A faith in archaeological science : : reflections on a life / / Don Brothwell.

• Superior document: Archaeopress archaeology
• VerfasserIn: Brothwell, Don R.,
• Place / Publishing House: Oxford, United Kingdom : : Archaeopress,, [2016]; ©2016
• Year of Publication: 2016
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Archaeopress archaeology.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (v, 247 pages) :; illustrations (some color), map.

This is the first memoir by an internationally known archaeological scientist, written with humour and a critical concern to understand the nature of his life and that of our species. It provides a very readable account of a life embracing field and laboratory work from Orkney to Egypt and Mongolia to Peru.

Table of Contents

Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgments -- Introducing a Life -- Childhood, Family and Education -- Widening Horizons in Education, Teaching and Research -- The Natural History Museum -- The Institute of Archaeology in London -- The University of York -- Writing and Editing, the Final Education -- Figure 1. My class at Beeston Primary School, about 1942. I am in the second row, third from the right. -- Figure 2. The Hickingbotham family. My Mother, Constance, is between her parents. Her siblings are at the back: left Harry, then Hilda and Arthur. 1905. -- Figure 3. My journey begins -- the Trent gravel bones which stimulated my interest. Probable human Neolithic skull and Bos primigenius specimens are represented. -- Figure 4. My teenage 'rescue' dig at Breedon-on-the-Hill. Inset is the Down's syndrome case from the site. -- Figure 5. Staff and research visitors to the British Museum of Natural History, early 1960s. Sitting are Liz Gardiner, Kenneth Oakley, Sonia Cole and John Napier. Standing, from left, DB, Alan Walker, Bob Parsons, Robin Kenwood and Rosemary Powers. -- Figure 6. The new serology laboratory, British Museum of Natural History, in 1972 (now extinct). -- Figure 7. The new boy, Chris Stringer on the right, at the British Museum of Natural History, together with DB, Chris Buckland Wright and Theya Molleson. Early 1970s. -- Figure 8. Geoffrey Dimbleby, environmental archaeologist at The Institute of Archaeology in London. Courtesy, Institute of Archaeology. -- War, Peace and Prison -- The Prison Episode -- Suez, politics and people -- Figure 9. Probable head injuries (arrowed) in Pleistocene skulls -- a) Swanscombe, b) the Shanidar 1 neanderthaler, c) Homo erectus, China. -- Figure 10. Art and war. The author's mid-teenage response, produced for A Levels. Pencil.

Figure 11. A nineteenth century depiction of a horse-drawn black maria, c.1860. -- Figure 12. Wharram Percy medieval cemetery under rain covers. Barbara Adams (UCL) talking with Maurice Beresford. -- On the Science of Art -- Figure 13. An example of Palaeolithic precision art. Les Eyzies (Dordogne). -- Figure 14. Part of the famine scene, Saqqara. c. 2350 BC. (Drawing by Rosemary Powers). -- Figure 15. Satirical ostracon of limestone. Deir el-Madina, Egypt. -- Figure 16. Highly contrasting figure styles in the Palaeolithic. Left, from Predmost (ivory) -- right, a limestone statuette from Willendorf, Austria. -- Figure 17. Part of the complex art work of the Mayans at Palenque, Mexico. The Tablet of the Sun, rich in symbolism. -- Figure 18. Hair viewed under the SEM -- a) petrified on a skull surface, b) deformed by heat. -- Figure 19. Variation in the response to visual art in a group of Liverpool viewers (264). Peter Scott came top (number 1). -- Controversies with Fossils -- Figure 20. Early modern form of skull (Skhul V) compared to a 'classic' neanderthaler (La Chapelle-aux-Saints). -- Figure 21. The 40,000 year old Niah skull, completely modern in form. -- Figure 22. The affinities of the Galilee skull fragment (c), by plotting selected measurements on the frontal bone (b) and comparing with fossil forms (g). -- Figure 23. The Singa skull and evidence of abnormality. a) lateral view, b) plot of the two skull bone lengths, showing its distinctiveness. -- Figure 24. Evidence of frontal deformation. a) Kow Swamp 5, b) Upper Cave Choukoutien, c) Coobool, Australia. -- Forensic Interludes -- Kosovo -- Figure 25. The so-called 'primary' burial at Maiden Castle. a) Some of the multiple cuts on the skeleton, b) deep cut into the humerus, c) straight cut, d) femur with three separate cuts.

Figure 26. Louise Arbour of the UN (front centre), meeting with members of the Bosnian forensic team. -- Figure 27. A surprise in the clothing of a Bosnian body. A booby trap? -- Figure 28. Norwegian army clearing ground, with some of the Kosovan team checking soil contrasts. -- Bog People and Other Friends -- Bog Bodies -- The Neolithic Iceman -- Ancient Yemenis -- Salted People -- Egyptian mummies and dried bodies -- Figure 29. The guanche mummy now in Cambridge. a) severe trauma of the head, b) partially exposed interior, showing anthracotic lung and abdominal packing, c) whole body. -- Figure 30. Lindow Man, still within peat at the British Museum conservation laboratory. -- Figure 31. Huldremose woman showing: a) back view with roughly shaved head -- b) SEM view of hair, showing cut end. -- Figure 32. Superb preservation of the Iceman, as seen in his face -- also the positions of his tattoos. -- Figure 33. Iceman hair chemistry (sulphur, copper and arsenic), as revealed by the PIXE analysis of a hair section. -- Figure 34. In Yemen -- a) viewing cliff faces for possible crevice burials -- b) a body in skins, University of Sana'a Museum. -- Egyptian mummies and dried bodies -- Figure 35. Participants in the symposium on the Population Biology of the Ancient Egyptians, held at Montaldo Castle, Turin, April 1969. -- Figure 36. XVIIIth Dynasty pig skull from Tell el-Amarna, displaying a partial trephination -- a) general view -- b) lateral X-ray -- c) close-up detail. Courtesy Rosie Luff. -- Figure 37. The three mummies seen in 2002 in the side chamber of KV35, in the Valley of the Kings -- a) detail of the mummies -- b) Queen Tiy -- c) Prince Tuthmosis -- d) Queen Nefertiti. -- Figure 38. Joking about mummification, cartoon sent to me from Sardinia. Courtesy of Stefano Caddeo. -- From Rocks to Protons -- Grave soils.

Harnessing X-rays, Electrons and Protons -- A Hair of the Dog -- Figure 39. Seven rock samples from Scottish vitrified forts, showing their basic chemistry, and temperature needed to melt the specimens. -- Figure 40. CT scanning of ancient bodies -- a) enthusiastic Yemen medical staff in Sana'a CT unit, with myself and Howard Read -- b) scanning an Egyptian body, with Joann Fletcher and colleagues. -- Figure 41. Working with the first scanning electron microscope (SEM) at the British Museum of Natural History. About 1965. -- Figure 42. SEM detail of human calculus -- a) microbes calcified in three medieval samples -- b) micro-stratification in the calculus. -- Figure 43. Spectrophotometric data on ancient hair. Colour variation is likely to be due to post-mortem changes, especially pigment oxidation. -- Figure 44. Copper (Cu) and arsenic (As) in the Iceman hair -- a) in a hair cross-section -- b) medial line scans through the sections in (a). -- Bones, Teeth and People -- Glue and Data: the Value of Bones -- Teeth and Time: Reflections on Dental Archaeology -- Population Studies : Beyond the Individual -- Of Mice and Mammoths -- Figure 45. Multivariate statistical analysis of Etruscans compared with other Mediterranean peoples. Pompeians, Greeks and Egyptians are similar. Males. -- Figure 46. Human population change in Britain from the Neolithic to later medieval times, based on skull measurements and canonical analysis -- a) large Neolithic samples are *, and tomb groups ʘ. Bronze Age samples are black dots, and the encircled ones -- Figure 47. Variation in New World dogs, as indicated by two skull indices. Black symbols are archaeological dogs. -- Figure 48. Child mortality in three cemeteries, with only prehistoric Lerna in Greece displaying no bias from social factors.

Figure 49. Caries frequencies through time, in three European areas (both sexes). Britain - -- France - - - -- Greece ----. -- Figure 50. a) Ancient Nubian foot, showing massive changes and some bone fusion, due to 'Madura foot' (a mycotic infection) -- b) sites through which the infection spreads. -- Figure 51. Surviving brain trauma? Nubian skull showing healed injuries, with left brow broken and pulled forwards to expose the brain (healed). -- Figure 52. Peruvian woman selling cooked guinea pigs as a snack food. Bus station, Peru. 1980. -- The Nature and Antiquity of Diseases -- In search of syphilis -- Epidemiology and our past -- Food and Health in the Past -- Animal Health and Husbandry -- Figure 53. Evidence of a large soft tissue tumour in a Neolithic male from Slagslunde, Denmark. The nasal area shows much bone loss and remodelling. Courtesy Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. -- Figure 54. Facial leprosy in a Dark Age skeleton from the Scilly Isles. White pointers indicate bone loss in the nasal and upper incisor areas. -- Figure 55. Small trephinations in a Bronze Age skull from Jericho. There is some healing. -- Figure 56. Probable healed amputations -- a) Egyptian lower forearm, c. 2000 BC -- b) lower forearm and foot, Tean, Isles of Scilly. Dark Age. (34, 37). -- Figure 57. A medieval skull from York, displaying unique surgery along an extensive sword cut. Bone has been cut away, and the wound cleaned up, with partial healing. -- Figure 58. Post-medieval skull from London, showing advanced and extensive treponemal infection (probably venereal syphilis). -- Figure 59. Suggested evolutionary tree for the pathogenic treponemes, in relation to time and geography. -- Figure 60. Assyrian art evidence of locusts being used as food.

Figure 61. Neolithic figurines showing obese individuals. Was fatness the new aesthetic? Mother goddesses my foot!.