Tag: SMU Department of Anthropology

SAPIENS: Why Aid Remains Out of Reach for Some Rohingya Refugees

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date May 18, 2018

Even with the right to health care secured, medical assistance is elusive for urban refugees in India.

The anthropology publication SAPIENS has published an article by SMU doctoral candidate Ashvina Patel.

SAPIENS is an editorially independent publication of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Inc., which is dedicated to popularizing anthropology to a broad audience.

The article, “Why Aid Remains Out of Reach for Some Rohingya Refugees,” published May 17, 2018.

The article resulted from Patel’s 11-month stay in New Delhi, India, in which she interviewed residents of three urban refugee settlements. The purpose was to understand how issues of geopolitics and domestic policy inform various types of human insecurity for refugees.

Patel is currently a visiting student fellow at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre, where she is developing further publications on Rohingya refugee displacement.

She is a doctoral candidate in SMU’s Department of Anthropology. Patel holds an M.A. degree in Cultural Anthropology from SMU and an M.A. in Religion from University of Hawaii, Manoa. As a doctoral student, her research focuses on issues of human insecurity among Rohingya refugees in the context of American resettlement as well as within New Delhi, India as urban refugees. Her research work focuses specifically on defining the subjective experience of human insecurity and how various forms of insecurity are informed by statelessness.

Patel is a student of SMU anthropology professor Caroline Brettell, an internationally recognized immigration expert and Ruth Collins Altshuler Professor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Institute. Brettell is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

A private operating foundation, Wenner-Gren is dedicated to the advancement of anthropology throughout the world. Located in New York City, it is one of the major funding sources for international anthropological research and is actively engaged with the anthropological community through its varied grant, fellowship, networking, conference and symposia programs.

It founded and continues to publish the international journal Current Anthropology, and disseminates the results of its symposia through open-access supplementary issues of this journal. The Foundation works to support all branches of anthropology and closely related disciplines concerned with human biological and cultural origins, development, and variation.

Read the full article.

EXCERPT:

From the field notes
of SMU PhD candidate Ashvina Patel
Ameena (a pseudonym) is a 25-year-old Rohingya refugee in New Delhi, India, who is seven months pregnant with twins. Her face is gaunt. Often there isn’t enough food at home for her family of five. Nestled among other shanty houses, her home is made of bamboo with scrap boards as paneling; a tattered piece of cloth serves as the front door. Recently, the monsoon rains caused her to slip and fall. Now one of the babies in her womb is not moving. She knows she needs to see a doctor, but she cannot afford one.

When Ameena fled acts of genocide perpetrated by her own government of Myanmar in 2012, she and her husband came to New Delhi. They both suffer from debilitating deformities due to polio, and they heard that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office in New Delhi was helping Rohingya refugees. The UNHCR partners with the Indian government to provide free aid to help people obtain an education, a livelihood, and health care.

But as Ameena and others would learn, being offered access to aid isn’t always enough. Barriers to procuring those free resources often leave urban refugees to fend for themselves; many find they have to negotiate a system that inadvertently creates obstacles to reaching that aid.

Having spent 11 months with the Rohingya community in India from 2015 to 2017, I repeatedly saw how aid missed its intended target. As the UNHCR creates solutions to challenges that refugees face, these solutions can also serve as a catalyst for new obstacles or deepen already existing insecurities by creating additional barriers that are financial, linguistic, cultural, or exploitative. The UNHCR does a lot of good, but the organization could do a better job addressing challenges refugees face in accessing the services to which they are permitted.

Read the full article.

Tags Ashvina Patel, Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news Subfeature

Prehistoric humans formed complex mating networks to avoid inbreeding

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 10, 2017

An individual buried at Snugger, whose remains were some of those whose complete genomes were sequenced. (Credit: Libor Balák, Anthropark)

A new study has sequenced the genomes of individuals from an ancient burial site in Russia and discovered that they were, at most, first cousins, indicating that they had developed sexual partnerships beyond their immediate social and family group.

A new study has identified when humans transitioned from simple systems designed to minimize inbreeding to more complex ones suitable for hunter-gatherer societies.

The study findings are reported in the journal Science and demonstrate that, by at least 34,000 years ago, human hunter-gatherer groups had developed sophisticated social and mating networks that minimized inbreeding.

The study examined genetic information from the remains of modern humans who lived during the early part of the Upper Palaeolithic, a period when modern humans from Africa first colonized western Eurasia, eventually displacing the Neanderthals who lived there before.

The results suggest that people deliberately sought partners beyond their immediate family, and that they were probably connected to a wider network of groups from within which mates were chosen, thus avoiding inbreeding.

The research was carried out by an international team of academics, led by the University of Cambridge, U.K., and the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. The team included SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer, whose expertise includes the First People in the Americas.

The researchers sequenced the genomes of four individuals from Sunghir, a famous Upper Palaeolithic site in Russia, which was inhabited about 34,000 years ago.

The article, “Ancient genomes show social and reproductive behavior of early Upper Paleolithic foragers,” is published in the Oct. 5, 2017 issue of Science.

Complex mating systems may partly explain modern human survival
Among recent hunter-gatherers, the exchange of mates between groups is embedded into a cultural system of rules, ceremonies and rituals. The symbolism, complexity and time invested in the extraordinarily rich objects and jewellery found in the Sunghir burials, as well as the burials themselves, suggest that these early human societies symbolically marked major events in the life of individuals and their community in ways that foreshadow modern rituals and ceremonies — birth, marriage, death, shared ancestry, shared cultures.

The study’s authors also hint that the early development of more complex mating systems may at least partly explain why modern humans proved successful while other, rival species, such as Neanderthals, did not. More ancient genomic information from both early humans and Neanderthals is needed to test this idea.

The human fossils buried at Sunghir are a unique source of information about early modern human societies of western Eurasia. Sunghir preserves two contemporaneous burials – that of an adult man, and that of two children buried together and which includes the symbolically modified remains of another adult.

To the researchers’ surprise, however, these individuals were not closely related in genetic terms; at the very most, they were second cousins. This is true even for the two children who were buried head-to-head in the same grave.

“What this means is that people in the Upper Palaeolithic, who were living in tiny groups, understood the importance of avoiding inbreeding,” said Eske Willerslev, a professor at St John’s College and the University of Copenhagen, who was senior author on the study. “The data that we have suggest that it was being purposely avoided. This means that they must have developed a system for this purpose. If the small hunter and gathering bands were mixing at random, we would see much greater evidence of inbreeding than we have here.”

Early human societies changed ancestral mating system
The small family bands were likely interconnected within larger networks, facilitating the exchange of peoples between bands in order to maintain diversity, said Martin Sikora, a professor at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

Most non-human primate societies are organized around single-sex kin (matrilines or patrilines), where one of the sexes remains resident and the other migrates to another group, thus minimizing inbreeding. At some point, early human societies changed the ancestral mating system into one in which a large number of the individuals that form small resident/foraging units are non-kin, where the relations among units that exchange mating partners are formalized through complex cultural systems.

In at least one Neanderthal case, an individual from the Altai Mountains who died about 50,000 years ago, inbreeding was not avoided, suggesting that the modern human cultural systems that allows to decouple the size of the resident community from the danger of inbreeding was not in place. This leads the researchers to speculate that an early, systematic approach to preventing inbreeding may have helped modern humans to thrive in relation to with other hominins.

This should be treated with caution, however.

“We don’t know why the Altai Neanderthal groups were inbred,” Sikora said. “Maybe they were isolated and that was the only option; or maybe they really did fail to develop a network of connections. We will need more genomic data of diverse Neanderthal populations to be sure.”

Upper Palaeolithic human groups sustained very small group sizes
The researchers were able to sequence the complete genomes of all four individuals found within the two graves at Sunghir. These data were compared with information on both modern and ancient human genomes from across the world.

They found that the four individuals studied were genetically no closer than second cousins, while the adult femur filled with red ochre found in the youngsters’ grave would have belonged to an individual no closer than great-great grandfather of the boys. “This goes against what many would have predicted,” Willerslev said. “I think many researchers had assumed that the people of Sunghir were very closely related, especially the two youngsters from the same grave.”

The people at Sunghir may have been part of a network similar to that of modern day hunter-gatherers, such as Aboriginal Australians and some historical Native American societies. Like their Upper Palaeolithic ancestors, these societies lived in fairly small groups of some 25 people, but they were also connected to a larger community of perhaps 200 people, within which there were rules governing with whom individuals can form partnerships.

“The results from Sunghir show that Upper Palaeolithic human groups could sustain very small group sizes by embedding them in a wide social network of other groups maintained by sophisticated cultural systems,” said Marta Mirazón Lahr, a professor at the University of Cambridge.

Willerslev also highlights a possible link with the unusual sophistication of the ornaments and cultural objects found at Sunghir. Such band-specific cultural expressions may have been used to signal who are “we” versus who are “they,” and thus a means of reinforcing a shared identity built on marriage exchange across foraging units. The number and sophistication of personal ornaments and artefacts found at Sunghir are exceptional even among other modern human burials, and not found among Neanderthals and other hominins.

“The ornamentation is incredible and there is no evidence of anything like that with other hominins,” Willerslev added. “When you put the evidence together, it seems to be telling us about the really big questions: what made these people who they were as a species, and who we are as a result.”

Ancient genomics throw light on aspects of social life
These results show the power of ancient genomics to throw light on aspects of social life among early humans, and pave the way for further studies to explore variation in social and demographic strategies in prehistoric socieities.

“Much of human evolution is about changes in our social and cultural behavior, and the impact this has had on our success as a species. This study takes us a step further toward pinpointing when and why the things that make humans unique evolved,” said Robert Foley, a professor at the University of Cambridge.

Meltzer is Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in the SMU Department of Anthropology in Dedman College. As a scientist who studies how people first came to inhabit North America, Meltzer in 2009 was elected a member of the National Academy of Sciences in recognition for his achievements in original scientific research. In 2013 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. — University of Cambridge, SMU

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news Technology

A composite window into human history

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 3, 2017

Excavated dwellings in the stone-built Neolithic settlement of Skara Brae in the Orkney archipelago of Scotland. (John Burka)

Better integration of ancient DNA studies with archaeology promises deeper insights.

DNA testing alone of ancient human remains can’t resolve questions about past societies.

It’s time for geneticists and archaeologists to collaborate more fully in the face of ever greater advancements in ancient DNA research, according to SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer and his colleagues in a recent article in the scientific journal Science.

The authors write in “A composite window into human history” that over the past decade, DNA testing of ancient human remains has become a valuable tool for studying and understanding past human population histories.

Most notably, for example, is how sequencing of ancient genomes resolved the dispute over our species’ evolutionary relationship with Neanderthals, the authors point out.

Even so, the authors caution that collaboration with archaeologists is key for scientific accuracy as well as navigating ethical implications.

Archaeologists know from the study of artifacts that it isn’t always the case that people who share material culture traits were likewise part of the same biological population.

“One can have similar traits without relatedness, and relatedness without similarity in traits,” say the authors in the article.

At the same time, where there is biological relatedness, cultural relatedness can’t be assumed, nor can language groups indicate that biological populations, material assemblages or even social units are related.

“Geneticists are often keen to use ancient DNA to understand the causes and mechanisms of demographic and cultural change,” the authors write. “But archaeologists long ago abandoned the idea that migrations or encounters between populations are a necessary or sufficient explanation of cultural change.”

The authors make the point that understanding population movements requires broad investigation of many factors, including environmental and social contexts, timing and logistics, how new resources and landscapes were managed, and the transfer of cultural knowledge.

“Hence, it requires evidence for archaeology, paleoecology and other fields to supplement and complement ancient DNA data,” the authors write. “And that entails effective collaboration, one that goes beyond archaeologists serving as passive sample providers.”

Co-authors on the perspective piece with Meltzer were Niels N. Johannsen, Aarhus University, Denmark; Greger Larson, University of Oxford; and Marc Vader Linden, University College London.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Feature Fossils & Ruins Researcher news SMU In The News

Sapiens: Why the Famous Folsom Point Isn’t a Smoking Gun

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date September 7, 2017

A Folsom spear point was discovered between the ribs of an extinct species of bison — but was it really proof that humans had killed the animal?

The research into the arrival of how and when people first arrived in North America by noted SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer was covered in the online anthropology magazine Sapiens in a column by Stephen E. Nash, science historian and archaeologist at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

The article, Why the Famous Folsom Point Isn’t a Smoking Gun, published Aug. 29, 2017.

Meltzer, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, conducts original research into the origins, antiquity and adaptations of the first Americans.

Paleoindians colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. Meltzer focuses on how those hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

Meltzer’s archaeology and history research has been supported by grants from the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, The Potts and Sibley Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1996, he received a research endowment from Joseph and Ruth Cramer to establish the Quest Archaeological Research Program at SMU, which will support in perpetuity research on the earliest occupants of North America.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Stephen E. Nash
Sapiens
Remember the iconic Folsom point? The one that I said, in my last post, changed the future of archaeology?

To recap: On August 29, 1927, paleontologists from the Colorado Museum of Natural History (renamed the Denver Museum of Nature & Science in 2000) discovered a stone projectile point embedded in the ribs of an extinct form of bison.

After making that discovery in the field, the researchers left the point sitting where it was and immediately sent out a call to their colleagues to come to northeastern New Mexico to see it for themselves. Within two weeks a number of well-known scientists had visited the site, seen the point in position, and established a scientific consensus: Native Americans lived and hunted in North America during the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago, far earlier than they were previously thought to be here.

It turns out, though, that the story at the Folsom Site was more complicated than researchers initially believed. So what has changed since 1927? The latest part of the story began 20 years ago.

In 1997, David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University who studies “Paleoindians,” the earliest inhabitants of North America, began a three-year project at the Folsom Site to reassess and re-excavate the site using modern tools and techniques—which were not available in the 1920s. His goal was to better understand how, and under what conditions, the Folsom Site formed. Meltzer and his team used now-standard excavation-control techniques to record their findings in three-dimensional space and to determine if any unexcavated areas of the site could be found. In so doing, they hoped to find evidence of the Paleoindian campsite that might have been associated with the main bison-kill and butchering site.

As a result of Meltzer’s research, we now know that the bison-kill event occurred in the fall. How do we know? Bison reproduce, give birth, and grow up on a reasonably predictable annual cycle. Meltzer and his colleagues analyzed dental eruption patterns on excavated bison teeth to determine the season of the kill.

The archaeologists also determined that Folsom hunters were experts at their job, having systematically killed and butchered at least 32 bison at the site.

Read the full story.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Feature Health & Medicine Learning & Education Researcher news SMU In The News

Sapiens: Can Medical Anthropology Solve the Diabetes Dilemma?

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 28, 2017

As the number of sufferers continues to rise, some researchers are moving in new directions to figure out how culture and lifestyle shape disease outcomes.

Sapiens reporter Kate Ruder covered the research of SMU anthropologist Carolyn Smith-Morris, who has studied diabetes among Arizona’s Pima Indians for more than 15 years.

Smith-Morris wrote about what she learned from her research in her 2006 book, “Diabetes Among the Pima: Stories of Survival.”

The Pima have the highest prevalence of diabetes ever recorded, although the disease is alarmingly on the increase throughout the United States. In an effort to understand the rise of the disease, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) from 1965 to 2007 focused on the Pima to carry out the largest continuous study of diabetes in Native Americans. Researchers examined the environmental and genetic triggers of the disorder, management of the disease, and the treatment of thousands of Pimas.

Smith-Morris is a medical anthropologist and associate professor in the SMU Anthropology Department in Dedman College. Her research addresses chronic disease, particularly diabetes, through ethnographic and mixed methodologies. She has conducted ethnographic research among the Gila River (Akimel O’odham) Indian Community of Southern Arizona, Mexicans and Mexican immigrants to the U.S. and veterans with spinal cord injuries.

The Sapiens article, “Can Medical Anthropology Solve the Diabetes Dilemma?” published Aug. 22, 2017.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Kate Ruder
Sapiens
Mary (a pseudonym) was 18 years old and halfway through her second pregnancy when anthropologist Carolyn Smith-Morris met her 10 years ago. Mary, a Pima Indian, was living with her boyfriend, brother, parents, and 9-month-old baby in southern Arizona. She had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes during both of her pregnancies, but she didn’t consider herself diabetic because her diabetes had gone away after her first birth. Perhaps her diagnosis was even a mistake, she felt. Mary often missed her prenatal appointments, because she didn’t have a ride to the hospital from her remote home on the reservation. She considered diabetes testing a “personal thing,” so she didn’t discuss it with her family.

As Smith-Morris’ research revealed, Mary’s story was not unique among Pima women. Many had diabetes, but they didn’t understand the risks. These women’s narratives have helped to explain, in part, why diabetes has been so prevalent in this corner of the world. An astonishing half of all adult Pimas have diabetes.

Medical anthropologists like Smith-Morris are helping the biomedical community untangle the social roots of diabetes and understand how and why the disease is exploding in the United States. Smith-Morris, based out of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, has been working on this cause for over 15 years—from a decade spent among the Pimas, to a new study sponsored by Google aiming to prevent diabetes-related blindness. Anthropology, she says, provides the most holistic perspective of this complex problem: “Anthropology seems to me the only discipline that allows you to look both closely at disease … and from the bird’s eye perspective.”

More than 30 million people in the United States are estimated to have diabetes, and it’s on the rise. If trends continue, 1 out of every 3 American adults could have diabetes by 2050, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The condition involves insulin, a hormone that regulates the way the body uses food for energy. In type 1 diabetes, the body stops making insulin entirely; those affected need daily insulin injections to survive. In type 2 diabetes, which accounts for the vast majority of cases, change is more gradual.The body slowly makes less insulin and becomes less sensitive to it over the years. Gestational diabetes, which strikes during pregnancy, can give mothers a dangerous condition called preeclampsia, which is related to high blood pressure and can harm both mothers and babies. Women with gestational diabetes are more than seven times likelier to later develop type 2 diabetes than women who do not have the condition in pregnancy, and their children are at higher risk of obesity and diabetes. If left untreated, diabetes can cause heart disease, kidney failure, foot problems that can lead to amputation, and blindness.

The preventative measures for type 2 and gestational diabetes are seemingly straightforward: eat healthy foods, lose weight, and exercise. Treatment for both can include taking medications. Yet prevention, lifestyle, and treatment cannot entirely solve the problem; family history, ethnicity, and other factors play a critical role in a person’s susceptibility to type 2 and gestational diabetes. Both forms of diabetes continue to plague Americans, particularly certain groups, including Native Americans. “My interest in diabetes grew out of an interest in Indigenous groups,” says Smith-Morris. “I took on diabetes because it was important to them.”

From 1965 to 2007, the Pimas of Arizona were the focus of the largest continuous study of diabetes in Native Americans. Conducted by researchers from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), it examined the environmental and genetic triggers of the disorder, management of the disease, and the treatment of thousands of Pimas. It also documented that they had the highest prevalence of diabetes ever recorded. The pivotal work told researchers much of what they know about diabetes today, including that obesity is a significant risk factor, and that a mother’s diabetes during pregnancy can pass risk along to her children.

The political and economic contributors to the Pima people’s health problems have long been well-known: Their traditional farming practices collapsed during the late 1800s and early 1900s when non-Native settlers upstream diverted essential water resources, contributing to poverty, sedentariness, and a lack of fresh food. Yet Smith-Morris felt something integral was missing from this picture: the Pimas’ stories.

Read the full story.

Tags Carolyn Smith-Morris, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Researcher news

SMU Anthropologist Caroline Brettell Elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date April 18, 2017

Brettell is one of 228 leaders in sciences, humanities and the arts in the class of 2017

Noted SMU anthropologist Caroline Brettell joins actress Carol Burnett, musician John Legend, playwright Lynn Nottage, immunologist James Allison and other renowned leaders in various fields as a newly elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The class of 2017 will be inducted at a ceremony on Saturday, Oct. 7 at the Academy’s headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Brettell joins 228 new fellows and foreign honorary members — representing the sciences, the humanities and the arts, business, public affairs and the nonprofit sector — as a member of one of the world’s most prestigious honorary societies.

“Caroline Brettell is an internationally recognized leader in the field of migration, and one of Dedman College’s most productive scholars,” said Thomas DiPiero, dean of SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. “I couldn’t be happier to see her win this well-deserved accolade.”

“I am surprised and deeply honored to receive such a recognition,” said Brettell, Ruth Collins Altshuler Professor in the Department of Anthropology and director of the Interdisciplinary Institute in SMU’s Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences. “It is overwhelming to be in the company of Winston Churchill, Georgia O’Keeffe, Jonas Salk and the ‘mother’ of my own discipline, Margaret Mead. And I am thrilled to have my favorite pianist, André Watts, as a member of my class. I am truly grateful to join such a distinguished and remarkable group of members, past and present.”

Brettell’s research centers on ethnicity, migration and the immigrant experience. Much of her work has focused on the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex as a new immigration gateway city, especially on how immigrants practice citizenship and civic engagement as they meld into existing economic, social and political structures. She has special expertise in cross-cultural perspectives on gender, the challenges specific to women immigrants, how the technology boom affects immigration, and how the U.S.-born children of immigrants construct their identities and a sense of belonging. An immigrant herself, Brettell was born in Canada and became a U.S. citizen in 1993.

She is the author or editor of nearly 20 books, most recently Gender and Migration (2016, Polity Press UK) and Identity and the Second Generation: How Children of Immigrants Find Their Space, co-edited with Faith G. Nibbs, Ph.D. ’11 (2016, Vanderbilt University Press). Her research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wenner Gren Foundation and the Russell Sage Foundation, among many others.

An SMU faculty member since 1988, Brettell has held the Dedman Family Distinguished Professorship and served as chair in the Department of Anthropology and as director of Women’s Studies in Dedman College. She served as president of the Faculty Senate and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees in 2001-02, and was dean ad interim of Dedman College from 2006-08. Brettell is a member of the American Anthropological Association, the American Ethnological Society, the Society for Applied Anthropology, the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, and the Society for Urban, National and Transnational Anthropology, among others. She is the fourth SMU faculty member elected to the Academy, joining David Meltzer, Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in Dedman College (class of 2013); Scurlock University Professor of Human Values Charles Curran (class of 2010); and the late David Weber, formerly Robert and Nancy Dedman Chair in History in Dedman College, (class of 2007).

“It is an honor to welcome this new class of exceptional women and men as part of our distinguished membership,” said Don Randel, chair of the Academy’s Board of Directors. “Their talents and expertise will enrich the life of the Academy and strengthen our capacity to spread knowledge and understanding in service to the nation.”

“In a tradition reaching back to the earliest days of our nation, the honor of election to the American Academy is also a call to service,” said Academy President Jonathan F. Fanton. “Through our projects, publications, and events, the Academy provides members with opportunities to make common cause and produce the useful knowledge for which the Academy’s 1780 charter calls.”

Since its founding in 1780, the Academy has elected leading “thinkers and doers” from each generation, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin in the 18th century, Daniel Webster and Ralph Waldo Emerson in the 19th, and Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill in the 20th. The current membership of about 4,900 fellows and 600 foreign honorary members includes more than 250 Nobel laureates and more than 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. The Academy’s work is advanced by these elected members, who are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs from around the world.

Members of the Academy’s 2017 class include winners of the Pulitzer Prize and the Wolf Prize; MacArthur Fellows; Fields Medalists; Presidential Medal of Freedom and National Medal of Arts recipients; and Academy Award, Grammy Award, Emmy Award, and Tony Award winners.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news

The making of Maori society: An archaeological analysis of social networks

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date November 18, 2016

SMU archaeologist Mark D. McCoy has been awarded a grant to collaborate with other researchers on how New Zealand’s Māori society developed.

McCoy is working with Thegn Ladefoged, University of Auckland, New Zealand, to reconstruct ancient systems of inter-iwi trade and contact by looking at the physical evidence of everyday life — tracing when and where ancient tools made from obsidian moved throughout New Zealand.

An expert in landscape archaeology and monumental architecture and ideology in the Pacific Islands, McCoy is an associate professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

“One of the most exciting things about this project is we have the opportunity to add a new dimension to the rich history of Māori society that we already know from oral histories passed down over about 20 generations, stretching back to the first people to arrive in New Zealand around A.D. 1250,” McCoy said. “Those histories describe the confederation of families and villages into larger tribal identities that have carried on to the modern day.”

By working in collaboration with contemporary Māori, the researchers hope to learn what happened over the years to shape the kind of society that early European visitors encountered when they began to regularly visit New Zealand in the late 1700s, he said.

“I think this is especially relevant to the modern world where it is easy to think of social networks as a by-product of living in a digital age, when in fact social networks have always been part of the human experience and likely tell us a great deal about how we see ourselves and our place in the world,” McCoy said.

The project is funded by The Marsden Fund, which was established by the government of New Zealand in 1994 to fund fundamental research. New Zealand’s equivalent to the U.S. government’s National Science Foundation, The Marsden Fund is administered by the Royal Society of New Zealand.

The new project integrates science, archaeology and local knowledge on a rarely seen scale, making it one of the most unique and exciting Marsden-funded projects in recent years, according to a statement from the Royal Society of New Zealand.

“No culture is socially static. Over several centuries, the Polynesian colonists who settled New Zealand began to create a new type of society. Relatively autonomous village-based groups transformed into larger territorial hapū lineages, which later formed even larger iwi associations,” the statement reads.

Traditionally, information passed down through the generations by word of mouth has provided the best evidence of these complex, dynamic changes in social organization. However, the novel Marsden-funded project will use archaeological evidence to examine how social networks beyond the village changed as Māori society developed.

By combining traditional archaeological techniques, sophisticated Geographical Information System analyses and social network analysis modelling with local iwi input, the team led by McCoy and Ladefoged will gain new insights into how Māori society emerged and flourished in the past.

Proposed experiments will use obsidian hydration dating as a method for determining the age of New Zealand artifacts. This collaborative research will also connect or reconnect Māori with their taonga held in museums and university archaeology collections.

Recently McCoy published findings uncovered as part of a National Geographic expedition to more accurately date the age of Nan Madol, an ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean with a monumental tomb said to belong to the first chief among the islands. — The Royal Society and SMU

Tags Dedman College, Mark D. McCoy, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news SMU In The News

Daily Mail: The first king — 1200 AD tomb reveals ancient city invented new kind of society

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 20, 2016

They used an X-ray gun … and dates were calculated based on the characteristics of the radioactive isotope thorium-230 and its radioactive parent uranium-234.

Science journalist Cheyenne MacDonald covered the research discovery of SMU archaeologist Mark D. McCoy. New dating on the stone buildings of the ancient monumental city of Nan Madol suggests the ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean was the earliest among the islands to be ruled by a single chief, McCoy found.

The article, “The first king: 1200 AD tomb reveals ancient city invented new kind of society and was the first of the Pacific Islands to be ruled by a single chief,” published Oct. 19, 2016.

McCoy led the discovery team. The discovery was uncovered as part of a National Geographic expedition to study the monumental tomb said to belong to the first chief of the island of Pohnpei. McCoy deployed uranium series dating to determine that when the tomb was built it was one-of-a-kind, making it the first monumental scaled burial site on the remote islands of the Pacific.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Cheyenne MacDonald
DailyMail.com
A massive stone tomb buried beneath foliage in the long-abandoned city Nan Madol may have been built for the first chief of the island of Pohnpei.

Through uranium series dating, researchers have determined that the structure began construction by 1180 CE and housed the chief’s body just 20 years later, pushing back the establishment of a powerful dynasty more than 100 years earlier than previously thought.

The dynasty of Saudeleur chiefs ruled the island society for over 1,000 years, and the new find suggests this ancient city built atop a coral reef was the earliest of the Pacific Islands to be ruled by a single chief.

Nan Madol is the largest archaeological site in Micronesia, and researchers with a National Geographic expedition say this is the first burial site of such massive scale to be built on the Pacific Islands.

It was previously estimated that it was established in 1300 CE, but now, the team has found evidence that suggests this occurred much earlier, providing new insight on the transformation of societies into complex, hierarchical systems.

‘The kind of society that we live in today, it wasn’t born last year, or even 100 years ago,’ said lead archaeologist Mark D. McCoy, from Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Read the full story.

Tags Dedman College, Mark D. McCoy, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Fox News: Mysterious Pacific island burial site is older than thought, study says

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 19, 2016
No Comments on Fox News: Mysterious Pacific island burial site is older than thought, study says

“Nan Madol represents a first in Pacific Island history. The tomb of the first chiefs of Pohnpei is a century older than similar monumental burials of leaders on other islands.” — Mark McCoy, SMU

Science reporter Rob Verger covered the research discovery that new dating on the stone buildings of the ancient monumental city of Nan Madol suggests the ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean was the earliest among the islands to be ruled by a single chief.

The article, “Mysterious Pacific island burial site is older than thought, study says,” published Oct. 19, 2016.

SMU archaeologist Mark D. McCoy, led the discovery team. The discovery was uncovered as part of a National Geographic expedition to study the monumental tomb said to belong to the first chief of the island of Pohnpei. McCoy deployed uranium series dating to determine that when the tomb was built it was one-of-a-kind, making it the first monumental scaled burial site on the remote islands of the Pacific.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Rob Verger
Fox News
In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, there’s a large, lush, verdant island called Pohnpei, where pigs are commonly raised by the locals and mangrove trees abound. On the coast of this island is an ancient burial site for chiefs who lived there hundreds and hundreds of years ago, and now, new research is shedding light on the history of this archaeological wonder.

The burial, ceremonial, and cultural site is called Nan Madol, and it dates back to about the year 1180, according to new research led by Mark McCoy, an anthropologist and associate professor at Southern Methodist University in Texas. McCoy said that the site is at least 100 years older than similar ones in the Pacific islands.

“It now looks like Nan Madol represents a first in Pacific Island history,” McCoy said in an email to FoxNews.com. “The tomb of the first chiefs of Pohnpei is a century older than similar monumental burials of leaders on other islands.”

Read the full story.

Tags Dedman College, Mark D. McCoy, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Evidence of first chief indicates Pacific islanders invented a new society on city they built of coral and basalt

Post author By Kathleen Scott
Post date October 18, 2016

New analysis of chief’s tomb suggests island’s monumental structures are earliest evidence of chiefdom in Pacific — yielding new keys to how societies emerge and evolve

New dating on the stone buildings of Nan Madol suggests the ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean was the earliest among the islands to be ruled by a single chief.

The discovery makes Nan Madol a key locale for studying how ancient human societies evolved from simple societies to more complex societies, said archaeologist Mark D. McCoy, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. McCoy led the discovery team.

The finding was uncovered as part of a National Geographic expedition to study the monumental tomb said to belong to the first chief of the island of Pohnpei.

McCoy deployed uranium series dating to determine that when the tomb was built it was one-of-a-kind, making it the first monumental scaled burial site on the remote islands of the Pacific.

The discovery enables archaeologists to study more precisely how societies transform to more and more complex and hierarchical systems, said McCoy, an expert in landscape archaeology and monumental architecture and ideology in the Pacific Islands.

“The kind of society that we live in today, it wasn’t born last year, or even 100 years ago,” McCoy said. “It has its roots in a pre-modern era like Nan Madol where you have a king or chief. These islanders invented a new kind of society — that is a socially creative achievement. The idea of chiefs, someone in charge, is not a new thing, but it’s an extremely important precursor. We know tribes and bands predate chiefdoms and states. But it’s not a straight line. By looking at these intermediate stages we get insight into that social phenomenon.”

The analysis is the first time uranium-thorium series dating, which is significantly more precise than previously used radiocarbon dating, was deployed to calculate the age of the stone buildings that make up the famous site of Nan Madol (pronounced Nehn Muh-DOLL) – the former capital of the island of Pohnpei.

“The thing that makes this case special is Nan Madol happened in isolation, it happened very recently, and we have multiple lines of evidence, including oral histories to support the analysis,” McCoy said. ”And because it’s an island we can be much more specific about the natural resources, the population, all the things that are more difficult when people are on a continent and all connected. So we can understand it with a lot more precision.”

Nan Madol, which UNESCO this year named a World Heritage Site, was previously dated as being established in A.D. 1300. McCoy’s team narrowed that to just a 20-year window more than 100 years earlier, from 1180 to 1200.

The finding pushes back even earlier the establishment of the powerful dynasty of Saudeleur chiefs who asserted authority over the island society for more than 1,000 years.

First chief was buried in Pohnpei tomb by A.D. 1200
An ancient city built atop a coral reef, Nan Madol has been uninhabited for centuries now. Located in the northwestern Pacific on the remote island of Pohnpei, it’s accessible via a 10-hour flight from Hawaii interspersed with short hops from atoll to atoll, including a stop at a U.S. military installation. Nan Madol is the largest archaeological site in Micronesia, a group of islands in the Caroline Archipelago of Oceania.

Uranium dating indicates that by 1180, massive stones were being transported from a volcanic plug on the opposite side of the island for construction of the tomb. And by 1200, the burial vault had its first internment, the island’s chief.

Construction of monumental buildings followed over the next several centuries on other islands not in the Saudeleur Dynasty across Oceania.

McCoy, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, and his team reported their discovery in the journal Quaternary Research in “Earliest direct evidence of monument building at the archaeological site of Nan Madol identified using ²³⁰Th/U coral dating and geochemical sourcing of megalithic architectural stone.”

Co-authors include Helen A. Alderson, University of Cambridge, U.K., Richard Hemi, University of Otago, New Zealand, Hai Cheng, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China, and R. Lawrence Edwards, University of Minnesota.

An inactive volcano that hasn’t erupted in at least one million years, Pohnpei Island is much larger than its neighboring atolls at 128 square miles (334 square kilometers), making it about the physical size of Columbia, S.C.

Now part of the 607-island nation of the Federated States of Micronesia, Pohnpei Island and its nearby atolls have a population of 34,000.

Pohnpei monument indicates invention of a new kind of society
How Nan Madol was built remains an engineering mystery, much like Egypt’s Pyramids.

“It’s a fair comparison to the Pyramids, because the construction, like the Pyramids, didn’t help anyone — it didn’t help society be fairer, or to grow crops or to provide any social good. It’s just a really big place to put a dead person,” McCoy said.

It’s important to document such things, he said, because this architectural wonder indicates that independently of Egypt, another group of people put effort into building a monument.

“And we think that’s associated with the invention of a new kind of society, a new kind of chiefdom that ruled the entire island,” McCoy said.

Unlike Egypt and the Pyramids however, Nan Madol was invented much more recently in the big story of human prehistory, he said.

“At A.D. 1200 there are universities in Europe. The Romans had come and gone. The Egyptians had come and gone,” he said. “But when you’re looking at Pohnpei, it’s very recent, so we still have the oral histories of the descendants of the people who built Nan Madol. There’s evidence that you just don’t have elsewhere.”

Monumental city built of coral and stone
Pohnpei was originally settled in A.D. 1 by islanders from the Solomon or Vanuatu island groups. According to local oral history, the Saudeleur Dynasty is estimated to have begun its rule around 1160 by counting back generations from the modern day.

To build the tomb and other structures, naturally formed boulders of basalt, each weighing tons, were somehow transported far from existing quarries on the other side of the island to a lagoon overgrown with mangrove and stretching across 205 acres (83 hectares).

The basalt blocks formed when hot lava cooled and adopted the shape of long, column-shaped boulders and cobbles. Formed from 1 million to 8 million years ago, they came from a number of possible quarry locations on the island.

The city’s stone structures were built atop 98 shallow artificial coral reef islets, each one built by the Saudeleur people. The structures were constructed about three feet above waterline by laying down framing stones, filling the void between them with crushed coral, then laying up double parallel walls and again filling the gap between with crushed coral. The islets are separated by tidal canals and protected from the ocean by 12 sea walls, making Nan Madol what many consider the Venice of the Pacific.

“The structures are very cleverly built,” said McCoy. “We think of coral as precious, but for the architects of Nan Madol it was a building material. They were on a little island surrounded by huge amounts of coral reef that grows really quickly in this environment, so they could paddle out at low tide and mine the coral by smashing some off and breaking it up into rubble.”

The largest and most elaborate architecture in the city is the tomb of the first Saudeleur, measuring 262 feet by 196 feet (80 meters by 60 meters), basically the size of a football field. It is more than 26 feet (8 meters) tall, with exterior walls about six feet to 10 feet (1.8 to 3 meters) thick. A maze of walls and interior walkways, it includes an underground crypt capped with basalt.

“The architecture is meant to be extremely impressive, and it is,” McCoy said. “The structures were built to last — this is one of the rainiest places on earth, so it can be muddy and slippery and wet, but these islets on the coral reef are very stable.”

Portable X-ray technology provides clue to source of megalithic stones
McCoy and his team used portable X-ray fluorescence (XRF) to geochemically match the columnar-shaped basalt stones to natural sources on the island. The uranium-thorium technique calculates a date based on characteristics of the radioactive isotope thorium-230 and its radioactive parent uranium-234.

That enabled them to determine the construction chronology of a tomb that oral histories identify as the resting place of the first chief to rule the entire island.

“We used an X-ray gun, which looks like a 1950s-styled ray gun,” McCoy said. “It allows you — at a distance and without destroying the thing you’re interested in — to bounce X-rays off it and work out what the chemistry is. The mobile technology has gotten much more affordable, making this kind of study feasible.”

Using uranium series dating on coral emerged in the last decade. Accuracy — superior to radiocarbon — is plus or minus a few years of when the coral died. A very good radiocarbon date only will get within 100 years.

“That’s a monumental shift in terms of the precision with which we talk about things,” McCoy said. “If Nan Madol had not been made of the kind of stone we could source, if the architects hadn’t chosen to use coral, we wouldn’t have been able to get this date. So it’s a happy coincidence that the evidence at the site came together.”

McCoy suggests that future research look at finding the cause for this major turning point on Pohnpei, and what sparked this new hierarchy of rule and monumental building in this society. — Margaret Allen, SMU

Tags Dedman College, Mark D. McCoy, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Polity Immigration and Society Series: Gender and Migration

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date October 12, 2016

“Gender and Migration” is encyclopedic in nature and an essential resource for anyone interested in immigration, gender or both. — Nancy Foner, Hunter College

Gender roles, relations, and ideologies are major aspects of migration. In a timely book on the subject, SMU anthropologist Caroline B. Brettell argues that understanding gender relations is vital to a full and more nuanced explanation of both the causes and the consequences of migration, in the past and at present.

Gender and Migration (Polity, 2016) explores gendered labor markets, laws and policies, and the transnational model of migration. With that, Brettell tackles a variety of issues such as how gender shapes the roles that men and women play in the construction of immigrant family and community life, debates concerning transnational motherhood, and how gender structures the immigrant experience for men and women more broadly.

“I have been working on the intersections of gender and migration since graduate school days and beginning with my dissertation research on Portuguese migrant women in France,” Brettell said. “Turning the lens of gender on population mobility reveals dimensions that might not otherwise be visible.”

Brettell is Ruth Collins Altshuler Professor of Anthropology and director of the Interdisciplinary Institute at Southern Methodist University.

The book will appeal to students and scholars of immigration, race and ethnicity, and gender studies and offers a definitive guide to the key conceptual issues surrounding gender and migration.

Anthropologist Brettell is an internationally recognized immigration expert on how the technology boom affects immigration, trends of new immigration gateway cities such as Dallas, Atlanta and Minneapolis and the challenges of women immigrants. Her research focus includes anthropology of Europe; migration and ethnicity; folk religion; and cross-cultural perspectives on gender.

An immigrant herself, Brettell was born in Canada and became a U.S. citizen in 1993.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Textbook theory of how humans populated America is “biologically unviable,” study finds

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date August 10, 2016

Using ancient DNA, researchers have created a unique picture of how a prehistoric migration route evolved over thousands of years – revealing that it could not have been used by the first people to enter the Americas, as traditionally thought.

The established theory about how Ice Age peoples first reached the present-day United States has been challenged by an unprecedented study that concludes that their supposed entry route was “biologically unviable.”

The first people to reach the Americas crossed via an ancient land bridge between Siberia and Alaska but then, according to conventional wisdom, had to wait until two huge ice sheets that covered what is now Canada started to recede, creating the so-called “ice-free corridor” that enabled them to move south.

In a new study published in the journal Nature, however, an international team of researchers used ancient DNA extracted from a crucial pinch-point within this corridor to investigate how its ecosystem evolved as the glaciers began to retreat.

They created a comprehensive picture showing how and when different flora and fauna emerged so the once ice-covered landscape became a viable passageway. No prehistoric reconstruction project like this has ever been attempted before.

Present day view south in Canada's Peace River drainage basin where retreating ice sheets created an ice-free corridor more than 13,000 years ago. (Mikkel Winther Pedersen, University of Copenhagen) — Present day view south in Canada’s Peace River drainage basin where retreating ice sheets created an ice-free corridor more than 13,000 years ago. (Mikkel Winther Pedersen, University of Copenhagen)

The researchers conclude that while people may well have travelled this corridor after about 12,600 years ago, it would have been impassable earlier than that, as the corridor lacked crucial resources, such as wood for fuel and tools, as well as game animals essential to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

If this is true, then it means that the first Americans, who were present south of the ice sheets long before 12,600 years ago, must have made the journey south by another route. The study’s authors suggest that they probably migrated along the Pacific coast.

Who these people were is still widely disputed. Archaeologists agree, however, that early inhabitants of the modern-day contiguous United States included the so-called “Clovis” culture, which first appear in the archaeological record over 13,000 years ago. And the new study argues that the ice-free corridor would have been completely impassable at that time.

“There is compelling evidence that Clovis was preceded by an earlier and possibly separate population,” said archaeologist and co-author on the study David J. Meltzer, Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in the Department of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University, Dallas. “But either way, the first people to reach the Americas in Ice Age times would have found the corridor itself impassable.”

The ice-free corridor simply opened up too late to be the principal entry route
The research was led by evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev, a Fellow of St John’s College, University of Cambridge, who also holds posts at the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, and the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge.

“The bottom line is that even though the physical corridor was open by 13,000 years ago, it was several hundred years before it was possible to use it,” Willerslev said. “That means that the first people entering what is now the U.S., Central and South America must have taken a different route. Whether you believe these people were Clovis, or someone else, they simply could not have come through the corridor, as long claimed.”

Mikkel Winther Pedersen, a doctoral student at the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen, who conducted the molecular analysis, added: “The ice-free corridor was long considered the principal entry route for the first Americans. Our results reveal that it simply opened up too late for that to have been possible.”

The corridor is thought to have been about 1,500 kilometers long, and emerged east of the Rocky Mountains 13,000 years ago in present-day western Canada, as two great ice sheets – the Cordilleran and Laurentide, retreated.

On paper, this fits well with the argument that Clovis people were the first to disperse across the Americas. The first evidence for this culture, which is named after distinctive stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico, also dates from roughly the same time, although many archaeologists now believe that other people arrived earlier.

“What nobody has looked at is when the corridor became biologically viable,” Willerslev said. “When could they actually have survived the long and difficult journey through it?”

Radiocarbon dates, pollen, macrofossils and DNA revealed how ecosystem developed
The conclusion reached by Willerslev and his colleagues is that the journey would have been impossible until about 12,600 years ago. Their research focused on a “bottleneck,” one of the last parts of the corridor to become ice-free, and now partly covered by Charlie Lake in British Columbia, and Spring Lake, Alberta — both part of Canada’s Peace River drainage basin.

The team gathered evidence — including radiocarbon dates, pollen, macrofossils and DNA taken from lake sediment cores — which they obtained standing on the frozen lake surface during the winter season. Willerslev’s own PhD, 13 years ago, demonstrated that it is possible to extract ancient plant and mammalian DNA from sediments, as it contains preserved molecular fossils from substances such as tissue, urine and feces.

Having acquired the DNA, the group then applied a technique termed “shotgun sequencing.”

“Instead of looking for specific pieces of DNA from individual species, we basically sequenced everything in there, from bacteria to animals,” Willerslev said. “It’s amazing what you can get out of this. We found evidence of fish, eagles, mammals and plants. It shows how effective this approach can be to reconstruct past environments.”

This approach allowed the team to see, with remarkable precision, how the bottleneck’s ecosystem developed. Crucially, it showed that before about 12,600 years ago, there were no plants, nor animals, in the corridor, meaning that humans passing through it would not have had resources vital to survive.

Clovis could not have travelled through ice-free corridor as previously believed
Around 12,600 years ago, steppe vegetation started to appear, followed quickly by animals such as bison, woolly mammoth, jackrabbits and voles. Importantly 11,500 years ago, the researchers identified a transition to a “parkland ecosystem” – a landscape densely populated by trees, as well as moose, elk and bald-headed eagles, which would have offered crucial resources for migrating humans.

Somewhere in between, the lakes in the area were populated by fish, including several identifiable species such as pike and perch. Finally, about 10,000 years ago, the area transitioned again, this time into boreal forest, characterized by spruce and pine.

The fact that Clovis was clearly present south of the corridor before 12,600 years ago means that they could not have travelled through it.

“Most likely, you would say that the evidence points to their having travelled down the Pacific Coast,” Willerslev added. “That now seems the most likely scenario.”

The paper, “Postglacial viability and colonization in North America’s ice-free corridor,” is published online ahead of print in Nature on Aug. 10, 2016.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, Featurette, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Wildfire on warming planet requires adaptive capacity at local, national, int’l scales

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 1, 2016

In some parts of the world, “fire adaptive communities” have learned to live compatibly with wildfire — in some cases for centuries or millennia.

Industrialized nations that view wildfire as the enemy have much to learn from people in some parts of the world who have learned to live compatibly with wildfire, says a team of fire research scientists.

The interdisciplinary team say there is much to be learned from these “fire-adaptive communities” and they are calling on policy makers to tap that knowledge, particularly in the wake of global warming.

Such a move is critical as climate change makes some landscapes where fire isn’t the norm even more prone to fire, say the scientists in a new report published in a special issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

“We tend to treat modern fire problems as unique, and new to our planet,” said fire anthropologist Christopher Roos, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, lead author of the report. “As a result, we have missed the opportunity to recognize the successful properties of communities that have a high capacity to adapt to living in flammable landscapes — in some cases for centuries or millennia.“

One such society is the ethnically Basque communities in the French Western Pyrenees, who practice fire management to maintain seasonally flammable grassland, shrub and woodland patches for forage and grazing animals. But the practice is slowly being lost as young people leave farming.

Additionally, Aboriginal people in the grasslands of Western Australia use fire as part of their traditional hunting practices. Children begin burning at a very young age, and the everyday practice is passed down. These fires improve hunting successes but also reduce the impact of drought on the size and ecological severity of lightning fires.

Social institutions support individual benefits, preserve common good
Fire-adaptive communities have social institutions in place that support individual benefits from fire-maintained landscapes while preserving the common good, said Roos, whose fire research includes long-term archaeological and ecological partnerships with the Pueblo of Jemez in New Mexico.

“These institutions have been shaped by long-histories with wildfire, appropriate fire-use, and the development of social mechanisms to adjudicate conflicts of interest,” said Roos, an associate professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology. “There is a wealth of tried and tested information that should be considered in designing local fire management.”

The authors note that globally, a large number of people use fire as a tool to sustain livelihoods in ways that have been handed down across many generations. These include indigenous Australians and North Americans, South Asian forest dwellers, European farmers, and also hunters, farmers and herders in tropical savannahs.

Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, more flammable landscapes
Global Warming will likely bring new fire problems, such as making some landscapes more flammable, Roos said. More effort will be required to balance conflicting fire management practices between adjacent cultures. Currently most fire-related research tends to be undertaken by physical or biological scientists from Europe, the United States and Australia. Often the research treats fire challenges as exclusively contemporary phenomena for which history is either absent or irrelevant.

“We need national policy that recognizes these dynamic challenges and that will support local solutions and traditional fire knowledge, while providing ways to disseminate scientific information about fire,” Roos said.

The authors point out that one of the greatest policy challenges of fire on a warming planet are the international consequences of smoke plumes and potential positive feedbacks on climate through carbon emissions. Most infamously, wildfire smoke plumes have had extraordinary health impacts during Southeast Asian “haze” events, which result in increased hospitalization and mortality in the region.

Not all fire is a disaster; we must learn to live with and manage fire
Carbon emissions from wildfires can be as much as 40 percent of fossil fuel emissions in any given year over the last decade. Although only deforestation fires and land conversion are a net carbon source to the atmosphere, the contribution of wildfires to global carbon emissions is non-trivial and should be a formal component of international climate dialogs.

“It is important to emphasize that not all fire is a disaster and we must learn how to both live with as well as manage fire,” said co-author Andrew Scott, earth sciences professor at Royal Holloway University of London.

The report, “Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges,” was published May 23, 2016 by The Royal Society, the U.K.’s independent scientific academy.

Authors call for holistic study of fire on Earth
The authors are from the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, South Africa and Spain. The synthesis emerged from four days of international meetings sponsored by the Royal Society – the first of its kind for fire sciences.

The authors advocate for greater collaboration among researchers studying all aspects of fire.

Pyrogeography — the holistic study of fire on Earth , “may be one way to provide unity to the varied fire research programs across the globe,” the authors write.

“Fire researchers across disciplines from engineering, the natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities need to develop a common language to create a holistic wildfire science,” said Roos. “The magnitude of the wildfire challenges we face on a warming planet will demand greater collaboration and integration across disciplines, but our job won’t be done unless we are also able to translate our research for policymakers, land managers, and the general public.”

Other co-authors on the scientific paper include Andrew C. Scott, Claire M. Belcher, William G. Chaloner, Jonathan Aylen, Rebecca Bliege Bird, Michael R. Coughlan, Bart R. Johnson, Fay H. Johnston, Julia McMorrow, Toddi Steelman, and the Fire and Mankind Discussion Group. — Southern Methodist University

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Long-term daily contact with Spanish missions triggered collapse of Native American populations in New Mexico

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 25, 2016

New evidence shows severe and rapid collapse of Pueblo populations occurred in the 17th century and triggered a cascade of ecological effects that ultimately had consequences for global climates

A detailed map of the Southwest Jemez Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project that provided the LiDAR data for the published study (map by the USDA Forest Service, Santa Fe National Forest).

New interdisciplinary research in the Southwest United States has resolved long-standing debates on the timing and magnitude of American Indian population collapse in the region.

The severe and rapid collapse of Native American populations in what is now the modern state of New Mexico didn’t happen upon first contact with Spanish conquistadors in the 1500s, as some scholars thought. Nor was it as gradual as others had contended.

Rather than being triggered by first contact in the 1500s, rapid population loss likely began after Catholic Franciscan missions were built in the midst of native pueblos, resulting in sustained daily interaction with Europeans. The indirect effects of this demographic impact rippled through the surrounding forests and, perhaps, into our atmosphere.

Those are the conclusions of a new study by a team of scientists looking for the first time at high resolution reconstructions of human population size, tree growth and fire history from the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico.

“Scholars increasingly recognize the magnitude of human impacts on planet Earth, some are even ready to define a new geological epoch called the Anthropocene,” said anthropologist and fire expert Christopher I. Roos, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, and a co-author on the research.

“But it is an open question as to when that epoch began,” said Roos. “One argument suggests that indigenous population collapse in the Americas resulted in a reduction of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because of forest regrowth in the early colonial period. Until now the evidence has been fairly ambiguous. Our results indicate that high-resolution chronologies of human populations, forests and fires are needed to evaluate these claims.”

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Standing walls at the ruins of an Ancestral Jemez village that was part of the published study. (Roos, SMU)

A contentious issue in American Indian history, scientists and historians for decades have debated how many Native Americans died and when it occurred. With awareness of global warming and interdisciplinary interest in the possible antiquity of the Anthropocene, resolution of that debate may now be relevant for contemporary human-caused environmental problems, Roos said.

Findings of the new study were published Jan. 25, 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Native American Depopulation, Reforestation, and Fire Regimes in the Southwest U.S., 1492-1900 C.E.”

The researchers offer the first absolute population estimate of the archaeology of the Jemez Province – an area west Santa Fe and Los Alamos National Lab in northern New Mexico. Using airborne remote sensing LiDAR technology to establish the size and shape of rubble mounds from collapsed architecture of ancestral villages, the researchers were able to quantify population sizes in the 16th century that were independent of historical documents.

To identify the timing of of the population collapse and its impact on forest fires, the scientists also collected tree-ring data sets from locations adjacent to the Ancestral Jemez villages and throughout the forested mountain range. This sampling framework allowed them to refine the timing of depopulation and the timing of fire regime changes across the Jemez Province.

Their findings indicate that large-scale depopulation only occurred after missions were established in their midst by Franciscan priests in the 1620s. Daily sustained interaction resulted in epidemic diseases, violence and famine, the researchers said. From a population of roughly 6,500 in the 1620s fewer than 900 remained in the 1690s – a loss of more than 85 percent of the population in a few generations.

“The loss of life is staggering,” said anthropologist Matthew Liebmann, an associate professor at Harvard University and lead author on the PNAS article.

“Imagine that in a room with 10 people, only one person was left at the end of the day,” Liebmann said. “This had devastating effects on the social and economic lives of the survivors. Our research suggests that the effects were felt in the ecology of the forests too.”

Other scientists on the team include Josh Farella and Thomas Swetnam, University of Arizona; and Adam Stack and Sarah Martini, Harvard University.

The researchers studied a 100,000-acre area that includes the ancestral pueblo villages of the Jemez (HEY-mehz) people. Located in the Jemez Mountains of north central New Mexico, it’s a region in the Santa Fe National Forest of deep canyons, towering flat-topped mesas, as well as rivers, streams and creeks.

Today about 2,000 Jemez tribal members live at the Pueblo of Jemez.

The authors note in their article that, “Archaeological evidence from the Jemez Province supports the notion that the European colonization of the Americas unleashed forces that ultimately destroyed a staggering number of human lives,” however, they note, it fails to support the notion that sweeping pandemics uniformly depopulated North America.”

“To better understand the role of the indigenous population collapse on ecological and climate changes, we need this kind of high-resolution paired archaeological and paleoecological data,” said Roos. “Until then, a human-caused start to Little Ice Age cooling will remain uncertain. Our results suggest this scenario is plausible, but the nature of European and American Indian relationships, population collapse, and ecological consequences are probably much more complicated and variable than many people had previously understood them to be.”

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Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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SMU 2015 research efforts broadly noted in a variety of ways for world-changing impact

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date January 8, 2016

SMU scientists and their research have a global reach that is frequently noted, beyond peer publications and media mentions.

By Margaret Allen
SMU News & Communications
It was a good year for SMU faculty and student research efforts. Here is a small sampling of public and published acknowledgements during 2015:

Hot topic merits open access
Taylor & Francis, publisher of the online journal Environmental Education Research, lifted its subscription-only requirement to meet demand for an article on how climate change is taught to middle-schoolers in California.

Co-author of the research was Diego Román, assistant professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning, Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development.

Román’s research revealed that California textbooks are teaching sixth graders that climate change is a controversial debate stemming from differing opinions, rather than a scientific conclusion based on rigorous scientific evidence.

The article, “Textbooks of doubt: Using systemic functional analysis to explore the framing of climate change in middle-school science textbooks,” published in September. The finding generated such strong interest that Taylor & Francis opened access to the article.

Research makes the cover of Biochemistry
Drugs important in the battle against cancer were tested in a virtual lab by SMU biology professors to see how they would behave in the human cell.

A computer-generated composite image of the simulation made the Dec. 15 cover of the journal Biochemistry.

Scientific articles about discoveries from the simulation were also published in the peer review journals Biochemistry and in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.

The researchers tested the drugs by simulating their interaction in a computer-generated model of one of the cell’s key molecular pumps — the protein P-glycoprotein, or P-gp. Outcomes of interest were then tested in the Wise-Vogel wet lab.

The ongoing research is the work of biochemists John Wise, associate professor, and Pia Vogel, professor and director of the SMU Center for Drug Discovery, Design and Delivery in Dedman College. Assisting them were a team of SMU graduate and undergraduate students.

The researchers developed the model to overcome the problem of relying on traditional static images for the structure of P-gp. The simulation makes it possible for researchers to dock nearly any drug in the protein and see how it behaves, then test those of interest in an actual lab.

To date, the researchers have run millions of compounds through the pump and have discovered some that are promising for development into pharmaceutical drugs to battle cancer.

Click here to read more about the research.

SMU, Simpson Rowe, sexual assault, video

Strong interest in research on sexual victimization
Teen girls were less likely to report being sexually victimized after learning to assertively resist unwanted sexual overtures and after practicing resistance in a realistic virtual environment, according to three professors from the SMU Department of Psychology.

The finding was reported in Behavior Therapy. The article was one of the psychology journal’s most heavily shared and mentioned articles across social media, blogs and news outlets during 2015, the publisher announced.

The study was the work of Dedman College faculty Lorelei Simpson Rowe, associate professor and Psychology Department graduate program co-director; Ernest Jouriles, professor; and Renee McDonald, SMU associate dean for research and academic affairs.

The journal’s publisher, Elsevier, temporarily has lifted its subscription requirement on the article, “Reducing Sexual Victimization Among Adolescent Girls: A Randomized Controlled Pilot Trial of My Voice, My Choice,” and has opened it to free access for three months.

Click here to read more about the research.

Consumers assume bigger price equals better quality
Even when competing firms can credibly disclose the positive attributes of their products to buyers, they may not do so.

Instead, they find it more lucrative to “signal” quality through the prices they charge, typically working on the assumption that shoppers think a high price indicates high quality. The resulting high prices hurt buyers, and may create a case for mandatory disclosure of quality through public policy.

That was a finding of the research of Dedman College’s Santanu Roy, professor, Department of Economics. Roy’s article about the research was published in February in one of the blue-ribbon journals, and the oldest, in the field, The Economic Journal.

Published by the U.K.’s Royal Economic Society, The Economic Journal is one of the founding journals of modern economics. The journal issued a media briefing about the paper, “Competition, Disclosure and Signaling,” typically reserved for academic papers of broad public interest.

Chemistry research group edits special issue
Chemistry professors Dieter Cremer and Elfi Kraka, who lead SMU’s Computational and Theoretical Chemistry Group, were guest editors of a special issue of the prestigious Journal of Physical Chemistry. The issue published in March.

The Computational and Theoretical research group, called CATCO for short, is a union of computational and theoretical chemistry scientists at SMU. Their focus is research in computational chemistry, educating and training graduate and undergraduate students, disseminating and explaining results of their research to the broader public, and programming computers for the calculation of molecules and molecular aggregates.

The special issue of Physical Chemistry included 40 contributions from participants of a four-day conference in Dallas in March 2014 that was hosted by CATCO. The 25th Austin Symposium drew 108 participants from 22 different countries who, combined, presented eight plenary talks, 60 lectures and about 40 posters.

CATCO presented its research with contributions from Cremer and Kraka, as well as Marek Freindorf, research assistant professor; Wenli Zou, visiting professor; Robert Kalescky, post-doctoral fellow; and graduate students Alan Humason, Thomas Sexton, Dani Setlawan and Vytor Oliveira.

There have been more than 75 graduate students and research associates working in the CATCO group, which originally was formed at the University of Cologne, Germany, before moving to SMU in 2009.

Vertebrate paleontology recognized with proclamation
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings proclaimed Oct. 11-17, 2015 Vertebrate Paleontology week in Dallas on behalf of the Dallas City Council.

The proclamation honored the 75th Annual Meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, which was jointly hosted by SMU’s Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences in Dedman College and the Perot Museum of Science and Nature. The conference drew to Dallas some 1,200 scientists from around the world.

Making research presentations or presenting research posters were: faculty members Bonnie Jacobs, Louis Jacobs, Michael Polcyn, Neil Tabor and Dale Winkler; adjunct research assistant professor Alisa Winkler; research staff member Kurt Ferguson; post-doctoral researchers T. Scott Myers and Lauren Michael; and graduate students Matthew Clemens, John Graf, Gary Johnson and Kate Andrzejewski.

The host committee co-chairs were Anthony Fiorillo, adjunct research professor; and Louis Jacobs, professor. Committee members included Polcyn; Christopher Strganac, graduate student; Diana Vineyard, research associate; and research professor Dale Winkler.

KERA radio reporter Kat Chow filed a report from the conference, explaining to listeners the science of vertebrate paleontology, which exposes the past, present and future of life on earth by studying fossils of animals that had backbones.

SMU earthquake scientists rock scientific journal

Modelled pressure changes caused by injection and production. (Nature Communications/SMU)

Findings by the SMU earthquake team reverberated across the nation with publication of their scientific article in the prestigious British interdisciplinary journal Nature, ranked as one of the world’s most cited scientific journals.

The article reported that the SMU-led seismology team found that high volumes of wastewater injection combined with saltwater extraction from natural gas wells is the most likely cause of unusually frequent earthquakes occurring in the Dallas-Fort Worth area near the small community of Azle.

The research was the work of Dedman College faculty Matthew Hornbach, associate professor of geophysics; Heather DeShon, associate professor of geophysics; Brian Stump, SMU Albritton Chair in Earth Sciences; Chris Hayward, research staff and director geophysics research program; and Beatrice Magnani, associate professor of geophysics.

The article, “Causal factors for seismicity near Azle, Texas,” published online in late April. Already the article has been downloaded nearly 6,000 times, and heavily shared on both social and conventional media. The article has achieved a ranking of 270, which puts it in the 99th percentile of 144,972 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals, and 98th percentile of 626 tracked articles of a similar age in Nature.

“It has a very high impact factor for an article of its age,” said Robert Gregory, professor and chair, SMU Earth Sciences Department.

The scientific article also was entered into the record for public hearings both at the Texas Railroad Commission and the Texas House Subcommittee on Seismic Activity.

Researchers settle long-debated heritage question of “The Ancient One”

The skull of Kennewick Man and a sculpted bust by StudioEIS based on forensic facial reconstruction by sculptor Amanda Danning. (Credit: Brittany Tatchell)

The research of Dedman College anthropologist and Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory David Meltzer played a role in settling the long-debated and highly controversial heritage of “Kennewick Man.”

Also known as “The Ancient One,” the 8,400-year-old male skeleton discovered in Washington state has been the subject of debate for nearly two decades. Argument over his ancestry has gained him notoriety in high-profile newspaper and magazine articles, as well as making him the subject of intense scholarly study.

Officially the jurisdiction of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 and radiocarbon dated to 8500 years ago.

Because of his cranial shape and size he was declared not Native American but instead ‘Caucasoid,’ implying a very different population had once been in the Americas, one that was unrelated to contemporary Native Americans.

But Native Americans long have claimed Kennewick Man as theirs and had asked for repatriation of his remains for burial according to their customs.

Meltzer, collaborating with his geneticist colleague Eske Willerslev and his team at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen, in June reported the results of their analysis of the DNA of Kennewick in the prestigious British journal Nature in the scientific paper “The ancestry and affiliations of Kennewick Man.”

The results were announced at a news conference, settling the question based on first-ever DNA evidence: Kennewick Man is Native American.

The announcement garnered national and international media attention, and propelled a new push to return the skeleton to a coalition of Columbia Basin tribes. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) introduced the Bring the Ancient One Home Act of 2015 and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee has offered state assistance for returning the remains to Native Tribes.

Science named the Kennewick work one of its nine runners-up in the highly esteemed magazine’s annual “Breakthrough of the Year” competition.

The research article has been viewed more than 60,000 times. It has achieved a ranking of 665, which puts it in the 99th percentile of 169,466 tracked articles of a similar age in all journals, and in the 94th percentile of 958 tracked articles of a similar age in Nature.

In “Kennewick Man: coming to closure,” an article in the December issue of Antiquity, a journal of Cambridge University Press, Meltzer noted that the DNA merely confirmed what the tribes had known all along: “We are him, he is us,” said one tribal spokesman. Meltzer concludes: “We presented the DNA evidence. The tribal members gave it meaning.”

Click here to read more about the research.

Prehistoric vacuum cleaner captures singular award

Paleontologists Louis L. Jacobs, SMU, and Anthony Fiorillo, Perot Museum, have identified a new species of marine mammal from bones recovered from Unalaska, an Aleutian island in the North Pacific. (Hillsman Jackson, SMU)

Science writer Laura Geggel with Live Science named a new species of extinct marine mammal identified by two SMU paleontologists among “The 10 Strangest Animal Discoveries of 2015.”

The new species, dubbed a prehistoric hoover by London’s Daily Mail online news site, was identified by SMU paleontologist Louis L. Jacobs, a professor in the Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, and paleontologist and SMU adjunct research professor Anthony Fiorillo, vice president of research and collections and chief curator at the Perot Museum of Nature and Science.

Jacobs and Fiorillo co-authored a study about the identification of new fossils from the oddball creature Desmostylia, discovered in the same waters where the popular “Deadliest Catch” TV show is filmed. The hippo-like creature ate like a vacuum cleaner and is a new genus and species of the only order of marine mammals ever to go extinct — surviving a mere 23 million years.

Desmostylians, every single species combined, lived in an interval between 33 million and 10 million years ago. Their strange columnar teeth and odd style of eating don’t occur in any other animal, Jacobs said.

SMU campus hosted the world’s premier physicists

The SMU Department of Physics hosted the “23rd International Workshop on Deep Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects” from April 27-May 1, 2015. Deep Inelastic Scattering is the process of probing the quantum particles that make up our universe.

As noted by the CERN Courier — the news magazine of the CERN Laboratory in Geneva, which hosts the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s largest science experiment — more than 250 scientists from 30 countries presented more than 200 talks on a multitude of subjects relevant to experimental and theoretical research. SMU physicists presented at the conference.

The SMU organizing committee was led by Fred Olness, professor and chair of the SMU Department of Physics in Dedman College, who also gave opening and closing remarks at the conference. The committee consisted of other SMU faculty, including Jodi Cooley, associate professor; Simon Dalley, senior lecturer; Robert Kehoe, professor; Pavel Nadolsky, associate professor, who also presented progress on experiments at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider; Randy Scalise, senior lecturer; and Stephen Sekula, associate professor.

Sekula also organized a series of short talks for the public about physics and the big questions that face us as we try to understand our universe.

Click here to read more about the research.

Tags Alan Humason, Alisa J. WInkler, Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development, Anthony Fiorillo, Beatrice Magnani, Bonnie F. Jacobs, Brian W. Stump, Chris Hayward, Christopher Strganac, Dale A. Winkler, Dani Setlawan, David Meltzer, Dedman College, Diana Vineyard, Diego Román, Dieter Creme, Elfi Kraka, Ernest Jouriles, Fredrick Olness, Gary Johnson, Heather R. DeShon, Jodi Cooley, John F. Graf, John Wise, Kate Andrzejewski, Kurt Ferguson, Lauren Michael, Lorelei Simpson Rowe, Louis L. Jacobs, Marek Freindorf, Matthew Clemens, Matthew J. Hornbach, Michael J. Polcyn, Neil Tabor, Pavel Nadolsky, Pia Vogel, Randy Scalise, Renee McDonald, Robert Gregory, Robert Kalescky, Robert Kehoe, Roy M. Huffington Department of Earth Sciences, Santanu Roy, Simon Dalley, SMU Department of Anthropology, SMU Department of Biological Sciences, SMU Department of Chemistry, SMU Department of Economics, SMU Department of Physics, SMU Department of Psychology, Stephen J. Sekula, Thomas Sexton, Timothy S. Myers, Vytor Oliveira, Wenli Zou

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news SMU In The News

New York Times: Scientists Trace an Ancient DNA Link Between Amazonians and Australasians

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 24, 2015

Karitiana children in their village near Porto Velho, Rondonia, Brazil. Scientists found that some people in the Brazilian Amazon have an ancient genetic tie to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians. (Credit: New York Times)

New York Times reporter James Gorman interviewed SMU’s David Meltzer, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology in the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, about a new large genome-scale study that revealed that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans arrived in the Americas as part of a single migration wave, no earlier than 23,000 years ago.

The finding addresses the ongoing debate over when and how many times the ancestors of present-day Native Americans entered the New World from Siberia.

Meltzer was a co-author on the study, which was conducted by an international team headed by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen. It published online July 23, 2015 in Science.

Meltzer’s research focus is on the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans – Paleoindians – who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

His research has been supported by grants from the National Geographic Society, the National Science Foundation, The Potts and Sibley Foundation and the Smithsonian Institution. In 1996, he received a research endowment from Joseph and Ruth Cramer to establish the Quest Archaeological Research Program at SMU, which will support in perpetuity research on the earliest occupants of North America.

Meltzer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in SMU’s Dedman College.

The New York Times article published July 21, 2015.

Read the full article, “Scientists Trace an Ancient DNA Link Between Amazonians and Australasians.”

EXCERPT:

By James Gorman
New York Times

Some people in the Brazilian Amazon are very distant relations of indigenous Australians, New Guineans and other Australasians, two groups of scientists who conducted detailed genetic analyses reported Tuesday. But the researchers disagree on the source of that ancestry.

The connection is ancient, all agree, and attributable to Eurasian migrants to the Americas who had some Australasian ancestry, the scientists said.

But one group said the evidence is clear that two different populations came from Siberia to settle the Americas 15,000 or more years ago. The other scientific team says there was only one founding population from which all indigenous Americans, except for the Inuit, descended and the Australasian DNA came later, and not through a full-scale migration. For instance, genes could have flowed through a kind of chain of intermarriage and mixing between groups living in the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific Coast.

Both papers were based on comparisons of patterns in the genomes of many living individuals from different genetic groups and geographic regions, and of ancient skeletons.

David Reich of Harvard, the senior author of a paper published Tuesday in the journal Nature, said the DNA pattern was “surprising and unexpected, and we weren’t really looking for it.” [….]

[….] David Meltzer, an anthropologist and archaeologist at Southern Methodist University and another author of the Science paper, said the difference in interpretation between the two groups was “not an irresolvable problem.” More analysis of ancient DNA or the discovery of a new skeleton could provide an answer.

Read the full article, “Scientists Trace an Ancient DNA Link Between Amazonians and Australasians.”

Follow SMUResearch.com on twitter at @smuresearch.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news SMU In The News

Los Angeles Times: Native American origins: When the DNA points two ways

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 22, 2015

Scientists are analyzing ancient and modern DNA to learn more about how people first colonized the Americas. Pictured here: tools discovered in 1968 at a Clovis-era burial site in western Montana, alongside remains of a boy who died more than 12,000 years ago, known as Anzick-1. The child's DNA was used as a basis for comparison in two new genetics studies released on Tuesday. (Sarah L. Anzick / AP) — Scientists are analyzing ancient and modern DNA to learn more about how people first colonized the Americas. Pictured here: tools discovered in 1968 at a Clovis-era burial site in western Montana, alongside remains of a boy who died more than 12,000 years ago, known as Anzick-1. The child’s DNA was used as a basis for comparison in two new genetics studies released on Tuesday. (Sarah L. Anzick / AP)

Los Angeles Times reporter Eryn Brown interviewed SMU’s David Meltzer, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology in the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences, about a new large genome-scale study that revealed that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans arrived in the Americas as part of a single migration wave, no earlier than 23,000 years ago.

The finding addresses the ongoing debate over when and how many times the ancestors of present-day Native Americans entered the New World from Siberia.

Meltzer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in SMU’s Dedman College.

The Los Angeles Times article published July 21, 2015.

Read the full article, “Native American origins: When the DNA points two ways.”

EXCERPT:

By Eryn Brown
Los Angeles Times

This week, two teams of scientists released reports detailing the origins of Native American peoples. Both groups looked at ancient and modern DNA to attempt to learn more about the movements of populations from Asia into the New World, and about how groups mixed once they got here. Both discovered a hint that some Native Americans in South America share ancestry with native peoples in Australia and Melanesia.

But the two groups came to different conclusions when it came to how that DNA with ties to Oceania made its way into the Native American genome.

In a wide-ranging paper in the journal Science, University of Copenhagen Centre for GeoGenetics Director Eske Willerslev and coauthors studied genomes from ancient and modern people in the Americas and Asia. They concluded that migrations into the New World had to have occurred in a single wave from Siberia, timed no earlier than 23,000 years ago. They also calculated that any genes shared with Australo-Melanesian peoples must have been contributed through relatively recent population mixing.

In the meantime, Harvard Medical School geneticist David Reich and colleagues, focusing more closely on the Australo-Melanesian genes in a study published in Nature, came to a different conclusion: that the DNA had to have arrived in the Americas very long ago and that founding migrations occurred in more than one wave.

“It was crazy and unexpected and very weird and we spent the last year and a half trying to understand it,” Reich said on Monday. But “it’s inconsistent to a single founding population. People in Amazonia have ancestry from two divergent sources…we think this is a real observation.”

David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and a coauthor of the Science paper, said that researchers in his field had been wrestling with the early history of the Americas for centuries — debating when the first settlers arrived here, whether there were pulses of migrations, and so on.

Read the full article, “Native American origins: When the DNA points two ways.”

Follow SMUResearch.com on twitter at @smuresearch.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Researcher news

Large genome-scale study finds Native American ancestors arrived in single migration wave

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 21, 2015

No support for ‘Paleoamerican Model,’ which holds that Central and South American groups were relicts of an early and separate migration into the Americas

This area around the confluence of the Silverthrone and Klinaklini Glaciers in southwestern British Columbia provides a glimpse into how the terrain traveled by Native Americans in Pleistocene times may have appeared. (Credit: David J. Meltzer).

A new large genome-scale study reveals that the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans arrived in the Americas as part of a single migration wave, no earlier than 23,000 years ago.

The finding addresses the ongoing debate over when and how many times the ancestors of present-day Native Americans entered the New World from Siberia.

There is archaeological evidence of modern humans in the Americas by about 15,000 years ago.

The new study was conducted by an international team headed by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

“With this study,” said study co-author David J. Meltzer, in the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, “we are not only addressing key questions related to the peopling of the Americas, we are beginning to integrate the archaeological, anatomical and genetic evidence bearing on that process.”

The study, “Genomic evidence for the Pleistocene and recent population history of Native Americans,” published online July 21, 2015, ahead of print in the leading scientific journal Science.

Within the Americas, the ancestral Native American pool diversified into two basal branches around 13 thousand years ago. The team also reports a later gene flow into some Native Americans from groups related to present-day East Asians and Australo-Melanesians.

Finally, the results from this study show no support for certain historical Central and South American groups with distinctive cranial morphology being relicts of an early and separate migration into the Americas, as proposed by the ‘Paleoamerican Model’.

Debate centers around demographic processes that led to peopling of Americas
Although there is little disagreement in the scientific literature that the ancestors of present-day Native Americans originated in Siberia, debate over the demographic processes that led to the peopling of the Americas still persists.

Experts know through archaeological sites such as Monte Verde in Chile that humans were present in the Americas by about 15,000 years ago.

The question remains, however, as to when the first Native Americans cross over from Siberia into the New World?

Did they arrive in a single wave or did successive migration waves give rise to the genetic diversity prevalent among present-day Native Americans? Did they split from their Old World ancestors and immediately cross into the Americas? Or was there, as one genetic model suggests, an “incubation” period in Beringia, the now-inundated land bridge that connected northeastern Siberia to Alaska? And if they came in a single wave, when did the ancestral Native American population split into the genetic branches seen today among their descendants?

Tracing the initial migrations into the Americas
To develop details of when and how the Americas were peopled, the team generated genomic data from several present-day Native American and Siberian populations, which are poorly represented in the genetic literature.

The researchers also sequenced ancient samples from across the Americas, spanning about 6,000 to 200 years ago to trace the genetic structure over time.

“Our study presents the most comprehensive picture of the genetic prehistory of the Americas to date,” said one lead author Maanasa Raghavan, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for GeoGenetics. “We show that all Native Americans, including the major sub-groups of Amerindians and Athabascans, descend from the same migration wave into the Americas. This was distinct from later waves that gave rise to the Paleo-Eskimo and Inuit populations in the New World Arctic region.”

This initial migration of the ancestors of all present-day Native Americans happened no earlier than 23,000 years ago, the new study found.

That represents the split date of Native Americans from East Asian and Siberian populations and is very similar for both Amerindians and Athabascans, which confirms that both groups arrived into the New World as part of the same migration.

“We applied several statistical methods that differ in modelling or utilize different information in the data,” said Yun Song, a study co-author and a professor at the University of California at Berkeley. “That we obtained consistent results across different methods is significant and reassuring.”

It is likely that after diverging from Old World populations around 23,000 years ago, the ancestral Native Americans remained isolated in Beringia for about 8 thousand years ago, given that the earliest archaeological evidence for humans in the Americas is around 15 thousand years ago.

A timeline of the genomic landscape of the Americas
Since Amerindians and Athabascans were part of the same migration into the Americas, the current genetic differences observed between them would have emerged sometime after 23,000 years ago.

The team found evidence for a split in the ancestral Native American gene pool that lead to the formation of two distinct genetic branches, namely the northern and southern branches, and that this split occurred about 13,000 years ago.

The northern branch was found to be present in northern North America and included both northern Amerindian groups as well as Athabascans. The southern branch, in contrast, included Amerindians from southern North America and Central and South America.

“We can date this split so precisely in part because we previously have analyzed the 12,600 years ago remains of a boy associated with the first unique Native American culture – the Clovis culture,”said study co-author Rasmus Nielsen from the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California at Berkeley. “The first diversification of the ancestors of modern Native Americans happened in the Americas and likely just before — or at the time of — the appearance of the Clovis culture.”

When comparing the genetic affiliations of sequenced ancient samples from the Americas, the team found that several samples were genetically more closely related to modern-day populations from the same geographical location. This result indicates that there was a genetic and geographic continuity of Native American groups across the millennia in at least some parts of the Americas.

A recent Old World connection
The study reports a signal of gene flow between some Native Americans and groups related to present-day East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, the latter including Papuans, Solomon Islanders and South East Asian hunter-gatherer groups.

While the signal is weak, it presents an intriguing scenario of a distant Old World connection to Native Americans after their split from one another and after the latter had peopled the Americas.

“It’s a surprising finding and it implies that New World population were not completely isolated from the Old World after their initial migration,” said study leader Eske Willerslev, Lundbeck Foundation Professor from the Centre for GeoGenetics at the Natural History Museum, University of Copenhagen. “We cannot say exactly how and when this gene flow happened, but one possibility is that it came through the Aleutian Islanders living off the coast of Alaska.”

A genetic relationship with the Australo-Melanesians, however weak, invokes a highly debated hypothesis in the scientific literature that suggests, based on cranial morphology, that populations related to Australo-Melanesians were part of a separate migration. From them, that gave rise to the earliest Americans (Paleoamericans), who were later replaced by the ancestors of present-day Native Americans.

Genomic analyses indicates Palaeoamericans related to preseng-day Native Americans
The current study undertook genomic analyses on historical Central and South American populations considered to be relicts of Paleoamericans, namely the Pericúes and Fuego-Patagonians. It found no evidence, however, for them being closely related to Australo-Melanesians.

On the contrary, the results show that they were genetically closest to present-day Native Americans, a finding supported by re-analysis of cranial morphological evidence.

“Our findings show that supposed Palaeoamerican relict populations, such as the Pericúes and Fuego-Patagonians, belong to the same population as present-day Native Americans and that the distinct cranial morphology of these groups is not a consequence of a distinct migration history,” said one of the lead authors, Cristina Valdiosera, a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for GeoGenetics.

The lines of evidence do not, as yet, fully converge, said SMU’s Meltzer, an expert on the prehistoric Native American Clovis culture.

“For example, was there a causal link between the Clovis expansion known archaeologically and the genetic divergence of the northern and southern branches?” he said. “If so, how does the evidence of a pre-Clovis presence at sites such as Monte Verde fit in? As more archaeological sites and remains are dated and ancient and modern genomes are sequenced, we will be able to resolve these issues, and develop a more precise record of the colonization of what was then a truly New World.”

Willerslev said the study also seems to have challenged older hypotheses such as a Beringian incubation for Native American ancestors for tens of thousands of years; entrance to the Americas much earlier than the Last Glacial Maximum; and, independent migrations of Amerindians and Athabascan ancestors into the Americas.

“At the same time, we see surprises including genetic signals of East Asians and Australo-Melanesians, presumably coming in after the first migration wave,” he said. — University of Copenhagen, SMU

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Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Researcher news SMU In The News

KERA: DNA From Kennewick Man Shows He Was Native American, Says Study With SMU Ties

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date July 16, 2015

KERA News reporter Justin Martin interviewed SMU archaeolologist David Meltzer from the SMU Department of Anthropology in Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences about the controversial 8,500-year-old skeleton called Kennewick Man.

Meltzer was part of a new study, “The Ancestry and Affiliations of Kennewick Man” in the journal Nature, that analyzed Kennewick Man’s genome sequence and found that Kennewick Man is more closely related to modern Native Americans than to any other population worldwide.

The study was led by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen and was published online June 18, 2015 in Nature.

Meltzer researches the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans – Paleoindians – who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

Meltzer is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in SMU’s Dedman College.

The KERA interview aired July 14, 2015.

Listen to the interview, “DNA From Kennewick Man Shows He Was Native American, Says Study With SMU Ties.”

EXCERPT:

By Justin Martin
KERA News

Nearly two decades after an ancient skeleton was discovered in Kennewick, Washington, scientists finally have a better idea about its hotly-debated origins. SMU anthropologist David Meltzer co-authored a recent study into what’s been dubbed the Kennewick Man.

Interview Highlights: David Meltzer …

… on the age of the ‘Kennewick Man’: “Kennewick man is about 8,500 years old and that’s based on radiocarbon dating of the actual skeleton, and his origins have been quite controversial. The question was: Was he related to modern day Native Americans or does he represent an earlier population that came into the new world, which was in turn subsequently replaced by modern day Native Americans? What the DNA evidence shows is he was one of them, he was a Native American.”

… on why it took so long to figure out his origins: “In the late 90s, DNA efforts were made to recover something, but in those days the techniques and technologies was so very primitive. You needed a decade or more of ancient DNA work to bring it up to speed to make it possible to reconstruct Kennewick’s DNA.”

… on how the research turned into a lawsuit: “The Army Corps of Engineers, at the request of the Native American tribes, sought to reinter Kennewick into the ground immediately. The tribes had made the argument that Kennewick was one of their ancestors and that therefore his remains fell under what is referred to as NAGPRA or the ‘Native Americans Graves Protection and Repatriation Act.’ A number of individuals sued in turn claiming that he wasn’t a Native American and therefore NAGPRA does not apply. The lawsuit started in the fall of 1996, it was finally resolved in 2004. An appeals court said he’s not a Native American [and to go] ahead and do a study. Here’s the ironic part — as a part of that study, a bit of the bone was provided to my colleague … who analyzed the DNA, which demonstrates in fact that he is a Native American. The lawsuit to basically show that he wasn’t turned out to show that in the end, he was.”

Listen to the interview, “DNA From Kennewick Man Shows He Was Native American, Says Study With SMU Ties.”

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Kennewick Man: genome sequence of 8,500-year-old skeleton solves scientific controversy

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date June 18, 2015

New study based on skeleton’s genome sequence shows Kennewick Man is in fact more closely related to modern Native Americans

The locale in Washington State where Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996.

An 8,500-year-old male skeleton discovered in 1996 in the Columbia River in Washington State has been the focus of a bitter dispute between Native Americans and American scientists, and even within the American scientific community. Craniometric analysis showed that Kennewick Man, as the skeleton was named, resembled populations in Japan, Polynesia or even Europe, suggesting he was not ancestral to Native Americans, a finding that helped block Native Americans’ request for a repatriation of the skeleton.

Now a new study, “The Ancestry and Affiliations of Kennewick Man” in the journal Nature, based on his genome sequence shows that Kennewick Man is in fact more closely related to modern Native Americans, than to any other population worldwide and, further, that the earlier craniometrics analyses cannot be supported.

The study was led by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen and is published online June 18, 2015 in Nature.

The human skeletal remains of "Kennewick Man were found below the surface of Lake Wallula, a section of the Columbia River. (Credit: J. Chatters) — The human skeletal remains of “Kennewick Man were found below the surface of Lake Wallula, a section of the Columbia River. (Credit: J. Chatters)

When Kennewick Man was discovered in 1996 initial cranial analysis suggested that he was a historic-period Euro-American. Later radiocarbon dating of the bones revealed an age of about 8,000-9,000 years Before the Present making him pre-Columbian in age. This sparked a legal battle over the disposition of the skeletal remains.

Tribes inhabiting the region where Kennewick Man was found requested the remains to be turned over to them for reburial based on him being Native American and ancestor to them.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which managed the land where the skeleton was found, was prepared to do so. However, this was blocked by a lawsuit by eight scientists questioning his Native American origins and generated a scientific stir as to Kennewick Man’s ancestry and affiliation.

The lawsuit lacerated the anthropological community, badly damaged relations with Native American groups, and triggered a divisive, long-running and expensive legal tug of war that ended in 2004 with a ruling in favor of a more detailed study, a study published in 2014.

Kennewick Man – a Native American ancestor
The 2014 study included isotopic, anatomical and morphometric analysis. That study concluded that Kennewick Man resembles circumpacific populations, particularly the Japanese Ainu and Polynesians and also has certain “European-like morphological” traits, and reinforced the claim that he was anatomically distinct from modern Native Americans.

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However, those recent studies did not include DNA analysis, which prompted a new study of the genome sequence of Kennewick. Leader of this new study is geneticist and Lundbeck Foundation Professor Eske Willerslev from the Centre for GeoGenetics, University of Copenhagen – a center funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. About the new results Willerslev says:

“Comparing the genome sequence of Kennewick Man to genome wide data of contemporary human populations across the world clearly shows that Native Americans of today are his closest living relatives. Our study further shows that members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation that belongs to the Claimant Plateau tribes of the Pacific Northwest, who originally claimed him as their ancestor, is one of the groups showing close affinities to Kennewick Man or at least to the population to which he belonged.”

And anthropologist David Meltzer from the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University in Dallas adds:

“The trail from past to present is often poorly marked in the archaeological record, making it difficult to follow a people through time by their changing artifacts or their rarely encountered and often fragmentary skeletal remains. With the recovery and careful analysis of ancient DNA, we can better follow that trail: in Kennewick’s case, it leads unerringly to Native Americans.”

Rejecting a hypothesis
Working in an ultraclean and over-pressurized laboratory first author on the paper Postdoctoral researcher Morten Rasmussen from the Centre for GeoGenetics has been heavily involved with analyzing Kennewick’s bones. Rasmussen says:

“Although the exterior preservation of the skeleton was pristine, the DNA in the sample was highly degraded and dominated by DNA from soil bacteria and other environmental sources. With the little material we had available, we applied the newest methods to squeeze every piece of information out of the bone.”

About the results seen in a global context Associate Professor Martin Sikora from the Centre for GeoGenetics says:

“The wealth of genomic data available for modern humans allowed us to directly test whether the Kennewick Man was more closely related to populations other than Native Americans, such as the Ainu or peoples from Polynesia. What we found instead was that he was only distantly related to those peoples, therefore clearly rejecting that hypothesis.”

However, the researchers have also been able to narrow Kennewick Man’s affiliations to modern Native Americans. Rasmus Nielsen is Professor at the Department of Integrative Biology, University of California, Berkeley. On this issue Nielsen says:

“For an 8,500 year old sample, we will probably never be able to show affiliation with any specific tribe, but we can show that the Kennewick Man is more closely related to some members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation in the state of Washington, than to many other contemporary Native Americans.”

Still a loose end
Rather than developing new DNA methods for analyzing the genome data the researchers chose standard and widely accepted methods for analyzing ancient DNA. One thing that always lurks in the background of this kind of work is contamination from modern DNA. Associate Professor Anders Albrechtsen from the Biological Institute, University of Copenhagen, has been involved in the part of bioinformatics. About the danger of contamination in the present study Albrechtsen says:

“Ancient samples have very little endogenous DNA. Therefore, we have to be extremely careful not to contaminate the samples with even the slightest amount of modern DNA. In this study we were successful in obtaining human DNA that almost exclusively was of ancient origin and we were able to show that the source of the DNA was a single individual; the Kennewick Man.”

As the earlier data from Kennewick Man had been based on cranial morphology the research group chose also to make use of this method. Professor Christoph Zollikofer and Dr. Marcia Ponce de León from the Anthropological Institute, University of Zurich are world-leading experts on cranial analyses. They did not make new measurements but re-examined the earlier data and concluded the following:

“We started with the observation that cranial variation within human populations – both past and present – is high, and that it is typically higher than variation among populations. One important consequence of this is that, for single individuals such as Kennewick Man, cranial data do not reliably indicate population affiliations. In fact, drawing reliable inferences requires hundreds of independent features – precisely the kind of information that is now available through the new genomic analyses.”

The new study pinpoints the population origins of this heretofore highly controversial find along the banks of the Columbia River in Washington, but comes short of naming the closest modern day relatives. Professor Eske Willerslev ends:

“It is important to emphasize that currently it is not possible to identify which modern Native Americans are most closely related to Kennewick Man, since our comparative DNA database is limited, particularly for Native American groups in the United States. However, among the groups for which we have sufficient genetic data, we find that the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation to be one of the groups showing close affinities to Kennewick Man or at least to the population to which he belonged. Additional modern descendants could be identified as more Native American groups are sequenced. — University of Copenhagen, SMU

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Zimbabwe Star: Comet not behind mass extinction at Ice Age end: Study

Post author By Margaret Allen
Post date May 14, 2014

The Zimbabwe Star news outlet has covered the research of SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer with the article “Comet not behind mass extinction at Ice Age end: Study.”

A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Meltzer researches the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

The Zimbabwe Star, from the IANS news service, highlights Meltzer’s latest study to show that a comet, or any other kind of extraterrestrial impact, was not responsible for sudden climate change at the end of the Ice Age 12,800 years ago. Proponents of the comet-impact theory have pointed to sedimentary deposits that they say prove that an object from outer space hit the Earth, extinguishing the Clovis culture and causing the mass extinction of many animals.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Zimbabwe Star (IANS)
Archaeologists have debunked the cosmic-impact theory that a comet sparked climate change at the end of the Ice Age, causing mass animal extinction.

According to the study, led by archaeologist David Meltzer from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, nearly all sediment layers purported to be from the Ice Age at 29 sites in North America and on three other continents are actually either much younger or much older.

Meltzer and his co-authors found that only three of 29 sites commonly referenced to support the cosmic-impact theory actually date to the window of time for the Ice Age.

“The supposed impact markers are undated or significantly older or younger than 12,800 years ago. Either there were many more impacts than supposed, including one as recently as five centuries ago, or, far more likely, these are not extraterrestrial impact markers,” Meltzer noted.

Scientists agree that the brief episode at the end of the Ice Age – officially known as the Younger Dryas for a flower that flourished at that time – sparked widespread cooling of the earth 12,800 years ago and that this cool period lasted for 1,000 years.

But theories about the cause of this abrupt climate change are numerous.

They range from changes in ocean circulation patterns caused by glacial meltwater entering the ocean to the cosmic-impact theory.

Meltzer and his colleagues sorted the 29 sites by the availability of radiometric or numeric ages and then the type of age control, if available, and whether the age control is secure.

Read the full story.

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Daily Mail: A comet impact DIDN’T spark climate change and trigger a mass extinction 12,800 years ago, study claims

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 14, 2014

The U.K.’s Daily Mail news outlet has covered the research of SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer with the article “A comet impact DIDN’T spark climate change and trigger a mass extinction 12,800 years ago, study claims.”

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago”
Nature: Prehistoric impact idea smacked down
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A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Meltzer researches the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

The Daily Mail piece by Jonathan O’Callaghn highlights Meltzer’s latest study to show that a comet, or any other kind of extraterrestrial impact, was not responsible for sudden climate change at the end of the Ice Age 12,800 years ago. Proponents of the comet-impact theory have pointed to sedimentary deposits that they say prove that an object from outer space hit the Earth, extinguishing the Clovis culture and causing the mass extinction of many animals.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Jonathan O’Callaghan
Daily Mail
It has long been though that a comet struck Earth 12,800 years ago, bringing an end to the Ice Age.

This event was thought to have not only sparked climate change, but also killed America’s earliest people and caused a mass animal extinction.

But a new study suggests this comet theory is false, as most supposed impact indicators at 29 sites are too old or too young to be remnants of an ancient comet.

Controversy over what sparked the Younger Dryas, a brief return to near glacial conditions at the end of the Ice Age, includes a theory that it was caused by a comet hitting the Earth.

As proof, proponents point to sediments containing deposits they believe could result only from a cosmic impact.

Now a new study disproves that theory, said archaeologist David Meltzer of the Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Meltzer is lead author on the study and an expert in the Clovis culture, the peoples who lived in North America at the end of the Ice Age.

His research team found that nearly all sediment layers purported to be from the Ice Age at 29 sites in North America and on three other continents are actually either much younger or much older.

Scientists agree that the brief episode at the end of the Ice Age – officially known as the Younger Dryas after a flower that flourished at that time – sparked widespread cooling of the Earth 12,800 years ago and that this cool period lasted for 1,000 years.

But theories about the cause of this abrupt climate change are numerous; they range from changes in ocean circulation patterns caused by glacial meltwater entering the ocean to the cosmic-impact theory.

The cosmic-impact theory is said to be supported by the presence of geological indicators that are extraterrestrial in origin.

However a review of the dating of the sediments at the 29 sites reported to have such indicators proves the cosmic-impact theory false, said Meltzer.

Meltzer and his co-authors found that only three of 29 sites commonly referenced to support the cosmic-impact theory actually date to the window of time for the Ice Age.

Read the full story.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Science: What Caused a 1300-Year Deep Freeze?

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 13, 2014

Science, the widely read news outlet of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, covered the research of SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer with the article “What Caused a 1300-Year Deep Freeze?”

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To book a live or taped interview with David Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago”
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A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Meltzer researches the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

The Science piece by Michael Balter highlights Meltzer’s latest study to show that a comet, or any other kind of extraterrestrial impact, was not responsible for sudden climate change at the end of the Ice Age 12,800 years ago. Proponents of the comet-impact theory have pointed to sedimentary deposits that they say prove that an object from outer space hit the Earth, extinguishing the Clovis culture and causing the mass extinction of many animals.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Michael Balter
Science
Things were looking up for Earth about 12,800 years ago. The last Ice Age was coming to an end, mammoths and other large mammals romped around North America, and humans were beginning to settle down and cultivate wild plants. Then, suddenly, the planet plunged into a deep freeze, returning to near-glacial temperatures for more than a millennium before getting warm again. The mammoths disappeared at about the same time, as did a major Native American culture that thrived on hunting them. A persistent band of researchers has blamed this apparent disaster on the impact of a comet or asteroid, but a new study concludes that the real explanation for the chill, at least, may lie strictly with Earth-bound events.

The study “pulls the rug out from under the contrived impact hypothesis quite nicely,” says Christian Koeberl, a geochemist at the University of Vienna. Most evidence for the extraterrestrial impact hypothesis, he says, was conjured up “out of thin air.”

The 1300-year big chill is known as the Younger Dryas, so-called because of the sudden worldwide appearance of the cold-weather flowering plant Dryas octopetala. A number of causes have been suggested, including changes in ocean currents due to melting glaciers and volcanic activity. In 2007, a diverse group of 26 researchers, led by nuclear chemist Richard Firestone of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, formally proposed what is known as the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis, in which one or more extraterrestrial bodies blew up over North America, leading to widespread wildfires and strewing sun-blocking dust and debris across the globe.

In a series of papers, Firestone and his colleagues claimed various kinds of evidence for the hypothesis, including deposits of the element iridium (rare on Earth but abundant in meteorites), microscopic diamonds (called nanodiamonds), and magnetic particles in deposits at sites supposedly dated to about 12,800 years ago. The notion was popularized in television documentaries and other coverage on the National Geographic Channel, History Channel, and the PBS program NOVA. These claims were sharply contested by some specialists in the relevant fields, however, who either did not detect such evidence or argued that the deposits had other causes than a cosmic impact. For example, some say that nanodiamonds are common in ordinary geological formations, and that magnetic particles could come from ordinary fires.

Now comes what some researchers consider the strongest attack yet on the Younger Dryas impact hypothesis. In a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team led by David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, in Texas, looks at the dating of 29 different sites in the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East in which impact advocates have reported evidence for a cosmic collision. They include sites in which sophisticated stone projectiles called Clovis points, used by some of the earliest Americans to hunt mammals beginning about 13,000 years ago, have been found, such as Chobot in Alberta, Canada, Murray Springs in Arizona, and Paw Paw Cove in Maryland; the site of Abu Hureyra in Syria, where evidence of plant-cultivating hunter-gatherers occurs; and sites in Greenland, Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands where other evidence for an impact has been claimed. The team argues that when the quality and accuracy of the dating—which was based on radiocarbon and other techniques—is examined closely, only three of the 29 sites actually fall within the time frame of the Younger Dryas onset, about 12,800 years ago; the rest were probably either earlier or later by hundreds (and in one case, thousands) of years.

Read the full story.

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For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Nature: Prehistoric impact idea smacked down — dates of reported cosmic collision can’t explain North American extinctions

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 13, 2014

Widely followed science magazine Nature covered the research of SMU archaeologist David J. Meltzer with the article “Prehistoric impact idea smacked down.”

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with David Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Related links

David Meltzer

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago”

Nature: Prehistoric impact idea smacked down

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SMU Department of Anthropology

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A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Meltzer researches the origins, antiquity, and adaptations of the first Americans who colonized the North American continent at the end of the Ice Age. He focuses on how these hunter-gatherers met the challenges of moving across and adapting to the vast, ecologically diverse landscape of Late Glacial North America during a time of significant climate change.

The Nature piece by Alexandra Witze focuses on Meltzer’s latest study to show that a comet, or any other kind of extraterrestrial impact, was not responsible for sudden climate change at the end of the Ice Age 12,800 years ago.

Proponents of the comet-impact theory have pointed to sedimentary deposits that they say prove that an object from outer space hit the Earth, killing the Clovis culture and causing the mass extinction of many animals.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Alexandra Witze
Nature
One of the most controversial ideas about prehistoric North America — that an impact by an extraterrestrial object 12,800 years ago triggered a cold snap that killed off mammoths and decimated early human populations — is under fresh attack. Independent archaeologists have reanalysed the dates of geological material that reportedly represents the impact, and found that they do not match.

Supporters of the impact theory have put forth 29 sites, from North America to Europe and beyond, that contain a thin layer of sediments said to date to the start of the cosmic impact event. The latest study checked to see whether those sites were all really 12,800 years old.

Only 3 of the 29 are, the researchers report today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences1. The other sites either have not been dated using the usual radiometric methods, or are much older or younger than the reported impact. “The chronology doesn’t hold up,” says team leader David Meltzer, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

There is no doubt that something important happened in this region around 12,800 years ago. Temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere plummeted in a cold spell known as the Younger Dryas, and sophisticated hunters known as the Clovis people vanished from what is now the western United States. Many of North America’s famous large mammals, such as mammoths, went extinct

Carbon footprint
Impact proponents say that many lines of evidence point to a cosmic object crashing into Earth at the time2. These include reported tiny diamonds formed in the high pressure of an impact, and soot and charcoal from fires possibly triggered by the smash. Opponents counter that there are other explanations for these materials, and that a comet blast should have left a huge fingerprint in the geological record — but nothing of the sort has been found.

Meltzer’s team includes experts on North American Palaeoindians. “We know some of these sites, we’ve worked at some of these sites,” he says. “When we started to read the details [of the impact theory], it just didn’t add up.”

Read the full story, with audio.

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

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SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.[/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

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Comet theory false; doesn’t explain cold snap at the end of the Ice Age, Clovis changes or mass animal extinction

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 12, 2014

Most supposed impact indicators at 29 sites are too old or too young to be remnants of an ancient comet that proponents claim sparked climate change at the end of the Ice Age, killed America’s earliest people and caused a mass animal extinction

Controversy over what sparked the Younger Dryas, a brief return to near glacial conditions at the end of the Ice Age, includes a theory that it was caused by a comet hitting the Earth.

As proof, proponents point to sediments containing deposits they believe could result only from a cosmic impact.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with David Meltzer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.
Related links

David Meltzer
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: “Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago”
Nature: Prehistoric impact idea smacked down
Science: What Caused a 1300-Year Deep Freeze?
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SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

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Now a new study disproves that theory, said archaeologist David Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, Dallas. Meltzer is lead author on the study and an expert in the Clovis culture, the peoples who lived in North America at the end of the Ice Age.

Meltzer’s research team found that nearly all sediment layers purported to be from the Ice Age at 29 sites in North America and on three other continents are actually either much younger or much older.

Scientists agree that the brief episode at the end of the Ice Age — officially known as the Younger Dryas for a flower that flourished at that time — sparked widespread cooling of the Earth 12,800 years ago and that this cool period lasted for 1,000 years. But theories about the cause of this abrupt climate change are numerous. They range from changes in ocean circulation patterns caused by glacial meltwater entering the ocean to the cosmic-impact theory.

The cosmic-impact theory is said to be supported by the presence of geological indicators that are extraterrestrial in origin. However a review of the dating of the sediments at the 29 sites reported to have such indicators proves the cosmic-impact theory false, said Meltzer.

Meltzer and his co-authors found that only three of 29 sites commonly referenced to support the cosmic-impact theory actually date to the window of time for the Ice Age.

The findings, “Chronological evidence fails to support claim of an isochronous widespread layer of cosmic impact indicators dated to 12,800 years ago,” were reported May 12, 2014, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Co-authors were Vance T. Holliday and D. Shane Miller, both from the University of Arizona; and Michael D. Cannon, SWCA Environmental Consultants Inc., Salt Lake City, Utah.

“The supposed impact markers are undated or significantly older or younger than 12,800 years ago,” report the authors. “Either there were many more impacts than supposed, including one as recently as 5 centuries ago, or, far more likely, these are not extraterrestrial impact markers.”

Dating of purported Younger Dryas sites proves unreliable
The Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis rests heavily on the claim that there is a Younger Dryas boundary layer at 29 sites in the Americas and elsewhere that contains deposits of supposed extraterrestrial origin that date to a 300-year span centered on 12,800 years ago.

The deposits include magnetic grains with iridium, magnetic microspherules, charcoal, soot, carbon spherules, glass-like carbon containing nanodiamonds, and fullerenes with extraterrestrial helium, all said to result from a comet or other cosmic event hitting the Earth.

Meltzer and his colleagues tested that hypothesis by investigating the existing stratigraphic and chronological data sets reported in the published scientific literature and accepted as proof by cosmic-impact proponents, to determine if these markers dated to the onset of the Younger Dryas.

They sorted the 29 sites by the availability of radiometric or numeric ages and then the type of age control, if available, and whether the age control is secure.

The researchers found that three sites lack absolute age control: at Chobot, Alberta, the three Clovis points found lack stratigraphic context, and the majority of other diagnostic artifacts are younger than Clovis by thousands of years; at Morley, Alberta, ridges are assumed without evidence to be chronologically correlated with Ice Age hills 2,600 kilometers away; and at Paw Paw Cove, Maryland, horizontal integrity of the Clovis artifacts found is compromised, according to that site’s principal archaeologist.

The remaining 26 sites have radiometric or other potential numeric ages, but only three date to the Younger Dryas boundary layer.

At eight of those sites, the ages are unrelated to the supposed Younger Dryas boundary layer, as for example at Gainey, Michigan, where extensive stratigraphic mixing of artifacts found at the site makes it impossible to know their position to the supposed Younger Dryas boundary layer. Where direct dating did occur, it’s sometime after the 16th century A.D.

At Wally’s Beach, Alberta, a radiocarbon age of 10,980 purportedly dates extraterrestrial impact markers from sediment in the skull of an extinct horse. In actuality, the date is from an extinct musk ox, and the fossil yielding the supposed impact markers was not dated, nor is there evidence to suggest that the fossils from Wally’s Beach are all of the same age or date to the Younger Dryas onset.

At nearly a dozen other sites, the authors report, the chronological results are neither reliable nor valid as a result of significant statistical flaws in the analysis, the omission of ages from the models, and the disregard of statistical uncertainty that accompanies all radiometric dates.

For example, Lake Cuitzeo, Mexico, Meltzer and his team used the data of previous researchers and applied a fifth-order polynomial regression, but it returned a different equation that put the cosmic-impact markers at a depth well above that which would mark the Younger Dryas onset.

The authors go on to point out that inferences about the ages of supposed Younger Dryas boundary layers are unsupported by replication in more cases than not.

In North America, the Ice Age was marked by the mass extinction of several dozen genera of large mammals, including mammoths, mastodons, American horses, Western camels, two types of deer, ancient bison, giant beaver, giant bears, sabre-toothed cats, giant bears, American cheetahs, and many other animals, as well as plants.

Meltzer is the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory in the SMU Department of Anthropology in Dedman College and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. — Margaret Allen

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags David Meltzer, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins

Hiding in plain sight: How invisibility saved New Mexico’s Jicarilla Apache

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date February 12, 2013

A nomadic tribe pushed into New Mexico by frontier settlement, the Jicarilla slipped off the radar and became the last tribe to avoid forced settlement onto an American Indian reservation

North America’s Jicarilla Apache tribe cloaked themselves in trade, diplomacy, and intermarriage and nearly escaped incarceration on an American Indian reservation. How they did it has been a mystery of the historical American Southwest – until now.

“In some ways, the Jicarilla still remain invisible,” according to anthropologist B. Sunday Eiselt at Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The Jicarilla Apache, an amalgamation of nomadic tribes that in the 18th century migrated off the plains and settled in the northern Rio Grande of New Mexico, were accustomed to armed resistance, guerrilla tactics and inter-tribal warfare.

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To book a live or taped interview with Sunday Eiselt in the SMU Broadcast Studio call News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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The University of Utah Press: Becoming White Clay

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They fought alongside the Pueblo Indians in the Revolt of 1680 and later resisted Comanche raiders, sometimes as contract fighters and security guards for the Spanish and American trade caravans. Then quietly, deliberately and peacefully they slipped off the radar of Spanish colonization and U.S. Manifest Destiny until 1888, when the Jicarilla became the last Native American tribe forcibly settled on a reservation.

Invisibility was no accident, rather a strategy for survival
“This was not an accident of history,” says Eiselt. The Apache, particularly the Jicarilla, were experts at invisibility — not just physically, but also socially and economically. For example, Jicarilla warriors on raids would paint themselves during the journey to the plains with white clay to avoid detection by their enemies.

The protocol beckoned supernatural or spiritual protections to bring the warriors home safely. Just as white clay was a warrior strategy for self-preservation, it stands as a metaphor for the primary message of the book.

“By ‘becoming white clay’ in their social and economic dealings,” Eiselt contends, “the Jicarilla turned the tables on non-Indian expansion and disappeared into the cultural fabric of the Southwest’s Pueblo colonies as other Native Americans were being forced onto reservations.” The Jicarilla, without firing a shot, not only avoided confinement and even extermination for nearly two centuries, they rescued their culture from extinction.

How did they manage it?
“The Jicarilla essentially colonized the colonies,” says Eiselt, an expert on the Jicarilla. “They became invisible to government authorities because they were always on the move, they intermarried with the Pueblo and Hispanic peoples, and they established long-standing trade with them. They disappeared by becoming essential, an everyday part of the frontier society of New Mexico, which sustained Spanish, Mexican and ultimately U.S. interests.”

Encapsulation of one society within a larger, dominant or more powerful society is a phenomenon known as enclavement. As a strategy it was not new to the ancestors of the Jicarilla. In fact, enclavement may have occurred multiple times as their Athapaskan ancestors migrated from Canada to the American Southwest beginning as early as the 12th century, Eiselt says.

That phenomenon, however, makes the Jicarilla difficult for scholars to study. Unlike Pueblo archaeology and history, the Jicarilla for the most part have existed outside the realm of historical scholarship in spite of their importance to the social fabric and the economy of New Mexican villages after the fall of the Spanish empire.

Today, bases of tipi rings such as the ones Eiselt identified during field work in the Rio del Oso Valley of New Mexico, are all that remain of historic Jicarilla homes in the archaeological record. Tipi ring stones would have been used to secure the superstructure.

Jicarilla contribution to New Mexico’s history is underappreciated
“Few scholars recognize how significant the Jicarilla contribution was to the survival of the traditional cultures of New Mexico,” says Eiselt, whose new book “Becoming White Clay” (U. of Utah Press, 2012) is a comprehensive study of one of the longest-lived and most successful nomadic ethnic group enclaves in North America. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of research into the Jicarilla, even though they’ve always been there and their contribution to New Mexican history is almost entirely underappreciated.”

Eiselt’s research drew on archaeological investigations, Native American land claims cases, U.S. government agency records, Spanish and Mexican records, oral histories and the tribe’s myths and legends. “Ironically, being invisible is not just how the Jicarilla are, but often how they are ‘seen’ or even missed by scholars of the Southwest,” Eiselt says. The tribe resides today on reservation land in northwestern New Mexico.

A definitive work on Apache history
“Sunday Eiselt has produced the definitive work on Jicarilla Apache history and archaeology,” says Ronald H. Towner, University of Arizona. “She uses a strong theoretical approach to enclavement and combines history, archaeology and ethnohistory to not only describe past Jicarilla movements and cultural development throughout the Southwest, but to explain how and why Jicarilla social organization at different scales structured that development during times of warfare, removal from traditional lands and economic stress. Eiselt’s scholarship is second-to-none.”

B. Sunday Eiselt is an assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University and is active in anthropological fieldwork at the SMU Taos campus. She is author or co-author of books and articles on the Jicarilla and Hispanic societies of New Mexico, community-based and engaged approaches in archaeology and ceramic source geochemistry.

“The scholarship is broad, intrinsically sound, and highly significant to the discipline of archaeology today,” says John W. Ives, Institute of Prairie Archaeology and professor of Northern Plains archaeology, University of Alberta. “The author has a fluid, lucid style, making her subject matter readily approachable to both the professional and the interested lay reader.”

Follow SMUResearch.com on Twitter.

For more information, www.smuresearch.com.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Observatório da Emigração: Interview with SMU’s Caroline Brettell

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date February 11, 2013

Observatório da Emigração carried out an in-depth interview with SMU anthropologist Caroline Brettell about her research on Portuguese immigration.

Brettell is University Distinguished Professor and Ruth Collins Altshuler Professor, and Director of SMU’s Interdisciplinary Institute. The Observatório da Emigração was established in 2008, based on a protocol between the General Director of Consular and Portuguese Community Affairs, and various research entities in Lisbon. Its principal objectives are to produce and disseminate information on the development and characteristics of emigration and of Portuguese communities; and to contribute to public policy in this arena.

An internationally recognized immigration expert, Brettell’s research includes “Portugal’s First Post-Colonials: Citizenship, Identity, and the Repatriation of Goans,” published in 2009 in the scientific journal Portuguese Studies Review. In the article, Brettell drew on archival research and field interviews to explore debates about nation, citizenship and identity and their implications for the repatriation of Goan people to Portugal after 1961.

Brettell’s most recent book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012), which reported that immigrants in North Texas develop their American identity by participating in ethnic community activities, then branching out to broader civic and political life.

She and co-author Deborah Reed-Danahay found that American Indians and Vietnamese Americans in North Texas develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American.

Read the full interview.

EXCERPT:

Observatório da Emigração (OEm) – Maybe you could start by saying how the Portuguese emigration came into your life…

Caroline Brettell (CB) – There is absolutely no connection to my personal life. I remember that in 1976, at a Conference in Toronto – where there is a large Portuguese community -, people from the community came up to me afterwards and asked me “a senhora é portuguesa”? And I said “no, not at all”. And they replied, “but you understand us so well”…

OEm – So, you spoke Portuguese at that time?

CB – When I was an undergraduate at Yale University, I was majoring Latin-American studies and one requirement for the major was to learn both Spanish and Portuguese. In my senior year in College I took intensive Portuguese. Then when I was applying to graduate school in Anthropolog – the field I decided to pursue for my Ph.D. I noticed that the Brown University had a new Program in Urban Anthropology. My senior essay at Yale had been on rural-urban migration, the migration from the countryside to cities, in Latin America. So, I was really interested in Urban Anthropology. I applied to that Program and when I was admitted, I had the chance in the summer, before I started graduate school, to work on a big project they had on immigration in the Rhode-Island area, in the city of Providence in particular.

OEm – Where a lot of Portuguese people live?

CB – Absolutely! So, that summer, because I had just learned the language, I started working with some of the Portuguese immigrant populations in the Rhode-Island area. So, it was really through the language that I got in to studying Portuguese immigrants. Then, the following summer we had to do a summer field research project, and then write a publishable paper. And I discovered that Toronto had a big Portuguese immigrant community. I went off to the city of Toronto, and I actually lived in what is called the Kensington market area, which is a downtown outdoor market in an old neighborhood of immigration, and the most recent arrivals in that neighborhood were Portuguese, mostly families from the Azores. So, I lived in a house with two Azorean families; I had the room in the attic. I spent two months in that neighborhood and my first published paper, on “ethnic entrepreneurs” was based on that summer of research. In that house, one of the men had spent time in France, before he had come to Canada. I had a conversation with him about the migration of the Portuguese to France. I was looking around for a project for my Ph.D. dissertation in Anthropology. What intrigued me about the migration to France was that it was obviously much more possible for the Portuguese to move back and forth between Portugal and France. There wasn’t a big Atlantic Ocean in the middle. At that time, there was no concept of transnationalism. We didn’t have such easy ways for people to travel back and forth and to communicate as they are communicating right now. So, I thought that the ocean was a divider, separating people from their sending society; I was really interested in the possibility of more back and forth movement that the migration to France might represent.

OEm – When was that study?

CB – I was in Toronto in the summer of 1972.

OEm – Forty years ago…

CB – Oh my God! So, the other thing that happened to me was that I was a student of Louise Lamphere and she was one of the founders of the so-called Anthropology of Gender. It occurred to me that everybody thought that migration was characteristic of men and I thought “well, nobody has worked with women immigrants”. I developed a research proposal to study Portuguese immigrant women in France and started the research in the summer of 1974 with funding from the Social Science Research Council in the US as well as the equivalent in Canada. I arrived in France in July of 1974, where I met Colette Callier Boisvert, a French anthropologist who had worked in Portugal in the 1960s and I think also Maria Beatriz Rocha-Trindade, who had done a study of the Portuguese in France. The Revolution had happened in Portugal, but immigrants in France were not the broad subject of study that they are today.

Read the full interview.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

The Guardian: Weatherwatch: Hotter, drier summers may mean more forest fires

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date August 13, 2012

The research of SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos was covered by the United Kingdom’s widely read newspaper The Guardian.

In his August 10 “Weatherwatch” column, “Hotter, drier summers may mean more forest fires,” science journalist David Hambling discussed the record-breaking megafires burning now in New Mexico and referenced new ancient fire research by Roos.

The study by Roos found that U.S. megafires in the U.S. Southwest region are unique and exceptional for the past 1,500 years.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Johannes Bauer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

The Holocene: “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA”
Christopher Roos
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

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Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona, constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.

The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, say Roos and Swetnam. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

Jump to the column.

EXCERPT:

By David Hambling
The Guardian
This year has been a bad year for forest fires in the US, with wildfires burning about eight hundred thousand hectares by the end of June. This is higher than average, in spite of the relatively low number of fires. But there may be worse to come.

The Wildland Fire Assessment System maps the ‘Dead Fuel Moisture Level’ in the US. This indicates how much flammable wood there is on the ground, a critical factor in how fire spreads. There are several grades of fuel involved, ranging from “one-hour” twigs, which dry out or absorb moisture rapidly, to “thousand-hour” logs which only burn after a long dry spell. As drought deepens, the amount of dry fuel on the ground is growing, just waiting to ignite.

A recent study of tree-ring scarring looking back 1,400 years at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, suggests the current spate of forest fires is unusual. The pattern has remained similar, with wet years of growth followed by dry years of increased fires, but the scale of fires has changed.

In previous centuries minor fires were common, burning grasses but leaving trees standing. Twentieth-century forestry management prevented small fires, so brushwood built up, leading to fewer but more intense fires which destroy trees. Modern forestry policy encourages a natural ecosystem by allowing some fires, which is slowly improving matters. Meanwhile the series of hotter, drier summers may produce more and bigger forest fires than ever.

Jump to the column.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

CBS This Morning: Heat Wave Headaches and SMU Fire Research

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date July 11, 2012

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Johannes Bauer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

The Holocene: “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA”

Christopher Roos

SMU Department of Anthropology

Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

The research of SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos was covered by CBS This Morning with Charlie Rose and Erica Hill.

In a June 12 show, The Nature Conservancy’s lead scientist M. Sanjayan, who is CBS News science and environmental contributor, discussed the record-breaking megafires burning now in New Mexico and referenced new ancient fire research by Roos. The study by Roos found that U.S. megafires in the U.S. Southwest region are unique and exceptional for the past 1,500 years.

Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona, constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.

The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, say Roos and Swetnam. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

Watch the video.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

Climate Central: New Mexico Wildfire Now a Record-Setting ‘Megafire’

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date June 4, 2012

The research of SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos was covered by the popular Climate Central blog. In a June 2 entry, Climate Central science journalist Andrew Freedman wrote about the record-breaking megafires burning now in New Mexico and referenced new ancient fire research by Roos. The study by Roos found that U.S. megafires in the U.S. Southwest region are unique and exceptional for the past 1,500 years.

Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona, constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Johannes Bauer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

The Holocene: “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA”

Christopher Roos

Christopher Roos research

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The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, say Roos and Swetnam. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Andrew Freedman
Climate Central
The largest wildfire in New Mexico’s history continues to burn, having already charred an area larger than New York City. Known as the Whitewater-Baldy Fire Complex, the wildfire has become another in a series of “megafires” to torch the American West due to an unprecedented combination of drought conditions, climate change, and alterations in land-management practices. To make matters worse, according to The Guardian newspaper, congressional budget cuts may restrict the federal government’s firefighting efforts during what is widely expected to be a busy wildfire season.

The Whitewater-Baldy Complex is burning in New Mexico’s rugged and mountainous Gila Wilderness, an area with steep terrain that has rendered much of the fire off limits to firefighters. Instead of attacking it from within, firefighters are trying to dig in around it, hoping to slow its spread. […]

[…] In fact, the recent Southwestern megafires stand out as unusual in the context of the past 1,500 years in that region, according to a recent study. The study found that land-management changes, such as years of fire suppression activities that stifled small fires, thereby priming forests for larger blazes, have combined with climate change to create forests that are altogether different — and which burn differently — from what existed in this area for generations.

“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Christopher I. Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, according to Science Daily.

Read the full story.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins Plants & Animals Researcher news SMU In The News

UPI: U.S. megafires put down to human activity

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 19, 2012

The new ancient fire research of SMU fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos was covered by the international wire service United Press International. In a May 18 entry, UPI reported that Roos found that U.S. megafires in the U.S. Southwest region are unique and exceptional when compared to the past 1,500 years.

Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona, constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Johannes Bauer in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

The Holocene: “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA”
Christopher Roos
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

More SMU Research news

Ancient tree-ring records from southwest U.S. suggest today’s megafires are truly unusual

Dark matter search may turn up evidence of WIMPS: SMU Researcher Q&A

Modeling the human protein in search of cancer treatment: SMU Researcher Q&A

The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, say Roos and Swetnam. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By UPI
DALLAS, May 16 (UPI) — Today’s mega forest fires in the U.S. Southwest are truly unusual compared to the long-term record and may be the result of human activity, researchers say.

A study that examined hundreds of years of ancient tree ring and fire data from two distinct climate periods suggests today’s dry, hot climate is not the lone cause of the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest, researchers from Southern Methodist University reported Tuesday.

Human activity over the last century in terms of dealing with fires is at least partly to blame for today’s megafires, they said.

“The United States would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Christopher I. Roos, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

Read the full story.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Ancient tree-ring records from southwest U.S. suggest today’s megafires are truly unusual

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date May 15, 2012

Unprecedented study relies on more than 1,500 years of tree-ring data and hundreds of years of fire-scar records gathered from Ponderosa Pine forests

Today’s mega forest fires of the southwestern U.S. are truly unusual and exceptional in the long-term record, suggests a new study that examined hundreds of years of ancient tree ring and fire data from two distinct climate periods.

Researchers constructed and analyzed a statistical model that encompassed 1,500 years of climate and fire patterns to test, in part, whether today’s dry, hot climate alone is causing the megafires that routinely destroy millions of acres of forest, according to study co-author and fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The researchers found that even when ancient climates varied from each other — one hotter and drier and the other cooler and wetter — the frequencies of year-to-year weather patterns that drive fire activity were similar.

The findings suggest that today’s megafires, at least in the southwestern U.S., are atypical, according to Roos and co-author Thomas W. Swetnam, the University of Arizona. Furthermore, the findings implicate as the cause not only modern climate change, but also human activity over the last century, the researchers said.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Christopher I. Roos in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

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“The U.S. would not be experiencing massive large-canopy-killing crown fires today if human activities had not begun to suppress the low-severity surface fires that were so common more than a century ago,” said Roos, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

Today’s extreme droughts caused by climate change probably would not cause megafires if not for a century of livestock grazing and firefighting, which have combined to create more dense forests with accumulated logs and other fuels that now make them more vulnerable than ever to extreme droughts. One answer to today’s megafires might be changes in fire management.

“If anything, what climate change reminds us is that it’s pretty urgent that we deal with the structural problems in the forests. The forests may be equipped to handle the climate change, but not in the condition that they’re currently in. They haven’t been in that condition before,” Roos said.

Roos and Swetnam, director of the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, published their findings in the scientific journal The Holocene.

Study combines fire-scar records and tree-ring data of U.S. southwest
This new study is based on a first-of-its-kind analysis that combined fire-scar records and tree-ring data for Ponderosa Pine forests in the southwest United States.

Earlier research by other scientists has looked at forest fire records spanning the years from 1600 to the mid-1800s — a climate period known as the Little Ice Age — to understand current forest fire behavior. Those studies have found that fires during the Little Ice Age occurred frequently in the grasses and downed needles on the surface of the forest floor, but stayed on the floor and didn’t burn into the canopies.

Critics dispute the relevance of the Little Ice Age, however, saying the climate then was cooler and wetter than the climate now. They say a better comparison is A.D. 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, when the climate was hotter and drier, like today’s.

Scientists who favor that comparison hypothesize that forest fires during the Medieval Warm Period probably were similar to today’s megafires and probably more destructive than during the Little Ice Age.

Tree rings and fire scars provide the evidence for moisture, drought and burn activity
Scientists rely on tree rings not only to calculate a tree’s age, but also to determine wet and dry weather patterns of moisture and drought. Similarly, scientists’ best evidence for fire activity is the scarring on tree rings that dates the occurrence of fires. While tree-ring data for climate are available for long time periods, annual forest fire records don’t yet exist for the Medieval Warm Period.

In response to the need for data, Roos and Swetnam tested the Medieval Warm Period hypothesis by calibrating a statistical model that combined 200 years of Little Ice Age fire-scar data and nearly 1,500 years of climate data derived from existing tree rings. With that they were able to predict what the annual fire activity would have been almost 1,500 years ago.

They discovered that the Medieval Warm Period was no different from the Little Ice Age in terms of what drives frequent low-severity surface fires: year-to-year moisture patterns.

“It’s true that global warming is increasing the magnitude of the droughts we’re facing, but droughts were even more severe during the Medieval Warm Period,” Roos said. “It turns out that what’s driving the frequency of surface fires is having a couple wet years that allow grasses to grow continuously across the forest floor and then a dry year in which they can burn. We found a really strong statistical relationship between two or more wet years followed by a dry year, which produced lots of fires.”

Modeling of tree-ring and fire-scar data can be applied to any locale
The research, “A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA,” was funded by the International Arid Lands Consortium.

“The best way to look at how fires may have varied — if climate were the only driver — is to do this type of modeling,” Roos said. “Our study is the first in the world to go this far back using this methodology. But this method can be used anyplace for which there is a fire-scar record.”

The study’s tree-ring-derived climate data are from the southern Colorado Plateau, a region that includes the world’s largest continuous stand of Ponderosa Pine stretching from Flagstaff, Ariz., into New Mexico. Large Ponderosa Pine forests have existed in the area for more than 10,000 years.

Fire-scar data for the region go back as far as the 1500s, but are most prevalent during the Little Ice Age period. Fire scientists have analyzed fire-scars from hundreds of trees from more than 100 locations across the Southwest. All fire-scar data are publically available through the International Multiproxy Paleofire Database, maintained by the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s paleoclimatology program.

Ancient fires were frequent, but didn’t burn the forest canopy
Fire scientists know that in ancient forests, frequent fires swept the forest floor, often sparked by lightning. Many of the fires were small, less than a few dozen acres. Other fires may have been quite large, covering tens of thousands of acres before being extinguished naturally. Fuel for the fires included grass, small trees, brush, bark, pine needles and fallen limbs on the ground.

“The fires cleaned up the understory, kept it very open, and made it resilient to climate changes because even if there was a really severe drought, there weren’t the big explosive fires that burn through the canopy because there were no fuels to take it up there,” Roos said. “The trees had adapted to frequent surface fires, and adult trees didn’t die from massive fire events because the fires burned on the surface and not in the canopy.”

Today’s huge canopy fires are the cumulative result of human activity
The ancient pattern of generally small, frequent fires changed by the late 1800s. The transcontinental railroad had pushed West, bringing farmers, ranchers, cattle and sheep. Those animals grazed the forest floor, consuming the grasses that fueled small fires but leaving small saplings and brush, which then grew up into dense, mature bushes and trees. In addition, the U.S. began to restrict the traditional land use of the region’s Native American communities, including confining them to reservations. This removed another source for frequent surface fires in the forests — burning by Native Americans for horticulture and hunting.

By the early 20th century, the U.S. Forest Service had been established, and fighting fires was a key part of the agency’s mission. Without continuous fuel, fires on the forest floor ceased.

“Many of our modern forests in central Arizona and New Mexico haven’t had a fire of any kind on them in 130 or 140 years,” Roos said. “That’s very different from the records of the ancient forests. The longest they would have gone without fires was 40 or 50 years, and even that length of time would have been exceptional.”

The research reported in The Holocene is the basis for a new four-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation in which Roos and Swetnam are co-principal investigators. That project will examine how human activities have changed forests and forest fires over the past 1,000 years of Native American occupation, as well as the influence of droughts during the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains. — Margaret Allen

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smuresearch.com.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Careers360: Learning the origins and evolution of mankind

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 5, 2012

The India-based career planning site Careers360 interviewed SMU professor Caroline Brettell for an article about a professional career as an anthropologist.

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

“Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012)

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Caroline B. Brettell

DFW Immigration Research Home

SMU Department of Anthropology

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Indian, Vietnamese immigrants become American over time through civic activities, say anthropologists

An anthropologist, Brettell most recently reported that Indian and Vietnamese immigrants in North Texas develop their American identity by participating in ethnic community activities, then branching out to broader civic and political life.

She and co-author Deborah Reed-Danahay in their book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012) found that American Indians and Vietnamese Americans in North Texas develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American, say the immigration experts.

For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, and their social and cultural organizations, say Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

From their research, Brettell and Reed-Danahay conclude that policymakers should be cautious with any attempts to integrate, assimilate or incorporate immigrants. They recommend against imposing top-down standards on how citizenship should be expressed — such as requiring full English proficiency or focusing exclusively on formal political participation.

Read the full article.
EXCERPT:

By Urmila Rao
Careers360
If you think dark-skinned people are dusky because they live near equatorial or hot tropical regions, reflect again. Tasmania, an island, 240 km south of Australia, far away from the equator, had natives with dark complexions. Prior to colonial invasion, they had inhabited the island for 10,000 years, but despite the gargantuan time period, their skin colors didn’t change.

At one glance, all Chinese may appear similar to you, but the fact is, a Chinese of northern China is physically and genetically different from a southern Chinese. The former is taller, heavier with paler complexion and a pointed nose and share similarity to a Tibetan or a Nepalese, whereas Southern Chinese people look more like Vietnamese and Filipinos with their smaller and slanted eyes.

Interesting facts, aren’t they? Do biological variations of “others” baffle you? Evolution and variation of humans intrigue you as much as cultural changes stump you? If they do, then chuck your drab financial management course and head for an anthropology class. [ … ]

[ … ] So what is Anthropology?
Anthropology is science of man. Some institutions slot it under social sciences, some under science stream. According to Caroline B. Brettell, Professor, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, “It is a study of humans — both past and present.” The past is studied through anthropology sub-fields of archaeology and physical (or biological) anthropology. The present is studied through its socio-cultural branch.

Read the full article.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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India Abroad: Civic incorporation of newcomers does not mean abandoning who you are

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 2, 2012

The New York-based newspaper India Abroad covered the research of SMU anthropologist Caroline Brettell in an interview with journalist Artthur J. Pais in the March 2 edition.

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

“Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012)
Farmer’s Branch, Texas: Case study shows immigrants seen as threat to white, middle-class “American” identity
Caroline B. Brettell
DFW Immigration Research Home
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

More SMU Research news

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Brettell has reported that immigrants in North Texas develop their American identity by participating in ethnic community activities, then branching out to broader civic and political life.

She and co-author Deborah Reed-Danahay in their book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012) found that American Indians and Vietnamese Americans in North Texas develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American, say the immigration experts.

For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, and their social and cultural organizations, say Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

From their research, Brettell and Reed-Danahay conclude that policymakers should be cautious with any attempts to integrate, assimilate or incorporate immigrants. They recommend against imposing top-down standards on how citizenship should be expressed — such as requiring full English proficiency or focusing exclusively on formal political participation.

Read the full article.

EXCERPT:

Arthur J. Pais
India Abroad
At the height of the 9/11 anti-Muslim violence and sentiments, a mosque serving mostly immigrants in the Dallas-Fort Worth area decided to reach out to the large community and opened a polling station on its premises on an election day.

This is one of the many stories you will hear from Professor Caroline B. Brettell whose book Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian and Vietnamese Immigrants (Stanford University Press) co-authored with Professor Deborah Reed Danahay, highlights the growth of community networking that started seriously in the 1990s in the Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth area of Texas.

“A key contribution of our research is its emphasis on the fact that the civic incorporation of newcomers does not necessarily mean abandoning who you are,” Brettell, an anthropology professor at Southern methodist University in Dallas, says. “Immigrant communities have spaces and places that are already operating as viable arenas for expressing civic and political presence and for becoming American.”

Read the full article.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Nebraska Mosaic: Nebraska — A Gateway For Immigrants

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date February 20, 2012

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

“Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012)
Farmer’s Branch, Texas: Case study shows immigrants seen as threat to white, middle-class “American” identity
Caroline B. Brettell
DFW Immigration Research Home
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

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Journalist Haley Dover reported on a lecture about immigration delivered Feb. 16 by SMU anthropologist Caroline Brettell at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center.

Nebraska Mosaic (nemosaic.org) is a project of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications. It’s staffed by a class of undergraduate and graduate students.

Brettell, a University Distinguished Professor, is an internationally recognized immigration expert. She recently reported the results of her latest research with co-author Deborah Reed-Danahay in their book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012).

They found through their research of American Indians and Vietnamese Americans in North Texas that immigrants from India and Vietnam develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American. For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, and their social and cultural organizations, say Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

From their research, Brettell and Reed-Danahay conclude that policymakers should be cautious with any attempts to integrate, assimilate or incorporate immigrants. They recommend against imposing top-down standards on how citizenship should be expressed — such as requiring full English proficiency or focusing exclusively on formal political participation.

Read Mosaic’s coverage.

EXCERPT:

By Haley Dover
A reasonable cost of living and jobs in agriculture, manufacturing and meatpacking contribute to Nebraska becoming a gateway into America for the growing foreign-born population, an immigration expert said Thursday.

Caroline Brettell, an anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University who has studied global immigration patterns, said the growing foreign-born population in Nebraska is part of a national trend of immigrants seeking new destinations.

In a lecture at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center, Brettell noted that 44.4 percent of Nebraska’s foreign-born residents have moved to the state since 2000. In Lincoln alone, 7.4 percent of the population is foreign-born. Nationally 12 percent of the population is foreign born.

Cities like Boston, Atlanta and Phoenix increasingly have become popular destinations for immigrants, she said, but traditional gateways like New York City, Chicago and Miami remain popular, too.

“Continuous gateways have always attracted more than their fair share of immigrants,” Brettell said. “Immigrants are still going to those traditional cities.”

Read Mosaic’s coverage.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Researcher news SMU In The News

KERA: Becoming a Citizen in North Texas

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date February 3, 2012

Click to hear KERA’s podcast

Krys Boyd, host and managing editor of KERA-FM’s flagship midday talk show “Think,” interviewed SMU anthropologist Caroline Brettell.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

“Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012)
Farmer’s Branch, Texas: Case study shows immigrants seen as threat to white, middle-class “American” identity
Caroline B. Brettell
DFW Immigration Research Home
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

More SMU Research news

Study: Nearly two-thirds of EU citizens are marginalized by English-language dominance

From ‘Green Card’ to ‘Thin Blue Line’: Lawtalk research looks at popular legal expressions

The topic was Brettell’s research that found immigrants in North Texas develop their American identity by participating in ethnic community activities, then branching out to broader civic and political life.

Listen to KERA’s podcast of the live broadcast show.

Brettell appeared on the show with Prasad Thotakura, an American Indian immigrant and president of the Teluga Association of North America.

Brettell reported the results of her research with co-author Deborah Reed-Danahay in their book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012).

They found through their research of American Indians and Vietnamese Americans in North Texas that immigrants from India and Vietnam develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American, say the immigration experts.

For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, and their social and cultural organizations, say Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

The authors cite as an example Andy Nguyen, now a Texan, who fled Vietnam and arrived in the United States as a teenager. As a young man he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, went on to become a successful North Texas businessman and served primarily as an ethnic community leader. Later Nguyen ran as a Republican and won election to county government.

From their research, Brettell and Reed-Danahay conclude that policymakers should be cautious with any attempts to integrate, assimilate or incorporate immigrants. They recommend against imposing top-down standards on how citizenship should be expressed — such as requiring full English proficiency or focusing exclusively on formal political participation.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Anthropologyworks: SMU’s James Kennell among Top 40 cultural anthropology dissertations

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date January 26, 2012

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To book a live or taped interview with James Kennell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu. (Photo: Octavio Mateus)

Related links

James Kennell
“The Senses and Suffering: Medical Knowledge, Spirit Possession, and Vaccination Programs in Aja,”
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences

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The blog Anthropologyworks has cited the research of SMU medical anthropologist James Kennell as one of the best 40 North American dissertations in cultural anthropology during 2011. Kennell’s “The Senses and Suffering: Medical Knowledge, Spirit Possession, and Vaccination Programs in Aja,” was written in fulfillment of his doctoral degree.

The blog is a project of the Culture in Global Affairs (CIGA) research and policy program of the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. CIGA’s mission is to promote awareness of the relevance of anthropological knowledge to contemporary issues and to enhance discussion and debate within and beyond anthropology about contemporary issues.

Kennell teaches “Health as a Human Right” and “Peoples of Africa” in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

Read about the Top 40.

EXCERPT:

Anthroworks presents its favorite 2011 North American dissertations in cultural anthropology. In compiling this list, I searched the “Dissertations International” electronic database that is available through my university library. The database includes mainly U.S. dissertations with a light sprinkling from Canada. I used the same search terms as I did in previous years.

True confession: these are my picks, and they reflect my preferences for topics — health, inequality, migration, gender, and human rights. Somebody else’s picks would look quite different. But this is the anthroworks list!

The 40 dissertations are arranged in alphabetical order according to the last name of the dissertation author. Apologies to the authors for my reduction of their published abstracts to a maximum of nine lines.

I would like to convey my congratulations to all 2011 anthropology Ph.D. recipients. I hope they go on to a successful career in — or related to — anthropology.

The Senses and Suffering: Medical Knowledge, Spirit Possession, and Vaccination Programs in Aja, by James Kennell. Southern Methodist University. Advisors: Caroline Brettell, Carolyn Sargent, Carolyn Smith-Morris, Paul Stoller.

In an Aja community of southwest Benin, multiple domains of medical knowledge and practice compete for control of illness meaning and sensory experience. Global health initiatives (vaccination and education programs), national health care structures, and Aja medico-religious practice each incorporate and manipulate the knowledge and practice of the other in order to create legitimacy and shape therapeutic trajectories. Biomedical nosology and disease prevention efforts conflict with local understandings of individual and community health concerning diseases that affect the skin. Efforts at the “sensibilisation” of the community regarding vaccinations and other global health initiatives is met with local medico-religious knowledge emphasizing a sensual experience of illness and healing for the individual and the community.

Read about the Top 40.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Carolyn Smith-Morris, Dedman College, James Kennell, SMU Department of Anthropology

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The Economic Times: Indian, Vietnamese immigrants ‘Americanised’ but don’t lose own identity

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date December 7, 2011

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

Farmer’s Branch, Texas: Case study shows immigrants seen as threat to white, middle-class “American” identity
Caroline B. Brettell
DFW Immigration Research Home
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

More SMU Research news

A mathematical model determines which nations are more stable and which are more likely to break up

SMU to help solve dangerous refugee water issues

Anthropology researcher to study human-fire-climate interactions

Report: U.S. Economic Freedom Continues Fall; Global Average Declines

The ANSI news service has reported on the immigration research of SMU anthropology professor Caroline B. Brettell. The Dec. 7 news service article: “Indian, Vietnamese immigrants ‘Americanised’ but don’t lose own identity” has been picked up by newspapers throughout Asia, including The India Times.

Brettell is a cultural anthropologist and University Distinguished Professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology. She is an internationally recognized immigration expert, including trends of new immigration gateway cities such as Dallas, Atlanta and Minneapolis and the challenges of women immigrants. An immigrant herself, Brettell was born in Canada and became a U.S. citizen in 1993.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

Indian and Vietnamese immigrants become “Americanised” over time through social activities, but still retain their identities, say researchers after studying the two communities in Texas.

Typically, Indian immigrants came voluntarily, seeking education, jobs and economic opportunity, although some came to join family members, said Caroline B. Brettell, an anthropology professor at Dallas’ Southern Methodist University, who conducted the research on the Indians.

Generally they have high levels of education and income, and typically already speak English, she added.

Vietnamese came as refugees, primarily to escape communism and in search of freedom and democracy. More recently they’ve also come to join family members, said Deborah Reed-Danahay, Brettel’s colleague, who conducted the Vietnamese research.

The researchers say that there are a great many surface differences between these two populations, but the research revealed significant similarities in the way immigrants from both India and Vietnam engage in civic and political activities, according to a university statement.

For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, say Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

The study results were reported in their book: “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012).

Read the full story.

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Caroline B. Brettell, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

Categories
Culture, Society & Family Researcher news

Anthropology study finds that immigrants from India and Vietnam become American over time

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date December 6, 2011

Immigrants in North Texas develop American identity by participating in ethnic community activities, then branching out to broader civic and political life

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Caroline Brettell in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

Farmer’s Branch, Texas: Case study shows immigrants seen as threat to white, middle-class “American” identity
Caroline B. Brettell
DFW Immigration Research Home
SMU Department of Anthropology
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Whether contributing money to Boy Scouts, donating a statue of Gandhi for a Dallas city plaza, or successfully lobbying against flying Vietnam’s communist flag in a citywide international celebration, a new study shows that immigrants in Texas are involved in their communities.

In North Texas, immigrants from India and Vietnam develop and embrace their American identity over time — without shedding their culture of origin, as some say they should, according to a new anthropological study.

The research found that, for these groups, becoming a U.S. citizen is distinctly different from becoming American, say immigration experts Caroline B. Brettell and Deborah Reed-Danahay, the study’s authors.

For new Vietnamese and Indian immigrants, whether naturalized citizens or not, American identity deepens as they participate in activities, festivals and banquets at their churches, schools, temples, business and civic associations, and their social and cultural organizations, say anthropologists Brettell and Reed-Danahay.

The authors cite as an example Andy Nguyen, now a Texan, who fled Vietnam and arrived in the United States as a teenager. As a young man he was commissioned an officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, went on to become a successful North Texas businessman and served primarily as an ethnic community leader. Later Nguyen ran as a Republican and won election to county government.

Caution: Don’t impose formal standards to force integration of immigrants
From their research, Brettell and Reed-Danahay conclude that policymakers should be cautious with any attempts to integrate, assimilate or incorporate immigrants. They recommend against imposing top-down standards on how citizenship should be expressed — such as requiring full English proficiency or focusing exclusively on formal political participation.

“A key contribution of our research is its emphasis on the fact that the civic incorporation of newcomers does not necessarily mean abandoning who you are,” says Brettell, an anthropology professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

“Immigrant communities have spaces and places that are already operating as viable arenas for expressing civic and political presence and for becoming American,” she says.

Participants in the three-year study were Indian and Vietnamese immigrants in the twin North Texas cities of Dallas and Fort Worth and surrounding suburbs. The region, known as DFW, is the largest metropolitan area in Texas.

Brettell and Reed-Danahay uncovered how North Texas Vietnamese and Indian immigrants develop their identity as Americans by engaging first within their own communities, where they practice and develop citizenship skills, which they then use in a broader American context.

“We view citizenship as the ways in which immigrants participate in the civic and political life of America,” Brettell says, “so they move over time from the periphery to the core of American civic and political life.”

Authors carried out three years of oral interviews and direct observation
Brettell and Reed-Danahay report the study results in their book, “Civic Engagements: The Citizenship Practices of Indian & Vietnamese Immigrants” (Stanford University Press, 2012).

The authors interviewed 67 first-generation Indian and Vietnamese parents, many but not all of whom are naturalized U.S. citizens. They also interviewed college students in their early to mid-20s whose parents were immigrants from either India or Vietnam and who either were born in the United States or arrived as young children.

The anthropologists asked participants what it means to them to be American, Indian, Vietnamese and Asian. They also asked about citizenship and participation in political, religious and civic activities.

The authors also conducted participant observation at a variety of community events, including voluntary association meetings, fundraising and other banquets, ethnic festivals, religious ceremonies, youth group meetings and political protests.

Dallas-Fort Worth region and Texas are a unique immigrant gateway
The number of foreign-born individuals has dramatically increased in Texas during the past 40 years as the state’s economy has boomed and diversified beyond oil. Both Texas and DFW attract highly skilled and well-educated immigrants to the telecommunications, health, education, transportation and financial industries.

After Mexicans and Salvadorans, Indians and Vietnamese are the largest groups of immigrants in DFW. The 2000 Census counted 47,090 foreign-born Vietnamese and 49,669 foreign-born Indians in DFW.

Brettell and Reed-Danahay found that for the most part both Indian and Vietnamese immigrants to the region first arrived elsewhere in the United States, then moved to DFW, often settling in suburbs.

Typically, Indian immigrants came voluntarily, seeking education, jobs and economic opportunity, although some came to join family members. Generally they have high levels of education and income, and typically already speak English, says Brettell, who conducted the Indian research.

Vietnamese came as refugees, primarily to escape communism and in search of freedom and democracy. More recently they’ve also come to join family members, says Reed-Danahay, who conducted the Vietnamese research.

On the surface there are a great many differences between these two Asian immigrant populations, say the authors. But the anthropological research revealed significant similarities in the way immigrants from both India and Vietnam engage in civic and political activities.

The researchers also found that homeland politics drives Vietnamese political activities among the first generation much more than it does those of Indians. Immigrants from India attempt to downplay the regional and religious diversity that is often divisive in their homeland.

“It was very moving to get to know Vietnamese who were former refugees who had suffered so much during and after the war,” says Reed-Danahay. “And yet it was a significant finding of this study that despite the hardships of their experiences, the first generation and subsequent generations are participating in American institutions and taking leadership roles in the same ways as are Indians who arrived primarily as economic migrants.”

Immigrants report their American identity shifts, depending on context
Despite a desire to belong and overcome feelings of otherness, Indian and Vietnamese immigrants reported that fellow Americans sometimes exclude them on the basis of their accent, their skin color and their ethnic characteristics. Many Vietnamese reported prejudice in the United States against Asians.

While there hasn’t been any sweeping anti-immigrant legislation in Texas such as in California, there have been a number of bills proposed at the state level aimed at illegal immigration, as well as some ordinances at the local level.

“The discourse is so dominated by the issue of illegality that we overlook what a range of immigrants are doing and how they are contributing and becoming Americans, including the increasing importance of Asians in the political process,” Brettell says.

Other findings of the study:

First-generation immigrants viewed becoming a U.S. citizen distinct from becoming American.
Situation or context can determine identity, immigrants report. They feel American when they are at work, eating out at McDonald’s, celebrating Thanksgiving, engaged in American sports or politics, traveling with their U.S. passport, and back in their homeland, where they realize they are now different from people in their home country.
27 percent of Vietnamese fathers and 36 percent of Vietnamese mothers reported they rarely felt or identified as American, even though 76 percent of Vietnamese parents interviewed had become U.S. citizens. Some expressed that because they don’t look white, they’ll never be considered truly American. Some of the fathers had been soldiers and prisoners of war in their homeland, fleeing because of the Vietnam War.
More Vietnamese women than Indian women identify as American. Vietnamese women tend to work outside the home, while Indian women often stay at home, charged with sustaining the native culture.
Among first-generation Indian immigrants, 81 percent of fathers said they at least somewhat commonly identify themselves as American, compared to only 44 percent of mothers.
First-generation Indians and Vietnamese share ambivalence to the labels Asian and Asian American, citing vast differences between Asian countries, such as those created by historic animosities based on political repression. Their children, however, don’t reject those labels.
The children of immigrants are beginning to participate more directly in the American political process.
In DFW there are no clearly defined Vietnamese ethnic settlement enclaves, such as Little Saigon in Orange County, California. There are, however, spaces where immigrants interact, such as strip malls. Print and online ethnic newspapers are also important, particularly for Vietnamese immigrants, while radio media are important to the Indian community.
While some Americans want immigrants to speak English, the anthropologists found Vietnamese Americans who were sad their children weren’t fluent in Vietnamese.

“Both Indian and Vietnamese immigrants have learned to ‘talk the talk’ of civic engagement,” Brettell says, “as they refer to their ‘teamwork,’ ‘good neighborship,’ ‘giving back’ and ‘entering the mainstream’ — but they shape these to their own actions.” — Margaret Allen

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Researchers collaborate to study human-fire-climate interactions in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date September 28, 2011

Arizona, New Mexico Wildfires

Arizona’s Wallow fire, the largest in Arizona’s history, burned from May 29, 2011, to July 8, 2011, scorching more than 538,000 acres in northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico.
(Credit: U.S. Forest Service.)

An interdisciplinary team of researchers will examine how humans in the Southwest have responded to changes in the surrounding forests over multiple centuries. The research is funded by a four-year, $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

The project is about forest fire history, fuels and forests, how human activities have changed them, and the influence of drought and dry conditions, said Thomas W. Swetnam, co-principal investigator on the grant and director of the University of Arizona Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

The scientists are focusing on New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains, where native peoples lived within the ponderosa pine forest in significant numbers for centuries before Europeans came to North America.

Swetnam and Southern Methodist University fire anthropologist Christopher I. Roos will use tree-ring and archaeological methods to reveal the fire history of the forest and of the forest close to the human settlement sites. Roos, co-principal investigator, is an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

While fire is a natural part of the Southwest’s forests and grasslands, the region’s massive forest fires this year were exacerbated by decade-long drought. In addition, more people are living in or near fire-adapted ecosystems, increasing the likelihood that human activities will affect and be affected by forest fires.

“Humans and fire are interconnected all the way back to our beginnings,” said Swetnam.

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Christopher I. Roos in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News and Communications at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

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The team will study the interplay among human activities at the wildland-urban interface, climate change and fire-adapted pine forests.

“Drought and dry conditions are going to keep going on, so there’s an urgency in understanding what’s happening,” Swetnam said. “We’re seeking to know how we can live in these forests and these landscapes so they are more resilient in the face of climate change.”

Unprecedented approach to studying interaction of people, climate and fires
The team includes experts in tree-ring science, fire ecology and forest fire behavior, archaeology and anthropology, and education and outreach.

In addition to Roos, Swetnam’s co-principal investigators are T.J. Ferguson, a professor of practice in UA’s School of Anthropology; Sara Chavarria, director of outreach for UA’s College of Education; Robert Keane and Rachel Loehman of the USDA Forest Service’s Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory; and Matthew J. Liebmann of Harvard University’s department of anthropology.

The team’s research approach is unprecedented, Swetnam said. By studying how people and climate and fires have interacted in one place over long time scales, the researchers will learn something fundamental about how the people-fire-climate system works.

“What are the tipping points?” he said. “What amount of change with regard to fuel, forest densities, how often you burn it or don’t burn it, leads to forests that are sustained through time?”

Native American life in Jemez Mountains will provide clues to living in sustainable forests
In the Jemez, Native Americans moved from their forest homes during the Spanish period, returned after the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, and left again in the 1690s. Liebmann has conducted extensive archaeological studies of the sites where the Jemez people lived.

Comparing the forest-fire-climate-human interactions during times of high and low human habitation will provide clues for living within forests sustainably, Swetnam said.

Ferguson said, “We’re interested in how the ancient populations in the Jemez responded to fire. We’re melding together settlement patterns and fire patterns, mapping one against the other.”

Ferguson is partnering with John Welch, Simon Fraser University, and with four tribes in the region to gather traditional knowledge of how ancient peoples responded to forest fire and their uses of fire. The tribes are the Pueblo of Jemez, the Pueblo of Zuni, the Hopi Tribe and the White Mountain Apache Tribe. All the tribes have lived in ponderosa pine forests at some time in their history.

“Who better to tell us about the human response to fire than the people who have lived in the Southwest for thousands of years?” Ferguson said. “They have a lot to teach us.”

Keane and Loehman will incorporate the information gathered into dynamic computer models of fire behavior and landscape-fire interactions.

Chavarria will lead the project’s outreach effort. She will conduct workshops for local-area teachers and help them develop teaching materials about the nature of fire and forests in the local landscapes.

Community outreach will bring students and teachers to join scientists in the field
In the summer, local high school students and teachers will join the scientists in the field to help with the archaeological and tree-ring research. “Connecting with the high school students this way will expose them to research and to the idea of a career path that involves college,” Chavarria said.

The research project is a homecoming of sorts for Swetnam, who grew up in Jemez Springs, N.M. and spent much of his youth roaming the Jemez Mountains. His father was the U.S. Forest Service district ranger in Jemez Springs. Swetnam has conducted many research projects in the Jemez over the years.

“I grew up around archaeology and went to school with pueblo kids,” he said. “It’s a dream project for me. I hope this project will help me learn some social sciences and learn something from my former classmates and childhood friends.” — University of Arizona

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Christopher I. Roos, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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440-year-old parish survey by priest in Yucay Valley of Peru explains Inca decline under Spanish colonialism

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date June 7, 2011

440-year-old document sheds new light on native population decline under Spanish colonial rule

Analysis of a 440-year-old document that is a survey by a parish priest reveals new details about native population decline in the heart of the Inca Empire following Spanish conquest in the 16th century.

According to the new analysis, the native Andean population in the Yucay Valley of Peru showed a remarkable ability to bounce back in the short term from the disease, warfare, and famine that accompanied the initial Spanish invasion.

However, it was the repetition of such disasters generation after generation, along with overly rigid colonial administration, that dramatically reduced the population over the long term.

The research, by R. Alan Covey of Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Geoff Childs of Washington University in St. Louis, and Rebecca Kippen of the University of Melbourne, is published in the June issue of the journal Current Anthropology.

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1569 survey by parish priest supplies clues to rare snapshot
The analysis in the article “Dynamics of Indigenous Demographic Fluctuations: Lessons from Sixteenth-Century Cusco, Peru” is based on an unusually detailed survey of the native population taken by the valley’s parish priest in 1569 and copied by a royal official during a 1571 visit.

Most surviving Spanish documents recording native population from this time included only a few age and sex categories, but this one counted individual men, women, and children in more than 800 households. As such, it provides researchers with a rare snapshot of a rural native population under colonial rule, and sheds light on the demographic pressures they faced.

Several aspects of the census data are indicative of the hardships the native population faced, Covey and his team report. First, there were many more women than men aged 45 to 64, likely due to the most intense fighting of the first years of the colonial period, which occurred 20 years earlier. Second, there were noticeable declines in the male population in the 25-29 age cohort, some of which appear to be linked to high mortality rates for men forced to work in coca plantations. Third, there was a particularly small cohort of both boys and girls aged 10 to 14. Young children are especially susceptible to famine and epidemic disease, so the small cohort likely indicates that low fertility and high mortality were prevalent around the time these children were born.

Despite the obvious hardships, the census also shows that the population had begun to bounce back. The cohorts aged 0-4 and 5-9 were surprisingly large.

Hard evidence shows indigenous population decline not universal
“This is a key finding,” Covey said. “The identification of recovery fertility is something that previous researchers have suggested but had not been able to identify with hard evidence. It challenges the long-held assumption that indigenous populations in the Americas experienced universal and consistent processes of decline after contact with Europeans.”

In fact, the data suggest that from 1568 to 1570 the women in the population were producing more than enough daughters to replace themselves. “If mortality and fertility conditions remained constant over time, then this population would have grown,” the researchers write.

Unfortunately, a cascade of events beginning in 1580s proved too much to overcome.

In the latter part of the decade, new waves of epidemic disease swept across the region. It was also around this time that the small 10-14 cohort documented in the census reached its peak child-bearing years. Even if the fertility rate of the women in that cohort had remained high, its small size meant that those women would produce fewer children than their immediate predecessors. Epidemics hitting at the same time would have decreased fertility for this group and increased mortality among the young, magnifying what already would have been a significant demographic dip.

Then around 1614, when the children born in the 1580s were at their peak fertility ages, another wave of disease hit, likely producing another magnified dip.

Population levels in the region declined by about 40 percent over the course of a generation, from the 1570s to around 1600. Similar declines were seen across the Americas around this time, but varied according to local social and ecological conditions, Covey says.

Boom-n-bust cycles exacerbated Spanish colonial insensitivity
The Spanish colonial administrators were generally unwilling to adjust their tax and labor demands along with these changes in demographics. And they probably were unaware of the changes until they affected working-age men, because women and children received limited attention in most early colonial population surveys.

“At times, macrodemographic cycles would have placed significant burdens on indigenous communities, which in turn probably contributed to conditions (poverty, malnutrition) favoring the spread of epidemic disease and enhancing its morbidity,” the researchers conclude.

“While indigenous populations showed considerable resilience in the face of imperial transformation, we hypothesize that the boom-and-bust cycles created by pandemics and exacerbated by insensitive administration drove the long-term trend of population decline observed in the Yucay Valley and probably in other parts of the Cusco region.” — University of Chicago Press Journals

SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with Dr. Alan Covey or to book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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National Geographic: “Lost City Revealed Under Centuries of Jungle Growth”

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date April 27, 2011

Book a live interview

To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Brigitte Kovacevich in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

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Science journalist Ker Than interviewed SMU archaeologist Brigitte Kovacevich about her Maya research in Guatemala. His article “Lost City Revealed Under Centuries of Jungle Growth” published April 26 on the daily news web site of National Geographic.

Kovacevich, an assistant professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, is an expert in Meso-American cultures and co-leader of an international scientific team that has been granted permission by the Guatemalan government to work the site of Holtun, or “Head of Stone,” which has never before been excavated.

The archaeological team has made the first three-dimensional topographical map of the site’s ancient monumental buildings, long buried under centuries of jungle at the Maya location.

The map puts into 3-D perspective the location and size of Head of Stone’s many buildings and architectural patterns, which are typical of Maya sites: 70-foot-tall “triadic pyramid,” an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, numerous plazas and also residential mounds that would have been the homes of elites and commoners, says Kovacevich.

The map situates the primary buildings relative to one another and also places them within the context of the site’s hills and valleys in the Central Lakes agricultural region of north-central Guatemala.

EXCERPT:

Ker Than
for National Geographic News

Hidden for centuries, the ancient Maya city of Holtun, or Head of Stone, is finally coming into focus.

Three-dimensional mapping has “erased” centuries of jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented earlier this month.

Though it’s long been known to locals that something — something big — is buried in this patch of Guatemalan rain forest, it’s only now that archaeologists are able to begin teasing out what exactly Head of Stone was.

Using GPS and electronic distance-measurement technology last year, the researchers plotted the locations and elevations of a seven-story-tall pyramid, an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, several stone residences, and other structures.

The Maya Denver?
Some of the stone houses, said study leader Brigitte Kovacevich, may have doubled as burial chambers for the city’s early kings.

“Oftentimes archaeologists are looking at the biggest pyramids or temples to find the tombs of early kings, but during this Late-Middle Preclassic period” — roughly 600 B.C. to 300 B.C. — “the king is not the center of the universe yet, so he’s probably still being buried in the household,” said Kovacevich, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

Read the full story.

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CBC’s Quirks & Quarks: Recreating the Bamboo Age

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date April 18, 2011

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To book a live or taped interview with Metin I. Eren in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

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Canadian science journalist Bob McDonald interviewed SMU archaeologist Metin Eren for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Quirks & Quarks with Bob McDonald radio show.

Eren’s latest research tests the long-held theory that prehistoric humans in East Asia crafted tools from bamboo, which archaeologists in the past devised to explain a lack of evidence for advanced prehistoric stone tool-making processes. Eren research asked “Can complex bamboo tools even be made with simple stone tools?”

A modern-day flint knapper, Eren replicated the crafting of bamboo knives and confirmed that it is possible to make a variety of bamboo tools with the simplest stone tools. However, rather than confirming the long-held “bamboo hypothesis,” the new research shows there’s more to the theory, he says.

In “Recreating the Bamboo Age,” Eren explains how he made the bamboo tools and what he and his colleagues determined from the experiment.

Listen to the podcast.

EXCERPT:

Quirks & Quarks
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Prehistoric humans achieved a lot with stone tools, and some cultures developed them to the acme of refinement.

However, archeologists have been puzzled by the fact that in Southeast Asia, the stone tools they’ve found were universally simple and crude. Some have suggested that this was because early humans used flexible, plentiful bamboo instead, as their material for more sophisticated tools.

Experimental archeologist Metin Eren, a PhD at Southern Methodist University, had an opportunity to test this idea. Mr. Eren has spent years developing his skills as a flint-knapper — a maker of stone tools. He decided to try his hand at bamboo tool making. He rediscovered techniques that allowed him to make various bamboo implements, using a few simple rock edges to start the process.

He had great success making spears, and breaking down bamboo for weaving. However, his attempts to make a bamboo knife — an essential tool for early humans — were disappointing: the knives could be made very sharp indeed, but weren’t durable enough to be really useful.

Listen to the podcast.

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3-D mapping of Guatemala’s “Head of Stone” confirms ancient Maya buildings buried beneath forest cover

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date April 12, 2011

Mapping of Maya’s “Holtun” site in Central Lakes region of Guatemala locates triadic pyramid, astronomical observatory, ritual ball court, residential mounds, plazas

Archaeologists have made the first three-dimensional topographical map of ancient monumental buildings long buried under centuries of jungle at the Maya site “Head of Stone” in Guatemala.

The map puts into 3-D perspective the location and size of Head of Stone’s many buildings and architectural patterns, which are typical of Maya sites: 70-foot-tall “triadic pyramid,” an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, numerous plazas and also residential mounds that would have been the homes of elites and commoners, according to archaeologist Brigitte Kovacevich, Southern Methodist University, Dallas.

The map situates the primary buildings relative to one another and also places them within the context of the site’s hills and valleys in the Central Lakes agricultural region of north-central Guatemala.

The buildings date from 800 B.C. to 900 A.D., says Kovacevich, an expert in Meso-American cultures and co-leader of an international scientific team that has been granted permission by the Guatemalan government to work the site, which has never before been excavated.

Movement to understand early periods, how kingship developed
Known for its far-reaching state-level government, Maya civilization during the “Classic” period from 200 A.D. to 900 A.D. consisted of huge monumental cities with tens of thousands of people ruled by powerful kings, palaces, pyramidal temples and complex political and economic alliances, Kovacevich says.

The ancient culture at its peak during the Classic period has been well-documented by archaeologists studying the civilization’s large urban centers, such as Tikal, which was one of the most powerful and long-lasting of the Maya kingdoms.

In contrast, “Head of Stone,” called “Holtun” in Maya, is a modest site from the “Pre-Classic” period, 600 B.C. to 250 A.D., she says. The small city had no more than 2,000 people at its peak. Situated about 35 kilometers south of Tikal, “Head of Stone” in its heyday preceded the celebrated vast city-states and kingship culture for which the Maya are known.

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To book a live or taped interview with Dr. Brigitte Kovacevich in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

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By excavating a small city, Kovacevich says, the archaeologists hope to understand early Maya trade routes and alliances, the importance of ritual for developing political power, how political power emerged, and how kingship lines evolved and solidified.

“There is a movement toward a greater understanding of these early periods, with smaller sites and common people,” says Kovacevich, an assistant professor in SMU’s Anthropology Department. “Little is known about how kingship developed, how individuals grabbed political power within the society, how the state-level society evolved and why it then was followed by a mini-collapse between 100 A.D. and 250 A.D.”

Kovacevich presented “‘Head of Stone’: Archaeological Investigation at the Maya Site of Holtun, Guatemala” during the 76th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology in Sacramento, Calif., March 30 to April 3.

Besides Kovacevich, archaeologists on the team and co-authors of the paper are Michael G. Callaghan, University of Texas at Arlington; Patricia R. Castillo, Universidad San Carlos, Guatemala; and Rodrigo Guzman, Universidad del Valle, Guatemala. The 3-D topographic map expands surveys from 1995 and 2002 by Guatemalan archaeologist Vilma Fialko and Guatemala’s Institute of Anthropology and History, which were documented by Fialko and archaeologist Erick M. Ponciano.

Situated in a patch of rainforest on defensible escarpment
Head of Stone today sits in a patch of rainforest surrounded by cow pastures and cornfields on a limestone escarpment, which would have made it highly defensible, Kovacevich says.

Holtun’s structures — more than 100 of them — now are overgrown with a thin layer of centuries-old jungle foliage and soil. The site is about one kilometer long and half a kilometer wide, or almost three-quarters of a mile long and one-third of a mile wide. The large mounds protruding here and there from the jungle floor signal to archaeologists the familiar building arrangements customary at a Maya site, Kovacevich says.

As with most Maya sites, looters have tunneled into many of the important structures. Kovacevich and her colleagues will dig more tunnels to further explore the buildings with the help of Guatemalan experts skilled at working Maya sites.

Key structures: “E Group,” residential group
The 3-D mapping has confirmed an “E Group,” a key Maya architectural structure. Holtun’s “E Group” dates from 600 B.C. to 600 A.D. and consists of stair-step pyramids and elongated buildings that likely served as astronomical observatories central to Maya rituals. A stepped pyramid to the west of a long narrow building directly oriented north-south served as the observational structure and was related to veneration of sacred ancestors, Kovacevich says.

“From the observational structure you can see the sun rising at the different solstices throughout the year, which is very important agriculturally, to know the timing of the seasons and when to plant and when to harvest,” she says. “So the people creating this are harnessing that knowledge to show their followers and constituents that they possibly are even controlling the change of seasons.”

Adjacent to the “E Group” are four structures that face one another around a central patio. The pattern usually indicates a residential group, where cooking and food processing were carried out on the patio, Kovacevich says.

“The closeness of the residential structure to the “E Group” suggests these were very early elites, and possibly kings,” she says. “Kingship was just being established during this period.”

The Maya often left offerings to their ancestors, such as jade or ceramics, at the base of structures.

Triadic pyramid represents Maya mythology?
Besides the “E Group,” a triadic pyramid dating from 300 B.C. to 300 A.D. sits at the north end of the site. As is typical at Maya sites, three pyramids about 10 feet tall sit atop a high platform that rises about 60 feet from the jungle floor, Kovacevich says. One of the pyramids faces south, flanked on either side by the other two, which face inward around a central patio. The platform sits atop — and obscures — an earlier sub-structure platform, buried underground and decorated with monumental masks that are visible from the looters’ tunnels.

“Some archaeologists argue that this configuration represents elements of Maya mythology: the three hearthstones of creation that were set down by the gods to create the first home and hearth, thereby civilizing humanity,” Kovacevich says. “Re-creation of that by the people at Holtun would show piousness and connection to ancestors.”

During the Classic period, kings were typically buried in Maya pyramids. During the Pre-Classic period, however, that isn’t the case and they were typically buried in their residence. It’s possible an early king of Holtun was buried in one of the residential structures, Kovacevich says.

“Ancestors are buried beneath the floor and kept very close and venerated,” she says. “The more ancestors a residence has, the more times the family redoes their floor, making a new floor, and so their mound gets higher and higher. A person with more ties, more ancestors, has more status.”

Another familiar structure is a ball court, signified by two long mounds that are exactly parallel, said Kovacevich.

“Those are the two sides of the ball court, and the ball would have been bounced in the center off of the sides,” she said. “Almost all Maya sites had a ball court.”

The team’s Holtun excavation is scheduled to start this summer. Funding is from the Institute for the Study of Earth and Man, the Downey Family Fund for Faculty Excellence and SMU. — Margaret Allen

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility on campus for live TV, radio or online interviews. To speak with Dr. Kovacevich or to book her in the SMU studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

Tags Brigitte Kovacevich, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family Fossils & Ruins Slideshows

Modern-day bamboo tool-making shines light on scarcity of Stone Age tools from prehistoric East Asia

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date April 7, 2011

Bamboo knives are easy to make — and will cut meat, but not hides, suggesting prehistoric people preferred crudely made stone flakes

The long-held theory that early human ancestors in East Asia crafted their tools from bamboo and wood is much more complicated than originally conceived, according to a new study.

Research until now has failed to address a fundamental question: Is it even possible to make complex bamboo tools with simple stone tools?

Now an experimental archaeological study — in which a modern-day flint knapper replicated the crafting of bamboo knives — confirms that it is possible to make a variety of bamboo tools with the simplest stone tools.

However, rather than confirming the long-held “bamboo hypothesis,” the new research shows there’s more to the theory, says archaeologist Metin I. Eren, the expert knapper who crafted the tools for the study.

Study: Bamboo knives were efficiently crafted and able to cut meat, but not hide

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The researchers found that crudely knapped stone choppers made from round rock “cobbles” performed remarkably well for chopping down bamboo. In addition, bamboo knives were efficiently crafted with stone tools.

While the knives easily cut meat, they weren’t effective at cutting animal hides, however, possibly discouraging their use during the Stone Age, say the authors. Some knives made from a softer bamboo species entirely failed to produce and hold a sharp edge.

“The ‘bamboo hypothesis’ has been around for quite awhile, but was always represented simply, as if all bamboo species, and bamboo tool-making were equal,” says Eren, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “Our research does not debunk the idea that prehistoric people could have made and used bamboo implements, but instead suggests that upon arriving in East and Southeast Asia they probably did not suddenly start churning out all of their tools on bamboo raw materials either.”

The findings appear online in the article “Were Bamboo Tools Made in Prehistoric Southeast Asia? An Experimental View from South China,” which will be published in an issue of the journal Quaternary International, edited by Parth Chauhan and Rajeev Parnaik.

“The importance of experimental archaeology, of replicating the production of bamboo tools with simple stone artifacts, was needed for a long time. Due to successful cooperation in every stage of the experiments with our Chinese colleagues, we managed to demonstrate the potential of a simple stone tool technology to produce many different daily tools made of bamboo,” said archaeologist and lead author Ofer Bar-Yosef, professor of Stone Age archaeology at Harvard University.

In addition to Bar-Yosef and Eren, co-authors were archaeologists Jiarong Yuan and Yiyuan Li of Hunan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics; and archaeologist David J. Cohen of Boston University.

Poor diversity of prehistoric stone tools in Southeast Asia
As in Africa, previous fossil discoveries in East Asia have indicated that early human ancestors continuously inhabited those regions for as much as 1.6 million years. Unlike Africa and western Eurasia, however, where stone tools show increasing and decreasing complexity, East Asia’s stone tools remain relatively simple.

Researchers know that simple flaked “cobble” industries existed in some parts of the vast East and Southeast Asia region, which includes present-day China, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, parts of Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, East Timor and Vietnam. Stone tool discoveries there have been limited to a few hand axes, cleavers and choppers flaked on one side, however, indicating a lack of more advanced stone tool-making processes, innovation and diversity found elsewhere, say the authors.

The lack of complex prehistoric stone tool technologies has remained a mystery. Some researchers have concluded that prehistoric people in East Asia must have instead crafted and used tools made of bamboo — a resource that was readily available to them.

Scientists suggest several reasons for missing stone tool industry
Scientists have hypothesized various explanations for the lack of complex stone tools in East and Southeast Asia. On one hand, it’s been suggested that human ancestors during the early Stone Age left Africa with rudimentary tools and were then cut-off culturally once they reached East Asia, creating a cultural backwater.

Others have suggested a lack of appropriate stone raw materials in East and Southeast Asia. In the new study, however, Bar-Yosef, Eren and colleagues showed otherwise by demonstrating that more complex stone tools could be manufactured on stone perceived to be “poor” in quality.

Studies set out to test “bamboo theory” by replicating stone tools
Prolific in East and Southeast Asia, bamboo stands grow fast and thick, reaching maturity in 5 to 7 years and totaling more than 1,000 species, the authors say.

In a 2007 pilot study and a 2008 expanded study the authors worked with the Archaeological Field Research Station of the Hunan Provincial Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics in Shimen, China. Experiments were carried out in three locations across Hunan province known to possess clusters of Paleolithic sites.

The researchers gathered different kinds of cobble-sized rocks along the banks of the Li, Wu and Xiao Shui rivers, similar to those that would have been available to prehistoric human ancestors.

From those rocks, Eren easily replicated flake tools and stone choppers, some of them flaked on one side and some flaked on two sides. The team then observed a local bamboo toolmaker — who used metal tools to easily slice the bamboo — to learn techniques for sawing, shaving, splitting, peeling and chopping bamboo.

Stone tools efficiently chopped down bamboo stalks and produced knives
Using the crudely knapped stone choppers, the researchers in 84 minutes chopped down 14 bamboo stalks representing five species. When cut, the stalks, both small and large in diameter, totaled more than 65 meters in length. The stone tools performed remarkably well for that purpose, the authors write. That was especially true, they said, considering the tools were wielded by two modern people who were inexperienced with chopping bamboo, researchers Eren and Li. But Eren sometimes found himself scrambling up trees to release felled bamboo wedged in branches.

After numerous trials, the researchers developed a simple “bamboo knife reduction sequence” that could produce 20 sharp, durable bamboo knives in about five hours. Using pork purchased from a local market, the researchers write, they found that the knives easily cut meat, but not hide.

In other findings, the authors write that with a simple stone unifacial chopper, Bar-Yosef was able in 30 minutes to easily make a sharp spear that would have been capable of killing an animal. Also, using the replicated stone tools they were able to produce strips of bamboo thin enough for weaving baskets. “For some items, like baskets, bamboo might have been an ideal raw material,” Eren said.

“But one is left to wonder, at least for butchery tasks, why a prehistoric person would go to the trouble of producing a bamboo knife when a stone flake would certainly do the trick,” the authors write.

Unprecedented study confronts long-standing assumption
“The so-called bamboo hypothesis, to explain the virtual absence of complex prehistoric stone tool technologies in eastern and southeastern Asia, has been often cited but always remained somewhat ambiguous,” said Chauhan, co-editor of the Quaternary International issue in which the article will be published. “This unprecedented experimental study by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Metin Eren and colleagues represents a first step in the right direction, to confront a long-standing assumption about early human technological adaptations.”

Funding for the research was provided by the American School of Prehistoric Research, Harvard University; a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; and the Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University.

SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smuresearch.com. Follow SMU Research on Twitter, @smuresearch.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with Metin Eren or book him in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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Culture, Society & Family Economics & Statistics Researcher news SMU In The News

Dallas Morning News: Texas interstates driving economy, growth

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 22, 2011

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SMU cultural anthropologist Caroline B. Brettell is quoted in the March 6, 2011 issue of the Dallas Morning News in the section “From the Front Page,” an in-depth look at the news.

The article by reporters Michael E. Young and Ryan McNeill, “Texas interstates driving economy, growth” discusses a geographic analysis of the state’s population by the Dallas Morning News and how the major interstates are driving change and urbanization.

Brettell, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, comments on the new model of urbanism with multiple centers.

Full story available to DMN subscribers.

EXCERPT:

By Michael E. Young and Ryan McNeill
Dallas Morning News

… Caroline Brettell, a professor of anthropology at Southern Methodist University, said the cities came first, but the interstates helped them to grow.

Now it’s all about the nodes at the ends of those highways,” she said. “That’s where the jobs are.”

Looking across the Dallas area, she pointed out places like State Highway 114 in Irving, the corporate offices edging the Dallas North Tollway in Collin County, and the growth in upscale suburbs like Southlake.

“We’re seeing these polycentric metropolitan areas now — the new model of urbanism with multiple centers,” Brettell said. “So cities look very different. For Dallas, this is something that has happened over the last 30 years. And it’s a problem for urban cores, because the dynamism has moved out and around the city center.”

It’s the highways, she said, that link everything together.

Full story available to DMN subscribers.

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Culture, Society & Family Health & Medicine Mind & Brain Researcher news SMU In The News

Discovery News: Henry VIII’s eccentricities possibly explained

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 11, 2011

Emily Sohn, science writer for the Discovery News Online Blog, covered the research of bioarcheologist Catarina Whitley on King Henry VIII. Whitley, who completed her research at SMU and now works for the Museum of New Mexico, asserts that the former British monarch could have had a rare blood type that caused reproductive issues, as well as major physical and mental illness.

Henry VIII has been a widely studied character, even more than 500 years after his death. He is most known for his six wives — two of whom he had beheaded — and for leading the separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. He is said to have undergone a major personality shift and put on hundreds of pounds in his midlife. Despite numerous attempts, Henry VIII was not able to produce any male offspring.

Whitley suggests the reproduction issues may have been caused by a rare blood type, called Kell positive. Kell negative females have problems bearing children from Kell positive men because their immune systems attack the fetus.

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In addition, Whitley says Henry VIII may have suffered from a rare genetic disorder called McLeod syndrome, which causes heart disease and major psychological issues, including paranoia and general mental decline.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:

By Emily Sohn
Discovery News Online
Among a long list of personality quirks and historical drama, Henry VIII is known for the development of health problems in mid-life and a series of miscarriages for two of his wives. In a new study, researchers propose that Henry had an X-linked genetic disorder and a rare blood type that could explain many of his problems.

By suggesting biological causes for significant historical events, the study offers new ways to think about the infamous life of the notorious 16th-century British monarch, said Catarina Whitley, a bioarchaeologist who completed the research while at Southern Methodist University.

“What really made us look at Henry was that he had more than one wife that had obstetrical problems and a bad obstetrical history,” said Whitley, now with the Museum of New Mexico. “We got to thinking: Could it be him?”

Plenty of historians have written about Henry’s health problems. As a young man, he was fit and healthy. But by the time of his death, the King weighed close to 400 pounds. He had leg ulcers, muscle weakness, and, according to some accounts, a significant personality shift in middle age towards more paranoia, anxiety, depression and mental deterioration.

Among other theories, experts have proposed that Henry suffered from Type II diabetes, syphilis, an endocrine problem called Cushing’s syndrome, or myxedema, which is a byproduct of hypothyroidism.

All of those theories have flaws, Whitley said, and none address the monarch’s reproductive woes. Two of his six wives — Ann Boleyn and Katherine of Aragon — are thought to have suffered multiple miscarriages, often in the third trimester.

To explain those patterns, Whitley and colleague Kyra Kramer offer a new theory: Henry may have belonged to a rare blood group, called Kell positive. Only 9 percent of the Caucasian population belongs to this group.

Read the full story.

Tags Catrina Banks Whitley, Dedman College, SMU Department of Anthropology

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Culture, Society & Family

Anthropologists link human uniqueness to hunter-gatherer group structure seen in present-day foraging societies

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 10, 2011

Human hunter-gatherer group structure is unique among primates, according to new research by anthropologists who studied data from 5,000 individuals in 32 present-day foraging societies.

One of the most complex human mysteries involves how and why we became an outlier species in terms of biological success.

Research findings published in the March 11 edition of the journal Science by an international team of noted anthropologists who study hunter-gatherer societies, are informing the issue by suggesting that human ancestral social structure may be the root of cumulative culture and cooperation and, ultimately, human uniqueness, according to SMU anthropologist Thomas N. Headland and his co-authors on the study.

“We are not saying here that present-day hunter-gatherer societies are fossilized remnants from the stone age,” said Headland, an adjunct professor in the Department of Anthropology at SMU. “We are suggesting, however, that 20th century foraging societies may give us a keyhole glimpse into how our ancient ancestors may have lived in prehistory, and how they even thrived under a foraging lifestyle.”

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Humans have lived as hunter-gatherers for 95 percent of the species’ history, so current foraging societies provide the best window for viewing human social evolution, according to the authors. Given that, the researchers focused on co-residence patterns among thousands of individuals from present-day foraging societies around the globe. Those societies include the Gunwinggu, Labrador Inuit, Mbuti, Apache, Aka, Ache, Agta and Vedda.

“We are also suggesting,” Headland said, “that the unique style of co-residence we find in so many hunter-gatherer societies today may provide clues into some aspects of early human cultural evolution — certain adaptive behaviors that helped Homo sapiens to be so biologically successful because of a unique group structure that emphasized cooperation among band groups.”

Lead authors on the study were Kim Hill, Arizona State University, and Robert Walker, University of Missouri. Other researchers included: Miran Bozicevic, James Eder and Ana Magdalena Hurtado, Arizona State; Barry Hewlett, Hawassa University, Ethiopia, and Washington State University; Frank Marlowe, Durham University, U.K.; Polly Wiessner, University of Utah; and Brian Wood, Stanford University.

Their finding showed that across all groups, adult brothers and sisters frequently live together, making it common for male in-laws to co-reside. They also found that it was equally common for males or females to move from or remain with family units. This is in contrast to other primate species, where either males or females move to another group at puberty.

A major point in the study is that foraging bands contain several individuals completely unconnected by kinship or marriage ties, yet include males with a vested interest in the offspring of daughters, sisters and wives. This organization mitigates the group hostility frequently seen in other apes and also promotes interaction among residential groups, thereby leading to the development of a large social network.

“The increase in human network size over other primates may explain why humans evolved an emphasis on social learning that results in cultural transmission,” said Hill. “Likewise, the unique composition of human ancestral groups promotes cooperation among large groups of non-kin, something extremely rare in nature.”

The group’s findings appear in the paper “Co-Residence Patterns in Hunter-Gatherer Societies Show Unique Human Social Structure.” It is the first published analyses of adult co-residence patterns in hunter-gatherer societies based on census data rather than post-marital residence typologies, Hill noted. — Arizona State University

SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools.

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Culture, Society & Family Health & Medicine

Blood group anomaly could explain Tudor king’s reproductive problems and tyrannical behavior

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date March 7, 2011

Blood group incompatibility between Henry VIII and his wives could have driven the Tudor king’s reproductive woes, and a genetic condition related to his suspected blood group could also explain Henry’s dramatic mid-life transformation into a physically and mentally-impaired tyrant who executed two of his wives.

Research conducted by bioarchaeologist Catrina Banks Whitley while she was a graduate student at SMU and anthropologist Kyra Kramer shows that the numerous miscarriages suffered by Henry’s wives could be explained if the king’s blood carried the Kell antigen. A Kell-negative woman who has multiple pregnancies with a Kell-positive man can produce a healthy, Kell-positive child in a first pregnancy; But the antibodies she produces during that first pregnancy will cross the placenta and attack a Kell-positive fetus in subsequent pregnancies.

As published in The Historical Journal (Cambridge University Press), the pattern of Kell blood group incompatibility is consistent with the pregnancies of Henry’s first two wives, Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn.

If Henry also suffered from McLeod syndrome, a genetic disorder specific to the Kell blood group, it would finally provide an explanation for his shift in both physical form and personality.

Henry VIII went from being a strong, athletic, generous individual in his first 40 years to the monstrous paranoiac he would become, virtually immobilized by massive weight gain and leg ailments.

“It is our assertion that we have identified the causal medical condition underlying Henry’s reproductive problems and psychological deterioration,” write Whitley and Kramer.

Henry married six women, two of whom he famously executed, and broke England’s ties with the Catholic Church — all in pursuit of a marital union that would produce a male heir.

Historians have long debated theories of illness and injury that might explain the physical deterioration and frightening, tyrannical behavior that he began to display after his 40th birthday. Less attention has been given to the unsuccessful pregnancies of his wives in an age of primitive medical care and poor nutrition and hygiene, and authors Whitley and Kramer argue against the persistent theory that syphilis may have been a factor.

A Kell-positive father frequently is the cause behind the inability of his partner to bear a healthy infant after the first Kell-negative pregnancy, which the authors note is precisely the circumstance experienced with women who had multiple pregnancies by Henry. The majority of individuals within the Kell blood group are Kell negative, so it is the rare Kell-positive father that creates reproductive problems.

Further supporting the Kell theory, descriptions of Henry in mid-to-late life indicate he suffered many of the physical and cognitive symptoms associated with McLeod syndrome — a medical condition that can occur in members of the Kell positive blood group.

Inability to walk consistent with McLeod syndrome
By middle age, the King suffered from chronic leg ulcers, fueling longstanding historical speculation that he suffered from type II diabetes. The ulcers also could have been caused by osteomyelitis, a chronic bone infection that would have made walking extremely painful.

In the last years of his life, Henry’s mobility had deteriorated to the point that he was carried about in a chair with poles. That immobility is consistent with a known McLeod syndrome case in which a patient began to notice weakness in his right leg when he was 37, and atrophy in both his legs by age 47, the report notes.

Whitley and Kramer argue that the Tudor king could have been suffering from medical conditions such as these in combination with McLeod syndrome, aggravated by his obesity. Records do not indicate whether Henry displayed other physical signs of McLeod syndrome, such as sustained muscle contractions (tics, cramps or spasms) or an abnormal increase in muscle activity such as twitching or hyperactivity.

But the dramatic changes in his personality provide stronger evidence that Henry had McLeod syndrome, the authors point out: His mental and emotional instability increased in the dozen years before death to an extent that some have labeled his behavior psychotic.

McLeod syndrome resembles Huntington’s disease, which affects muscle coordination and causes cognitive disorder. McLeod symptoms usually begin to develop when an individual is between 30 and 40 years old, often resulting in damage to the heart muscle, muscular disease, psychiatric abnormality and motor nerve damage. Henry VIII experienced most, if not all, of these symptoms, the authors found.

Fetal mortality, not infertility is the Kell legacy
Henry was nearly 18 when he married 23-year-old Catherine of Aragon. Their first daughter, a girl, was stillborn. Their second child, a boy, lived only 52 days.

Four other confirmed pregnancies followed during the marriage but three of the offspring were either stillborn or died shortly after birth. Their only surviving child was Mary, who would eventually be crowned the fourth Monarch in the Tudor dynasty.

The precise number of miscarriages endured by Henry’s reproductive partners is difficult to determine, especially when various mistresses are factored in, but the king’s partners had a total of at least 11 and possibly 13 or more pregnancies. Only four of the eleven known pregnancies survived infancy.

Whitley and Kramer call the high rate of spontaneous late-term abortion, stillbirth, or rapid neonatal death suffered by Henry’s first two queens “an atypical reproductive pattern” because, even in an age of high child mortality, most women carried their pregnancies to term, and their infants usually lived long enough to be christened.

The authors explain that if a Kell-positive father impregnates a Kell-negative mother, each pregnancy has a 50-50 chance of being Kell positive. The first pregnancy typically carries to term and produces a healthy infant, even if the infant is Kell positive and the mother is Kell negative. But the mother’s subsequent Kell-positive pregnancies are at risk because the mother’s antibodies will attack the Kell-positive fetus as a foreign body.

Any baby that is Kell negative will not be attacked by the mother’s antibodies and will carry to term if otherwise healthy.

“Although the fact that Henry and Katherine of Aragon’s firstborn did not survive is somewhat atypical, it is possible that some cases of Kell sensitization affect even the first pregnancy,” the report notes.

Anne Boleyn pregnancies were textbook example

The survival of Mary, the fifth pregnancy for Katherine of Aragon, fits the Kell scenario if Mary inherited the recessive Kell gene from Henry, resulting in a healthy infant. Anne Boleyn’s pregnancies were a textbook example of Kell alloimmunization with a healthy first child and subsequent late-term miscarriages. Jane Seymour had only one child before her death, but that healthy firstborn also is consistent with a Kell positive father.

Several of Henry’s male maternal relatives followed the Kell positive reproductive pattern.

“We have traced the possible transmission of the Kell positive gene from Jacquetta of Luxembourg, the king’s maternal great-grandmother,” the report explains. “The pattern of reproductive failure among Jacquetta’s male descendants, while the females were generally reproductively successful, suggests the genetic presence of the Kell phenotype within the family.”

Catrina Banks Whitley is a research associate in the Office of Archaeological Studies at the Museum of New Mexico. Anthropologist Kyra Kramer is an independent researcher. — Kim Cobb

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SMU is a nationally ranked private university in Dallas founded 100 years ago. Today, SMU enrolls nearly 11,000 students who benefit from the academic opportunities and international reach of seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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LA Times: Ancestors may have left Africa earlier than thought

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date January 28, 2011

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Major news outlets around the world covered the announcement Jan. 27 of important new research findings that significantly shift the date for migration of human ancestors out of Africa. The announcement was made by a team of archaeologists that included Anthony Marks, SMU professor emeritus in the Department of Anthropology, who analyzed the evidence for the finding, Paleolithic stone tools.

In a story by the Los Angeles Times, Marks is quoted as saying the tools are the “first material evidence” that people ventured out of Africa 60,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Read the LA Times story.

EXCERPT:

By Amina Khan /
Los Angeles Times
Some unlikely tools unearthed near the Persian Gulf show that our ancestors may have migrated far out of Africa as early as 125,000 years ago — about 60,000 years earlier than was previously believed.

The finding, published online Thursday in the journal Science, also provides evidence that early humans took a different route during their migration than scientists had assumed: crossing eastward, directly into southern Arabia from East Africa, rather than following the Nile northward to the northwestern edge of Arabia.

It is the “first material evidence” that people ventured well out of Africa so long ago, during the Pleistocene, said study coauthor Anthony Marks, a professor emeritus of anthropology with Southern Methodist University who is based in Santa Fe, N.M. Though evidence had earlier been found of humans in Israel dating to about 100,000 years ago, he added, those people did not appear to travel more than “three days walk” out of Africa and probably did not venture farther.

The newly discovered tools, by contrast, were found on the eastern coast of Arabia just miles from the northwestern tip of the Indian Ocean — indicating that humans traveled across the Arabian peninsula.

Anatomically modern humans — humans who looked like they do today — evolved in Africa sometime around 200,000 years ago but didn’t leave that continent until much later, research suggests.

In the new paper, an international team of researchers reported finding artifacts — hand axes, leaf-shaped blades and other stone tools — during excavation at a rock shelter on the northeastern end of Jebel Faya, a 6-mile-long limestone mountain in the United Arab Emirates.

They dated the artifacts pulled from the lowest, and thus the oldest, of three layers of dirt to about 125,000 years ago.

Read the full story.

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Reuters
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The Washington Post
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New findings reveal that modern humans left Africa much earlier than previously thought

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date January 27, 2011

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Mathematical Equation Calculates Cost of Walking for First Time

Evidence weak for tropical rainforest 65 million years ago in Africa’s low-latitudes

An international team of scientists, including Anthony Marks, professor emeritus at Southern Methodist Univeristy, have rejected the existing view that modern humans left Africa around 70,000 years ago. Their data reveal that humans left Africa at least 50,000 years earlier than previously suggested and were, in fact, present in eastern Arabia as early as 125,000 years ago.

These “anatomically modern” humans — you and me — had evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and subsequently populated the rest of the world.

The new study is “Did Modern Humans Travel Out of Africa Via Arabia?” It was published in the journal Science and reports findings from an eight-year archaeological excavation at Jebel Faya in the United Arab Emirates. The project, led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard-Karls-University, Tubingen, Germany, reached Palaeolithic levels in 2006.

Palaeolithic stone tools were technologically similar to tools from east Africa
SMU’s Marks and Vitaly Usik, National Academy of Sciences, Kiev, Ukraine, analyzed the Palaeolithic stone tools found at the site and discovered that they were technologically similar to tools produced by early modern humans in east Africa, but very different from those produced to the north, in the Levant and the mountains of Iran. This suggested that early modern humans migrated into Arabia directly from Africa and not via the Nile Valley and the Near East as is usually suggested.

The direct route from east Africa to Jebel Faya crosses the southern Red Sea and the flat, waterless Nejd Plateau of the southern Arabian interior, both of which represent major obstacles to human migration. However, Adrian Parker, Oxford Brookes University, studied sea-level and climate change records for the region and concluded that the direct migration route may have been passable for brief periods in the past.

During Ice Ages, large amounts of water are stored on land as ice, causing global sea-levels to fall. At these times, the Bab al-Mandab seaway of the southern Red Sea narrows considerably, making it easier to cross.

Lower sea level made more direct route possible
Natural climate changes at the end of Ice Ages cause rainfall over the Nejd Plateau to increase, making the area habitable.

“By 130,000 years ago, sea-level was still about 100 meters lower than at present while the Nejd Plateau was already passable,” Parker said. “There was a brief period where modern humans may have been able to use the direct route from east Africa to Jebel Faya.”

Armitage calculated the age of the stone tools at Jebel Faya using a technique called luminescence dating. His ages revealed that modern humans were at Jebel Faya by around 125,000 years ago, immediately after the period in which the Bab al-Mandab seaway and Nejd Plateau were passable.

“Archaeology without ages is like a jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed — you have lots of individual pieces of information but you can’t fit them together to produce the big picture,” Armitage said.

At Jebel Faya, the ages reveal a fascinating picture in which modern humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations in sea-level and climate change in the Arabian peninsula. These findings will stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which modern humans became a global species.

Author Information
The work at Jebel Faya was directed by Hans-Peter Uerpmann and co-directed by Margarethe Uerpmann of the Centre for Scientific Archaeology at Eberhard-Karls-University Tubingen, and Sabah Jasim, Directorate of Antiquities, Department of Culture and Information, Government of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Palaeolithic artefact analysis was carried out by Anthony Marks and Vitaly Usik. Paleoenvironmental analysis was carried out by Adrian Parker and luminescence dates were calculated by Simon Armitage.

Funding for work at Jebel Faya was provided by the Government of Sharjah, the ROCEEH project (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences), Humboldt Foundation, Oxford Brookes University and the German Science Foundation.

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Archaeology: “Undiscovery of Year” to Meltzer for refuting comet theory

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date January 4, 2011

Archaeology magazine, published by the Archaeological Institute of America, recognized
SMU archaeologist David Meltzer and his colleague Vance Holliday of the University of Arizona for their “undiscovery” that the important ancient Clovis culture didn’t die out from the impact of a comet.

Melter and Holliday, who published their research in the October issue of Current Anthropology, challenged the controversial theory that the impact of an ancient comet devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America.

Nothing in the archaeological record suggests an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations, said Meltzer and Holliday.

“Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record,” the researchers wrote in their article. “In so far as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist.”

Their point-by-point refutation was awarded the “Undiscovery of the Year” by Archaeology as part of the magazine’s list of Top 10 Discoveries of 2010.

EXCERPT:

By Zach Zorich
Archaeology Magazine
It’s commonly believed that North America’s Clovis culture came to an end around 12,900 years ago, when their characteristic spear points disappeared from the archaeological record. At the same time a number of large animal species such as mammoths and saber-toothed tigers became extinct. In 2006, a team led by geologist Richard Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory put forth a theory that a comet struck the Earth around this time, engulfing the continent in forest fires and causing the mass extinctions as well as the demise of the Clovis culture. They deduced this from the existence of a one-millimeter-thick soil layer at several Clovis sites that contains a high concentration of particles that appear to have extraterrestrial origins.

Read the full story.

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Live Science: Archaeologist Recreates Stone Age Technology

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date November 15, 2010

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To book a live or taped interview with Metin I. Eren in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email SMU News at news@smu.edu.

Related links

National Geographic: “Trampling Skews Artifact Dates by Thousands of Years? Animals push human tools into ground — and back in time, study says,”
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Journal of Archaeological Science: “Experimental Examination of Animal Trampling Effects on Artifact Movement in Dry and Water Saturated Substrates: A Test Case from South India”
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Live Science is featuring an interview with Metin I. Eren, a Ph.D. candidate in the SMU Department of Anthropology.

In the November 12 piece, “Science Lives: Archaeologist Recreates Stone Age Technology,” Eren answers the ScienceLives 10 Questions to elaborate on his expertise in Stone Age archaeology, human evolution and experimental archaeology. An expert flintknapper, Eren can accurately replicate prehistoric stone-tool technology to investigate prehistoric tool efficiency, design and production.

Read Eren’s answers to the ScienceLives 10 Questions.

EXCERPT:

Live Science
Metin I. Eren is a Ph.D. candidate in Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. His areas of expertise include Stone Age archaeology, human evolution and experimental archaeology. He is an expert flintknapper, which means he can accurately replicate prehistoric stone-tool technology. Through his experimental research and that of his colleagues, researchers have investigated Neanderthal tool efficiency and design; prehistoric bamboo tool production in China; and how animal trampling in India may disturb buried artifacts, potentially biasing subsequent interpretation. His research currently involves how prehistoric humans colonized unfamiliar landscapes. By focusing upon the Pleistocene colonization of the North American Lower Great Lakes region eleven thousand years ago, he is exploring what sort of behaviors and technology people used to successfully adapt to, and eventually settle into, an uncharted Ice Age landscape. Read his answers to the ScienceLives 10 Questions below.

This ScienceLives article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Name: Metin I. Eren
Age: 27
Institution: Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX
Field of Study: Human Evolution and Experimental Archaeology

What inspired you to choose this field of study?
Human evolution is the study of us — where our species came from, and where we are going. By studying how we evolved, we can better understand how we fit into nature and how we are connected to it, and to each other. Having the chance to contribute pieces to the human story through scientific practice was simply an opportunity I could not pass up.

Though I started working on archaeological excavations when I was 16 years old, I realized in college that to get a more complete picture of the past I should learn how to make prehistoric tools. By knowing how to make replica tools, experimental archaeologists can conduct tests that otherwise would not be possible to conduct on real (and priceless!) artifacts, such as how well they work for hunting or butchery, or how durable they are when we try to break them. So, over many years I learned the very difficult craft of “flintknapping,” which is the process of flaking stone to make tools. Since stone tools make up 99.9 percent of the artifacts we find during the Stone Age, which is the longest archaeological period in our evolution (2.6 million years!), experimental archaeology can contribute many pieces to the study of human evolution, behavior, and technology.

What is the best piece of advice you ever received?
I’ve been really fortunate to always be surrounded by people who look out for my well-being, and so it is really hard to pick just one piece of advice. However, there are two quotes that I keep in the back of my mind when it comes to my life and career in science.

(1) From my parents, quoting John F. Kennedy: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”

(2) From my Ph.D. advisor, Professor David Meltzer: “Don’t stop pedaling.”

What was your first scientific experiment as a child?
Though I had been on numerous excavations as a teenager, I did not conduct my first true archaeological “experiment” until my third-year in college. While writing my senior honors thesis it sort of hit me that the method I was using to measure artifacts did not really get at the information I was really interested in. So with the help of my dear friend and colleague Professor Manuel Dominguez-Rodrigo (Complutense University, Spain) I devised an appropriate method which we tested on experimental stone tools. We ended up publishing the new method in a top-tier archaeology journal.

What is your favorite thing about being a researcher?
The idea of contributing to knowledge has always inspired me. Being a scientific researcher allows me to do that. I also love to travel and explore — archaeology in particular lets me to do that. Between field work and conferences I have traveled around the world, from the most remote locations to the biggest cities.

Read the full article on Eren’s answers to the ScienceLives 10 Questions.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with Metin I. Eren or to book a live or taped interview in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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Earth & Climate Fossils & Ruins

Scientists issue call to action for archaeological sites threatened by rising seas, urban development

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date November 11, 2010

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To book a live or taped interview with Leslie Reeder in the SMU News Broadcast Studio call SMU News at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

Should global warming cause sea levels to rise as predicted in coming decades, thousands of archaeological sites in coastal areas around the world will be lost to erosion.

With no hope of saving all of these sites, archaeologists Leslie Reeder of Southern Methodist University, Torben Rick from the Smithsonian Institution, and Jon Erlandson of the University of Oregon have issued a call to action for scientists to assess the sites most at risk.

Writing in the Journal of Coastal Conservation and using California’s Santa Barbara Channel as a case study, the researchers illustrate how quantifiable factors such as historical rates of shoreline change, wave action, coastal slope and shoreline geomorphology can be used to develop a scientifically sound way of measuring the vulnerability of individual archaeological sites.

They then propose developing an index of the sites most at risk so informed decisions can be made about how to preserve or salvage them.

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Urban development, the researchers point out, also is a significant threat to the loss of archaeological data. Coastlines have long been magnets of human settlement and contain a rich array of ancient archaeological sites, many of which have never been excavated. Urban development is projected to remain high in coastal areas, representing a significant danger to undisturbed sites.

Thousands of archaeological sites — from large villages and workshops to fragmented shell middens and lithic scatters — are perched on the shorelines and sea cliffs of the Santa Barbara Channel, the researchers point out. The archaeological record is never static, and the materials left behind by one generation are altered by the people and environment of the next. However, increasing threats from modern urban development, sea level rise and global warming are poised to increase this steady pattern of alteration and destruction.

The vulnerability of sites in the Santa Barbara Channel is generally lower than sites located along more open, more gently sloped or unstable coastlines, such as the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of North America.

Measuring threats and identifying vulnerable sites is not an end in itself, the researchers say. “We must find ways to act by quantifying those sites most vulnerable to destruction, we take a first step toward mitigating the loss of archaeological data and the shared cultural patrimony they contain.”

Reeder is a Ph.D. candidate in SMU’s Department of Anthropology. — Smithsonian Scientist

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with Leslie Reeder or to book a live or taped interview in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650 or email news@smu.edu.

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The Washington Post: Evidence increases that Neanderthals more closely linked to humans

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date October 5, 2010

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Journal of Archaeological Science: “Experimental Examination of Animal Trampling Effects on Artifact Movement in Dry and Water Saturated Substrates: A Test Case from South India”
Science Daily: New Evidence Debunks ‘Stupid’ Neanderthal Myth
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

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No evidence for ancient comet causing Clovis catastrophe, archaeologists say

DOD, industry fund $5.6 million SMU-led research for hi-tech prosthetics

The Washington Post has noted the Neanderthal research of SMU archaeology graduate student Metin I. Eren in a new article “Neanderthals reimagined” that looks out the changing scientific interpretation of humans ancestors.

Reporter Marc Kaufman in the Oct. 5 article Neanderthals reimagined cites Eren’s 2007 research as some of the scientific evidence showing Neanderthals were smarter than once thought, and more like sisters and brothers to modern humans, rather than cousins, as previously perceived.

Read the full story.

EXCERPT:
By Marc Kaufman
The Washington Post
Scientists are broadly rethinking the nature, skills and demise of the Neanderthals of Europe and Asia, steadily finding more ways that they were substantially like us and quite different from the limited, unchanging and ultimately doomed inferiors most commonly described in the past.

The latest revision involves Neanderthals who lived in southern Italy from about 42,000 to 35,000 years ago, a group that had to face fast-changing climate conditions that required them to adapt.

And that, says anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore, is precisely what they did: fashioning new hunting tools, targeting more-elusive prey and even wearing identifying ornaments and body painting.

Traditional Neanderthal theory has it that they changed their survival strategies only when they came into contact with more-modern early humans. But Riel-Salvatore, a professor at the University of Colorado at Denver writing in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, says that was not the case in southern Italy.

“What we know is that the more-modern humans lived in northern Italy, more-traditional Neanderthals lived in middle Italy, and this group that adapted to a changing world was in the south — out of touch with the northern group,” he said. …

Research debunking the position that Neanderthals were “cognitively inferior” comes from Daniel Adler of the University of Connecticut and Metin Eren of Southern Methodist University.

In 2006, Adler described evidence that Neanderthals hunted just as well as Homo sapiens, even if their weapons were less sophisticated. In 2007, Eren replicated the making of Neanderthal disc-shaped tools, or “flakes,” and found they were in some ways more efficient than Homo sapiens’ blade-based tools. Both researchers said that while the Neanderthals did not make the transition to more advanced tools — which generations of researchers saw as proof of Homo sapiens’ superiority — they were nonetheless well adapted to their environment.

Read the full story.

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USA Today: Researchers — Clovis people didn’t disappear because of comet

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date October 1, 2010

“An extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist.”

USA Today has written about the research of SMU archaeologist David Meltzer that challenges the controversial theory that an ancient comet devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures in North America.

Writing online in USA Today’s Science Fair section, journalist Elizabeth Weise notes in her article “Researchers — Clovis people didn’t disappear because of comet” that Meltzer demonstrates in a recent study that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations.

The study was published in the October issue of Current Anthropology, Meltzer and archaeologist Vance Holliday from the University of Arizona argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations.

“Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record,” the researchers write. “In so far as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist.”

Clovis spear points from the original Clovis site in New Mexico. (Photo: David Meltzer)

EXCERPT:

What caused the Clovis people of North America to disappear? A 2006 book suggested a massive comet strike over the Great Lakes 12,900 years ago cooled the climate, killing off mammoths and dispersing the people and their ancient culture. But a paper in the October issue of Current Anthropology disputes this theory, saying the evidence presented for it is easily explained away.

The Clovis people are known for their characteristic spear points, which vanished from the archaeological record close to 13,000 years ago. Those in favor of the comet theory say few of the Clovis sites show evidence of people living in them after the Clovis left, and that there are sediment layers empty of human habitation between the occupations.

But archaeologists Vance Holliday of the University of Arizona and David Meltzer of Southern Methodist University argue that people in those hunter gatherer cultures routinely moved around.

Read the full story.

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Natl Geographic: Trampling Skews Artifact Dates by Thousands of Years?

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date September 30, 2010

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Related links

Taking a new look at old digs: Trampling animals can alter muddy Paleolithic sites
Metin I. Eren
Journal of Archaeological Science: “Experimental Examination of Animal Trampling Effects on Artifact Movement in Dry and Water Saturated Substrates: A Test Case from South India”
Science Daily: New Evidence Debunks ‘Stupid’ Neanderthal Myth
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

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DOD, industry fund $5.6 million SMU-led research for hi-tech prosthetics

National Geographic online is featuring the archaeology research of SMU Ph.D. candidate Metin I. Eren.

In the September 29 story, “Trampling Skews Artifact Dates by Thousands of Years? Animals push human tools into ground — and back in time, study says,” journalist Ker Than writes about Eren’s research in India, which found that animals trampling wet ground can alter how a scientist interprets an archaeological site.

Stone tools at a site can be pushed as much as 8 inches deep into the ground, potentially altering the interpreted age of a site as much as thousands of years, says Eren, who was part of a team of researchers that carried out the study.

EXCERPT:

Ker Than
for National Geographic News
Around the world, the hooves of water buffaloes, goats, and other large animals may have propelled countless Stone Age artifacts back in time, at least as far as archaeologists are concerned.

In wet areas, wild or domestic animals’ heavy footfalls can push stone artifacts deep into the ground, making them seem older than they really are — in some cases, thousands of years older — according to a new study.

Scientists often date artifacts of the Stone Age, which began about two and a half million years ago, based on the depths at which the items are found: The deeper the object, the older it is, generally speaking.

There are other methods to date artifacts, but many rely on elements not found in stone — such as carbon.

“We can only do carbon dating on organic material that is associated with the stones,” said study author Metin Eren, an archaeologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.

So if a stone artifact is next to a twig, for example, Eren said, “we’ll date the twig and just assume that the artifact is also that age.”

But in the new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, Eren and his team show at least one way this method can lead to false ages for artifacts.

Mud Makes Data Go Soft
Archaeologists have long known that animal trampling can reorient artifacts — sometimes long after humas have left a site — and several trampling experiments have been performed on dry ground.

Read the full story.

Other coverage:
National Science Foundation
Physorg.com
ScienceDaily.com
RedOrbit.com

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No evidence for ancient comet devastating Clovis, says SMU archaeologist’s research

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date September 29, 2010

“An extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist.”

Clovis spear points

Clovis spear points from the original Clovis site in New Mexico. (Photo: David Meltzer)

New research challenges the controversial theory that the impact of an ancient comet devastated the Clovis people, one of the earliest known cultures to inhabit North America.

Writing in the October issue of Current Anthropology, archaeologists David Meltzer, Southern Methodist University, and Vance Holliday, University of Arizona, argue that there is nothing in the archaeological record to suggest an abrupt collapse of Clovis populations.

“Whether or not the proposed extraterrestrial impact occurred is a matter for empirical testing in the geological record,” the researchers write.

“In so far as concerns the archaeological record, an extraterrestrial impact is an unnecessary solution for an archaeological problem that does not exist.”

Comet theory devised to explain apparent disappearance
The comet theory first emerged in 2007 when a team of scientists announced evidence of a large extraterrestrial impact that occurred about 12,900 years ago.

The impact was said to have caused a sudden cooling of the North American climate, killing off mammoths and other megafauna.

It could also explain the apparent disappearance of the Clovis people, whose characteristic spear points vanish from the archaeological record shortly after the supposed impact. The findings are reported in the article “The 12.9-ka ET Impact Hypothesis and North
American Paleoindians.”

As evidence for the rapid Clovis depopulation, comet theorists point out that very few Clovis archaeological sites show evidence of human occupation after the Clovis.

At the few sites that do, Clovis and post-Clovis artifacts are separated by archaeologically sterile layers of sediments, indicating a time gap between the civilizations. In fact, comet theorists argue, there seems to be a dead zone in the human archaeological record in North America beginning with the comet impact and lasting about 500 years.

High Plains of Texas excavations

Lubbock Lake site excavations on lake bed dated 13,000 to 12,000 years old, the time of the purported extraterrestrial impact. (Photo: Vance Holliday)

Evidence at Clovis sites doesn’t support a disaster scenario
But Meltzer, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, and Holliday dispute those claims. They argue that a lack of later human occupation at Clovis sites is no reason to assume a population collapse.

“Single-occupation Paleoindian sites — Clovis or post-Clovis — are the norm,” Holliday said. That’s because many Paleoindian sites are hunting kill sites, and it would be highly unlikely for kills to be made repeatedly in the exact same spot.

“Those of us who do our research in the archaeology of this time period,” Meltzer says, “would actually be surprised if these sites were occupied repeatedly.”

“So there is nothing surprising about a Clovis occupation with no other Paleoindian zone above it, and it is no reason to infer a disaster,” Holliday said.

No evidence of post-comet gap in radiocarbon dating
In addition, Holliday and Meltzer compiled radiocarbon dates of 44 archaeological sites from across the U.S. and found no evidence of a post-comet gap. “Chronological gaps appear in the sequence only if one ignores standard deviations (a statistically inappropriate procedure), and doing so creates gaps not just around (12,900 years ago), but also at many later points in time,” they write.

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Sterile layers separating occupation zones at some sites are easily explained by shifting settlement patterns and local geological processes, the researchers say. The separation should not be taken as evidence of an actual time gap between Clovis and post-Clovis cultures.

Disappearance more likely a cultural choice
Holliday and Meltzer believe that the disappearance of Clovis spear points is more likely the result of a cultural choice rather than a population collapse.

“There is no compelling data to indicate that North American Paleoindians had to cope with or were affected by a catastrophe, extraterrestrial or otherwise, in the terminal Pleistocene,” they conclude. — Kevin Stacey, University of Chicago Press

SMU is a private university in Dallas where nearly 11,000 students benefit from the national opportunities and international reach of SMU’s seven degree-granting schools. For more information see www.smu.edu.

SMU has an uplink facility located on campus for live TV, radio, or online interviews. To speak with an SMU expert or book an SMU guest in the studio, call SMU News & Communications at 214-768-7650.

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New York Times: Who Gets To Be An American?

Post author By Margaret Allen

Post date September 23, 2010

EFE: “La inmigracion es una amenaza para los ciudadanos de Farmers Branch”

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Faith G. Nibbs
SMU Department of Anthropology
Dedman College

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SMU cultural anthropologist Caroline B. Brettell is quoted in the Sept. 20, 2010 issue of “Upfront,” the news magazine for teens published jointly by The New York Times and Scholastic.

In the article “Who Gets To Be An American?” journalist Patricia Smith explores the 14th Amendment, which makes everyone born in the United States a citizen, but which is now under attack in the controversy over immigration.

Brettell, a professor in the SMU Department of Anthropology, comments on birthright citizenship in the article.

EXCERPT:

The 14th Amendment makes everyone born in the U.S. a citizen — including the children of illegal immigrants. But now, birthright citizenship is under attack.

By Patricia Smith
Ever since the 14th Amendment was passed in the aftermath of the Civil War, it’s been largely unquestioned that everyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen.
But, as the national debate over illegal immigration intensifies in an election year, birthright citizenship is being seriously questioned for the first time in almost 150 years.

“This surfaces every once in a while as part of a bigger debate — it’s usually more of a fringe discussion,” says Audrey Singer of the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. “What’s different this time is that people in Congress are talking about it.”

The Amendment was adopted in 1868 to ensure the citizenship of American-born former slaves and their children.

Opponents of birthright citizenship say it encourages continued illegal immigration. They contend that illegal immigrants are not under U.S. jurisdiction, as the Amendment specifies, and therefore their American-born children should not automatically be citizens.

“If you are an illegal immigrant, we clearly have not given you permission to reside here,” says Rosemary Jenks of NumbersUSA, a group that favors decreased immigration. “You are still subject to the jurisdiction of your own country.” …

… Some Republicans worry that the issue could backfire in the long term. “This type of position may help you win a few elections,” says Alfonso Aguilar of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, a group that tries to draw Hispanics to the Republican Party. “But you are damaging relations with the Latino community.”

The U.S. isn’t alone in offering birthright citizenship; Canada and most Latin American countries, including Brazil and Mexico, do so. But it’s much less common in Europe and Asia, where citizenship more frequently depends on whether a parent is a citizen.

“Birthright citizenship is particularly characteristic of countries in the ‘New World’ — settler societies that wanted people to come,” notes Caroline Brettell, an anthropologist at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

The 14th Amendment has played a critical role in the country’s history, says historian Gary Gerstle of Vanderbilt University.

Read the full story.

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