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An Early Human Fossil from the Yuha Desert of Southern California

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An Early Human Fossil from the Yuha Desert of Southern California REVIEWS 137 aroused." Echoes of these old hatreds indeed (Childers 1974; Bischoff et al. 1976). In the exist today in academic and legislative debate. present monograph the skeleton itself is analyzed. Rogers' report, as might be expected from his previous work, is detailed and fully pro­ fessional. Though hampered by the highly fragmented and eroded condition of the find A n Early Human Fossil from the Yuha Desert (the skull vault alone was crushed into some 90 of Southern California: Physical Char­ pieces), he establishes the sex as probably acteristics. Spencer L. Rogers. San Diego: male, age as late adolescence (17-20), stature as San Diego Museum of Man Papers "No. 12. less than 160 cm., and provides a series of 1977. 27 pp., map, figures, bibhography. osteometric and morphological observations. $3.00 (paper). Although the main contribution of the Reviewed by PETER D. SCHULZ work is a straightforward osteological study, the greatest interest wiU undoubtedly center on University of California. Davis the two short secfions enfitled "Racial Charac­ Debate over the antiquity of man in the teristics" and "Comparisons." Unfortunately, New World has been a recurrent theme in these are the weakest sections of the report. modern archaeology for much of this century, Although the Yuha find is assessed (on non- but only in recent years has the controversy metric features) as "a cranium with more tended to concentrate in southern California. Caucasoid than Mongoloid elements," the two Numerous finds of purported great antiquity terms are never defined—a serious omission in have now been recovered there. These are view of the variability in their use, even among distributed from the Channel Islands and the physical anthropologists, and particularly in San Diego Coast to the Colorado and Mojave view of the discussions of "proto-Caucasoid" deserts, with estimated ages ranging from affiliations which have been popular of late 16,000 to more than 100,000 years. Lest con­ at Early Man symposia. Since we do not servative readers envision little old scientists in know how Rogers would classify recent Native tennis shoes, it should be noted that the finds American peoples, the value of his termin­ have attracted many of the lumina of both ology is Hmited. It is worth noting, however, archaeology and chronophysics, who have that the rather gracile appearance of the cra­ subjected at least some of the sites to detailed nium is not particularly reminiscent of Asian investigation. Such finds consequently deserve "Caucasoids," and the relatively large teeth careful consideration. which he compares to those of Javanese and Prominent among recent discoveries is the aboriginal Australians, could in fact be easily Yuha skeleton, a human burial found in the lost among those of any number of recent arid Imperial Valley, a few miles north of the California or Great Basin populations. No Mexican border. The bones were covered by a statistical tests are performed, but the metric rock cairn and associated with unifacial flaked data (in so far as they can be trusted) do show, stone tools. Subsequent to the time of burial, as Rogers notes, a close similarity to the La the bones were covered with precipitated cali­ JoUa crania from the San Diego coast. This che, which has been dated at 21,500±1000 B.P. would not be surprising in a contemporaneous by '"C and at 19,000±3000 B.P. by 230Th. The individual, but is worth wondering at in one archaeology and chronology of the site have proclaimed as twice the age of the Holocene. been the subjects of two previous reports The report is well presented, but several 138 THE JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA ANTHROPOLOGY points deserve comment. A large number of editor and the editors of the series, form the radiocarbon dates are now available for the La rather uneven group of statements which com­ Jolla culture, nearly all of them po^r-dating prise this volume. They are far from being a 8000 B.P.; the osteometric comparisons are tract on Native American behef in the West. with the Early period (Windmiller) popu­ Two of the pieces are derived from new lations of the lower Central Valley; and the field work among Southwesterners: Elizabeth age of more than 6000 years ascribed to Brandt writes on secrecy concerning the sacred the Tranquillity site was based on a possi­ at Taos; while Donald Bahr discusses the Pima ble association with Pleistocene fauna which concept of breath in shamanistic curing. Three neither archaeological analysis nor radiomet­ papers deal primarily with what little survives ric dating has substantiated. Some wiU find of memory culture in three California groups: the flesh restoration (Fig. 5) interesting, but my Maurice Zigmond summarizes the supernatu­ preference would have been for a good view of ral world of the Kawaiisu, from the notes of T. the dentition—the one area of the skeleton D. McCown (1929), Stephen C. Cappannari conspicuously slighted in the morphological (1947-1949), as well as Zigmond himself (1936- assessment. It is also worth noting that while 1940, 1970-1974). Carobeth Laird presents a the publisher has numbered 27 pages, a fuU gloss of behavioral patterns abstracted from third of these are blank—providing an ideal Chemehuevi myths related by her husband space for the reader to calculate the per-page George Laird prior to 1940; while John and price of this report. Donna Bushnell consider the concepts of wealth, work, quest for the extraordinary, REFERENCES shame, the sacred and the ordinary among the Bischoff, James L., Richard Merriam, W. Morlin Hupa and the culturally-similar Yurok, Karok, Childers, and Reiner Protsch Chilula, and Tolowa, drawn primarUy from 1976 Antiquity of Man in America Indicated research done in the 1940's and earlier, rather by Radiometric Dates on the Yuha Burial than their own more recent Hoopa Valley field Site. Nature 261:128-129. seasons. Two essays are surveys of the lit­ Childers, W. Modin erature: C. Patrick Morris catalogues the 1974 Preliminary Report on the Yuha Burial, elements of the Dying God myth among Cahfornia. Anthropological Journal of Arizona and California Yumans: while Richard Canada 12(l):2-9. Applegate reviews concepts of afterlife among Native Cahfomians. In reading through this array, I am struck by its parochiahsm and/or ivory-towerism. Flowers of the Wind: Papers on Ritual, Myth, Granted that Thomas C. Blackburn (p. 7) and Symbolism in California and the refers to Man the Hunter, while Bahr (p. 30) Southwest. Thomas C. Blackburn, ed. notes that comparison with a New England Socorro, New Mexico: Ballena Press group would be useful, I am still puzzled why I Anthropological Papers No. 8. 1978. 194 do not, in relation to this work, but rather in pp., 6 figs. $8.95 (paper). Australianist Jeremy Beckett's preface to the new edition of A. P. Elkin's Aboriginal Men of Reviewed by ARNOLD R. PILLING High Degree (1911), find reference to works by Wayne State University Carlos Castaneda. Have CaHfornia scholars' Seven articles on aboriginal Cahfornia and command of ethnography become so restricted the Southwest, with their introductions by the by pohtical boundaries that they find nothing .
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