Homo floresiensis

[pameladlloyd]

Recent archeological discoveries of diminutive primates, dubbed Homo floresiensis by scientists and "Hobbits" in the popular media, shed new light on human ancestors. The Nova program, Alien From Earth, discusses these finds.

ETA: Via crinklequirk.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I know that discovery has generated lots of controversy, and scientists have major disagreements about Homo floresiensis. Did you see the Nova show? I heard it advertised but didn't see it.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I apologize that I wasn't sufficiently clear in my post. I watched the Nova show on their website. If you follow the link, then click the "Watch Online" graphic (on the right, just below the main title image, you should be able to watch the program, which they've divided into five segments for web distribution.

Although I'd read some of the early reports, this piece brought me up-to-date with some of what's happened since the initial discovery and provides some insight, not just into the finding and its implications, but also into the politics of such things. It's all very interesting.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Ah-hah! You beat me to posting about it. ;>

We watched it Tuesday night.

Augh! Some of what those guys (almost all men, still) said just irritated me. Don't ANY of them think outside the little box that was created over 50, 60 years ago???

My folks went to college for anthropology and archaeolgy when I was a kid, so I've been following this debate, in one form or another, all my life.

Personally, I think there is SOOOO much out there that we don't know, that all we can do is assume that each piece of the puzzle we find, is just another piece, and we're no way near the time when we'll be able to sit down and put the whole thing together.

Hmm. Maybe I should remove the rest of my responses to a post on my LJ sometime soon, otherwise I suspect this could be really long. ;)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Ah-hah! You beat me to posting about it. ;>

I would never have known about it, if you hadn't posted the link to the preview. :)

As I mentioned in the comments to your post, Hobbits from Indonesia? (http://crinklequirk.livejournal.com/34079.html), I've been reading The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061170917?ie=UTF8&tag=stracast-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061170917). I've got no formal training in archeology, but a little in other sciences, so I've found this book an excellent introduction to the field and some of the issues related to how our preconceptions can influence our interpretations of facts. Fascinating stuff. But, even reading this book, there are times when the authors refer to specific tasks as being performed primarily by males or females, or by men and women (their discussion of the differences between sex and gender are extremely interesting), but don't explain how they know who did what. Which is a strange oversight, given how much of the text is about exactly that issue.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Umm-hmm. I wouldn't have really thought of that, since I've been around this stuff for so long. Good point.

You have the crux of it, indeed you do! And I think you walked into the field with one of the more controversial entries I could think of (a bit more than I'd recommend, really - but hey, who am I to talk? I always walk in to things and do the most-advanced first, then work my way to the rest), yup.

Anyway: "some of the issues related to how our preconceptions can influence our interpretations of facts." Yup, yup - oh, yeah, yup! That's the crux of it.

They are assuming that you have the background, or at least a sizeable portion of it, that they do, so that you already have the preconceptions about sex and gender they do.

Note that the field, like most in Academia, is and has always been run by men. Men who started this field of study in the 1800's. Men. From the 1800's. I think you get my drift.

One of the things they did? Bring Geology's (my basic field) Theory of Uniformitarianism into archaeology. Not that anyone's actually stating that, or admitting it (I've never heard such, at any rate). Okay. Mix that with Darwinism. Then add a bunch of "social Darwinism" so you get strict ideas that human men and women have genetic disposition to follow certain societal roles based on gender. Strict rules. Ones that to break would be unnatural. They use observations of the tribal cultures they encountered around the world since archaeology began as their "base" of gender's impact on culture.

As you can probably tell, I have a somewhat less "I'm in a box" viewpoint on this. I'm also not stuck in a terribly humano-centric (my term, oft-used) world-view.

Framing, you see, is how we identify our very world, and how we each see everything.

And if your framing defines the world in the old-boys'-club sort of way, then when you see new tribal cultures having the same restricted gender roles your culture has (with adaptations one way or the other to account for nomadic-tribe vs. settled farmers/citydwellers), then you'll define your research the same way.

Personally, I don't think they ask enough "why?" questions to question their pre-conceptions. And if you don't try at least that, you're not exactly doing good science, in my book.

Sorry this is a bit muddled - I'm afraid my cold is catching up with me, so let me end with "I hope this explained some of what they didn't." It's an old argument, done in many contexts - and they figure it's so old and "well-known" that they can just continue the argument, and not reach out to teach about it, or why it came about.

Sad, that. You know, I once had a terrific math teacher. Our whole class LOVED this guy, while we had him. Ended up loving to do Logs (logarithms), too. And why? Because this guy was a (student) teacher who recognized that students DON'T KNOW the subject - that's why they're taking the course! You can't effectively teach anything if you're always assuming the students already know what you're teaching. Here's to hoping he took my advice and kept on teaching, instead of changing fields the way he said he planned to do. We need more good teachers, especially in the maths and sciences. But that was many years ago, so who knows where he is now.

:)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I think that many people working in the sciences today are trying to question their assumptions--or, at least, the assumptions of the established order--but, it's really hard to do this. Once we've decided that something is this particular type of thing--and many of those decisions occur before we can even speak, or during the process of learning to speak--how do we even recognize the ideas that need to be challenged? What's your definition of a house, and how is that influenced by the house in which you were a small child? This is even more true of things like gender roles, even though those turn out to be very flexible, according to the authors of The Invisible Sex: Uncovering the True Roles of Women in Prehistory (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0061170917?ie=UTF8&tag=stracast-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=0061170917).

I think the authors, J.M. (Jim) Adovasio, Olga Soffer, and Jake Page, are making a concerted effort to challenge preconceptions about gender and to address some of the ways in which those preconceptions have influenced and limited our understanding of our origins. It may be, also, (due to the fragmented reading I've given this book, sandwiching bits and pieces of it in between other readings) that I've missed connections that would have clarified the reasoning behind the statements that have bothered me. I really want to emphasize that I love this book. It doesn't presume an extensive understanding of archeology, so it's accessible to me as a lay person, giving me an overview not only of the ways in which gender has been studied or ignored in archaeology, but also what feels like the highlights of our understanding of the early lives of our ancestors, and it discusses the ways in which preconceptions in the field are being challenged, even if there is work remaining in this area.

Certainly, people tend to look at gender roles through a lens created by the roles they grew up with, as well as by the attitudes expressed about those roles by the people around them. So, as we transition from the gender roles assigned by Western societies in the past, we are seeing a lot of anger and confusion. I notice a big generational difference regarding attitudes toward gender roles, too. Not that this hasn't been seen and noted by others, because it has, but this is a societal trend in which I've been both witness and participant.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Definitely have to have a look at that book, now. :>

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

:)

I borrowed the copy I'm reading from the library. My budget just won't let me buy everything I'm interested in.

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

I just came to a passage in TIS in which one way of determining who within a culture is a hunter, and who a farmer, is determined. Marsha Ogilvie is a biological anthropologist who uses bone structure to determine how much walking and running someone does. People who are very mobile wind up with a ridge that runs lengthwise down the femur. Those who don't walk long distances are unlikely to have this ridge. By studying the remains of people from different cultures, she's been able to show that the bones from nomadic peoples have this ridge, regardless of sex. So, when a group has men who are hunters and women who stay home and tend the crops, the femurs of male skeletons have this ridge, while the femurs of the femails, don't.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Well - there is one assumption she's making there: She's assuming that women at home don't walk as much in their constant, daily back-and-forth as the men do trekking around hunting food.

Women usually go back and forth constantly, particularly in more "primitive" cultures - and of their duties they also go trekking forth, to find plants, herbs, roots, mushrooms and tubers, and medicinal items for family and village/tribe. Running around tending animals - and children! - also wears and tears on the bones.

All in all, though, I can't say what I think of her writing there as I've not read it so cannot presume bias. Hmm. Didn't get to library this past weekend, will have to wait, try requesting via online services. :)

I do find it frustrating, though, that so many good scientists fetter themselves unknowingly via assumptive approaches or funding shortages. :/

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

Well - there is one assumption she's making there: She's assuming that women at home don't walk as much in their constant, daily back-and-forth as the men do trekking around hunting food.

Women usually go back and forth constantly, particularly in more "primitive" cultures - and of their duties they also go trekking forth, to find plants, herbs, roots, mushrooms and tubers, and medicinal items for family and village/tribe. Running around tending animals - and children! - also wears and tears on the bones.

That was my first response, but the description I read of Ogilvie's work stated that these differences have been found in populations where we know the respective activities of the people. Ogilvie did her Ph.D. thesis on this, "The Skeletal Biology of Late Archaic Populations. with the Adoption of Agriculture in the American Southwest," and established two baselines based on "a pure hunter-gatherer group and a pure agricultural group." (p. 247) So, she wasn't just assuming that the ridge on the femur would be different for hunters and farmers, she had the evidence to back it up. After she'd completed her baseline studies, she had the opportunity to study some remains found in Arizona (called Cochise, which I suspect means that the find was in Cochise county), and discovered that only the femurs from males had the ridge. Now, admittedly, I don't know what other evidence we have about these people, or when or by whom similar studies have been done, but the description seems to me to suggest that some care was taken to avoid just accepting her assumption without examination of its validity.

[crinklequirk.livejournal.com]

Huh. Didn't know a study had actually been done on that. Interesting.

Thanks! :)

[pdlloyd.livejournal.com]

It's fascinating stuff. :)