read the two his self-defense has been fi ne-tuned into near-churlish big volumes about it. The site becomes part of a mass responses to critics (see Adovasio and Page, 2002). belief system, in which certain key concepts are always The problems in this case are centered not around linked and fi rmly accepted. determining if modifi ed bones are genuine artifacts, but Mass belief systems may not be “very deep or long around the dating itself. Two published reviews (Flan- lasting,” but they are superpotent (Twitchell, 2003:vii). nery, 2003; Roosevelt, 2000) of Adovasio’s co-authored The population of believers may not share wider inter- book (Adovasio and Page, 2002) about the site and its ests or even specifi c knowledge, but they understand surrounding controversies alert readers to the fact that each other because they share a branded thing, such as naturally occurring coal might have contaminated some a Monte Verde point of view about American prehis- of the dated materials at Meadowcroft. The process of tory (viz., pre-Clovis populations spread across the New analyzing the samples used in radiometric dating is part World with minimal visibility and little ecological im- of a make-or-break contextual study that hasn’t been pact, speaking different languages and having different done in either the Meadowcroft or Monte Verde cases. geographic origins, etc.). An attack on Monte Verde is an Yet while directly dating the lowermost Meadowcroft attack on a global brand name having a huge list of con- and Monte Verde organics, such as plant fi ber, wood, or sumers. To consume the Monte Verde story is perhaps nutshells, might serve to test the possible contamination to feel part of a new cognoscenti, a special class of ar- of sediments with dead carbon, these materials also must chaeologists, a fresh generation of prehistorians who feel be proven to have cultural associations, and that requires entitled to believe in a site where almost everything is much more taphonomic detective work. unique, unreplicated elsewhere, different from all other The prevailing strategy in Paleoindian debates is sites. mainly trying to strip opponents of respect instead of This is a safe way to consume the brand’s rejection objectively answering the criticisms about dubious inter- of the status quo and is thus a downstream form of icono- pretations. Also favored is accusing critics of misunder- clasty (Twitchell, 2003), or a secure way for brand ad- standing or distorting one’s views, although distortions herents to feel in the know about the past’s most cryptic and misrepresentations are rhetorical sins that all parties evidence. Monte Verde is an example of a Paleoindian commit. In the words of C. Hitchens (2004:28), writing brandscape—a nesting collection of ideas, attitudes, and in reply to a similar kind of response to his criticisms, scenarios that are identifi able and coherent, and most “When a man thinks any stick will do, he tends to pick importantly are an ensemble. Perhaps some people have up a boomerang.” decided to inhabit the Monte Verde brandscape because it is a trend—many of them do not actually calculate its BRANDSCAPES strengths, only its mass appeal. Monte Verde is an object of aggressive marketing, and now it is considered unar- This, like other species of patriotism, consists guable truth by many people. in a sincere belief that the institution to which you belong is better than an institution to GOOD NEWS which other people belong. F. M. Cornford (1908) If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it? Such personality-driven debates in place of col- Attributed to Albert Einstein. laborative detective work possibly arise from the un- conscious process of archaeological “brandscaping,” Basic research is what I’m doing a term I borrow from modern marketing and cultural when I don’t know what I’m doing. studies. This word usually means the marketing of an Attributed to Wernher Von Braun. object by creating special spaces, designs, and associ- ated products that consumers can identify with it. The Although I’ve described examples of the biased word as I use it here refers to the transformation of what adoption of taphonomic work in one-sided support of should be merely an archaeological interpretation into a Paleoindian interpretive causes, nonetheless many other career-centered cause. When an archaeological interpre- examples of enduring and important taphonomic stud- tation/scenario/discovery is introduced by one or a few ies have been done specifi cally for Paleoindian research. sources, it may strike a chord with archaeologists and As mentioned already, Lawrence Todd in particular has Haynes 31 quietly taken Paleoindian taphonomy to a higher level, how ecosystem reconstructions can be improved through along with a few other students who trained with George taphonomic analyses. The trend towards moving on from Frison or Lewis Binford. Their work has provided Pa- taphonomy has also depleted the ranks of Paleoindianists leoindianists with necessary guides to taxon-specifi c who once ran actualistic or neotaphonomic projects. In pattern-recognition principles, such as Burgett’s (1990) my 22 years of full-time teaching, I’ve had only one doc- study of coyote (Canis latrans) scavenging on bison (Bi- toral student in taphonomy, but I’m still doing my own son bison) and elk (Cervus canadensis) carcasses, Mat- taphonomic fi eldwork, even if I can’t interest anybody thew Hill’s (2001) part-taphonomic analysis of Paleoin- else. dian diet and subsistence, or Todd’s (e.g., 1983, 1987; The global community of taphonomic researchers Todd and Rapson, 1988, 1999) series of papers about has grown well beyond Paleoindianists and the specialists quantifi cation and precise data-recording standards. working in Africa. Researchers from South America and My own early publications—where I described general Europe in the past years have carried out their own new shapes and unquantifi ed central frequencies of bison actualistic or taphonomic studies (for example, Mondini, bones affected by a variety of noncultural processes— 1995, 2000, 2001a,b; Wojtal, 2001; Wojtal and Sobczyk, appear inadequate today when seen in the light of the 2003), aimed at correcting earlier studies’ errors or shap- work done by these colleagues. The detective business ing the research towards local conditions, thus keeping in Paleoindian studies hasn’t always been faultless, but I the fi eld alive, to use an ironic modifi er. Each new study think it has moved along towards maturity. reveals the temporal and geographical variability in ta- My elephant-taphonomy studies, which are ongoing phonomic processes, thus potentially adding to Paleoin- to this day, are useful, I hope, but I had to self-fund much dian bone assemblages a wider array of new sources of of the fi eldwork after the NSF review process proved so proxy information about the past. bigoted in the mid-1980s. The experts who ignored or The most encouraging trend in Paleoindian tapho- disliked the work in the 1980s still do, apparently, but I nomic research has been the awareness (still not fully don’t think they have read very much of it, judging from emerged) that controversy is actually good and skepti- their unwillingness to cite the publications, even if only cism is even better. Archaeologist Charles Keally, com- to disagree with them. To quote essayist C. Hitchens paring the nature of America’s Paleoindian debates with (2004:28) again: “After allowing me to shoulder my way, the controversy about the nonexistence of an Early Pa- with many a sigh, through all [their] scurvy pages, [they] leolithic stage in Japan, pointed out that the Paleoindian will not deign to glance in return at what I wrote.” debate has become interdisciplinary, scientifi c, and aca- Like scholars-in-disagreement, scholars of a later demic, and while criticisms are often heated, “confer- age are rarely generous towards the output of earlier ences and publications purposefully include contributors generations. Many of the taphonomic publications of 25 from both (all?) sides” (Keally, 2001). In Keally’s view, years earlier suffer criticisms (then and now) for not ad- controversy is exciting and useful, most ideas are open- dressing contemporary keynotes. Yet in spite of the sore ly admitted to be only speculation, questioning is and points, many hindsight evaluations are also useful (for should be common, solid scientifi c evidence is required example, Lyman and Fox (1989) on variability in bone [to address problems], vigorous and public debate is nor- weathering) and do add a new, valuable dimension to the mal, people should be encouraged to change their minds pioneering publications. I am at best a peripheral player after hearing new evidence or arguments, and scholars in taphonomic dramas, but I too have learned how it can should enjoy having their ideas criticized. While some be both ego-feeding and bruising to see one’s works dis- Paleoindianists (Adovasio and Page, 2002; Dillehay, sected and critiqued by sharp graduate students (Graves, 2000) may not appear to agree with these precepts, the 2002) or colleagues (Domínguez-Rodrigo and Piqueras, current generation of taphonomists must have gotten 2003), but it is the price one pays for publishing in sci- used to them by now. ence. More than two decades after Brain’s The Hunters or BRAIN’S SWAY the Hunted book, several of the 1970s-era taphonomists who set the pace for Paleoindian researchers have moved …small things [can be used to] discover great away from fundamental actualistic fi eldwork. One exam- [things]…better than great can discover the small. ple is Pat Shipman, now a successful science writer. Oth- Francis Bacon (1973; orig. 1605) ers did not so much leave the fi eld as step laterally to be bigger-picture interpreters, a natural evolution of career Is the post-“Hunters or Hunted” period a case of Pa- trajectories. For example, Andrew Hill, who had plunged leoindianists behaving as Feyerabend (1975) suggested into the young and burgeoning fi eld of taphonomy in the they might want to do during a period of changing in- late 1960s, has since become a leader in hominid ecol- terpretations (anything goes—anarchy and intellectual ogy and taxonomy. Others who were Brain’s compañe- dishonesty are acceptable and valid when exploring the ros in the 1960s and 1970s taphonomic research, such unknown), or as Bourdieu (1977) theorized they usually as Kay Behrensmeyer (e.g., 1975), never really left the would (careerism is as important in shaping scientifi c actualistic work behind but expanded upon it to show trends as any so-called objective search for truths), or 32 Breathing Life into Fossils: Taphonomic Studies in Honor of C.K. (Bob) Brain as Kuhn (1962) had generalized (periods of paradigm He designed and carried out many different and re- shift are full of programmatic confusion and leadership lated projects—examining the effects of bone weather- struggles)? ing (Brain, 1967b), collecting ethnographic data (Jenkins The last quarter-century of Paleoindian studies had and Brain, 1967), observing patterns in humanly butch- these and other socio-political processes taking place, ered remains (Brain, 1967a, 1969), experimentally feed- but the model C. K. Brain had established was available ing animal carcasses to carnivores (Brain, 1981), collect- as a fi lter to pass the three kinds of pettiness through. ing animal bones from wild carnivore lairs (Brain, 1981), Brain had asked a question in the title of his major book collecting bones from owl roosts in caves, and so on. —The Hunters or the Hunted?—and that willingness to These projects were examples of actualism, neota- query was intended to encourage readers to weigh evi- phonomy, and classical taphonomy (defi ned here as the dence and seek answers, rather than to decide those an- laboratory interpretation of fossil bone histories). They swers in advance and to merely invent ad hoc models to formed the basis for his “rather odd detective story” support hardened opinions. about Plio-Pleistocene hominids in South Africa. He was Practically speaking, Brain’s book showed him en- comfortable carrying forward his line of reasoning one gaged in multiple modes of taphonomic study. He had small maneuver at a time. He reviewed others’ work, col- done feeding experiments with large carnivores, he had lected data, and spelled out his alternative interpretations carried out actualistic studies, he had learned the patterns with grace and tact. of fossil bone modifi cations, and he had carefully read Did Paleoindian taphonomists follow suit? I don’t the growing literature about other people’s taphonomic think we ever really did, but once in a while some schol- research. He thus put together his case step-by-step. ars came close. My own body of work is incomplete and Rubidge (2000:5) has pointed out that Brain enjoyed unbalanced compared to Brain’s. Other Paleoindianists’ the day by day process of just doing science. He looked work of the 1970s and 1980s also seems unfulfi lled or for answers creatively and often in the same ways the provisional, but several classic references will never lose old fashioned naturalists did it, by allowing himself to their usefulness. Yet, Paleoindian studies in general have veer off intellectually in many different directions when stayed at an unfl edged stage because American prehis- it seemed to be needed. He was not a project-driven ca- torians often seek “brands” of interpretations instead of reerist obsessed with achieving prominence in his fi eld, facing the complexities and ambiguities that a long-term which I think set him apart from many Paleoindianists. commitment to taphonomy reveals. He was inspired to do the taphonomic work fi rst by I end this paper by acknowledging that Brain’s con- his knowledge (and eventually doubts) about Raymond tribution to Paleoindian research went beyond merely Dart’s hunting-ape hypotheses (Brain, 1997), and sec- providing examples of taphonomic studies to emulate. ond by his fi rst-hand knowledge of Plio-Pleistocene To his greatest credit, he also showed us how to stal- fossils—accumulated through decades of “hard labor wartly present a case without alienating colleagues and at Swartkrans” (Brain, 1973, 1974, 1976a). He was also friends. inspired by the new ideas emerging from meetings with other researchers who had similar puzzles to solve. Espe- REFERENCES cially catalytic was the Wenner-Gren conference of 1976 Adovasio, J. M., Page, J. 2002. The First Americans: In Pur- (Brain 1976b). Yet Brain was a true all-around natural- suit of Archaeology’s Greatest Mystery. 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