DIGGING IN THE PAST
Welcome to another romp through the fascinating world of science! This week we’re going to do some delving into what researchers have discovered about our ancestors, both recent and ancient. We’ll start these tales with what happens to people who are cast away on a tropical island. Most of us have our own stories about that, but we’re specifically referring to the granddaddy of all ‘marooned on an island’ stories: Robinson Crusoe.
CAST AWAY
Cast away on a desert island, surviving on what nature alone can provide, praying for rescue but fearing the sight of a boat on the horizon. These are the imaginative creations of Daniel Defoe in his famous novel Robinson Crusoe. But it has been thought for years that Defoe based his imaginary Robinson Crusoe on the real-life experiences of sailor Alexander Selkirk, who was marooned in 1704 on a small island in the southern Pacific for more than four years. Researchers have now discovered archaeological evidence to support contemporary records of his existence on the island.
They present evidence from an archaeological dig on the island of Aguas Buenas, since renamed Robinson Crusoe Island, which reveals evidence of the campsite of an early European occupant. Although Robinson Crusoe lived on a tropical island, Aguas Buenas is a little too far south to qualify as tropical with warm dry summers and cool wet winters. It’s about 4 by 8 miles but is much more mountainous that Guam. Its tallest peak is almost 3,000 feet tall.
Archaeologists have excavating at his campsite and have discovered a pair of navigational dividers, which could only have belonged to a ship’s master or navigator, as evidence suggests Selkirk must have been. Indeed Selkirk’s rescuer, Captain Woodes Rogers’ account of what he saw on arrival at Aguas Buenas in 1709 lists ‘some practical pieces’ and mathematical instruments amongst the few possessions that Selkirk had taken with him from the ship.
The finds also provide insight into exactly how Selkirk might have lived on the island. Postholes suggest he built two shelters near a freshwater stream. Not far away was a fine view of the harbor where he could watch approaching ships and ascertain if they were friend or foe. Accounts written shortly after his rescue describe him shooting goats with a gun rescued from the ship, and eventually learning to outrun them, eating their meat and using their skins as clothing.
David H Caldwell, the major researcher said: “The evidence uncovered at Aguas Buenas corroborates the stories of Alexander Selkirk’s stay on the island and provides a fascinating insight into his existence there. We hope that Aguas Buenas, with careful management, may be a site enjoyed by the increasing number of tourists searching for the inspiration behind Defoe’s masterpiece.”
Alexander Selkirk was born in the small seaside town of Lower Largo, Fife, Scotland in 1676. A younger son of a shoemaker, he was drawn to a life at sea from an early age. In 1704, during a privateering voyage aboard the ship Cinque Ports, Selkirk fell out with the commander over the boat’s seaworthiness and he decided to remain behind on Robinson Crusoe Island where they had landed to overhaul the worm-infested vessel. It was five years before he was picked up by an English ship visiting the island.
While it’s unclear whether Defoe and Selkirk actually met, Defoe would certainly have heard the stories of Selkirk’s adventure and used the tales as the basis for his novel.
Marooned on a tropical island. There are days when that sounds increasingly attractive. Then I realize that it’s already happened!
A scene from Robinson Crusoe, showing Crusoe and Friday. (Credit: iStockphoto/Duncan Walker)
Now, we’ll step back a little farther in time; a little farther north and a lot colder! We’re headed for the Alps for the latest updates of Otzi; the Ice Man; the body that was discovered melted out of a glacier in 1991.
ANOTHER CHAPTER IN A 5,000 YEAR OLD MURDER CASE
Scientists have done an incredible amount of research on Otzi and several years ago, discovered that he was murdered. A CT scan in 2001, revealed an arrowhead imbedded in his back and other wounds.
New investigations by an LMU research team reconstructed the chronology of the injuries that Otzi received in his last days. It turns out that he survived the arrow wound in his back for a very short time – a few minutes to a number of hours, but no more – and also received a blow to the back with a blunt object shortly before his death.
In contrast, a cut on his hand is a few days older. The professor who led the study said that Otzi had two different sets of injuries, which implies that he was attacked twice in his last days.
Otzi, the oldest ice mummy ever found is still giving science critical information about life more than 5000 years ago. The knowledge gained from his equipment has changed the way we think about Neolithic Europeans. His copper axe, for example, reveals that metalworking was already much more advanced in that era than was previously assumed. Otzi’s body, too, tells us about his diet, his state of health – and his murder.
The cut on Otzi’s had had partially healed so he had survived for at least a couple of days. Another team found an arrow tip in Otzi’s left armpit. The shaft of the arrow was missing, but there is an entry wound on the back. Otzi probably died from internal bleeding because the arrow hit a main artery. What was unclear, however, was the age and exact chronology of the injuries.
According to the new research, Otzi survived the arrow wound for a very short time, probably only a few hours. A few centimeters below the entry wound, they found a small skin discoloration, probably caused by a blow from a blunt object.
Researchers have also found blood traces from at least four different people on his clothing and equipment. He may have been part of a raiding party that came to a bad end. Research on Otzi goes on and who knows what this 5,000 year-old man may tell us next?
Now we’ll move forward in time a little and leave the violence behind. We’re headed for a subject that’s near and dear to the hearts of many women (and not a few men); perfume.
THAT SMELLS WONDERFUL!
There’s some evidence that woman wore perfume even in Otzi’s time, but the evidence is overwhelming for perfume usage by the time we reach the ancient Egyptians. Many bottles and flagons were obviously used to contain the good smelling stuff.
The Egyptian Museum at Bonn University has a particularly well-preserved perfume bottle on display. Like Otzi, the sealed 3,500-year-old flagon was given a CT scan and scientists at the university detected the desiccated residues of a fluid, which they now want to submit to further analysis. They might even succeed in reconstructing this scent.
According to the hieroglyphs on it, the perfume bottle belonged to Pharaoh Hatshepsut, the only woman who ever ruled Egypt for any length of time. Hatshepsut’s perfume is also presumably a demonstration of her power. The researchers think that at least one component of the perfume was frankincense – the scent of the gods. Not surprising since Hatshepsut undertook an expedition to Punt – on the horn of Africa where they obtained ebony, ivory, gold, and frankincense. Apparently, the Punt expedition brought back whole frankincense plants, which Hatshepsut had planted in her temples.
Scientists at the Bonn Museum are going to analyze the sediment in the bottom of the bottle. If they’re successful, the scientists in Bonn are even hoping to “reconstruct” the perfume so that, 3,500 years after Hatshepsut’s death we can smell her perfume again.
In X-rays, a liquid residue can be clearly seen in the ancient Egyptian perfume bottle. (Credit: Frank Luerweg, University of Bonn)
Now we’ll move forward in time yet again and right into the heart of one of my personal favorite subjects: CHOCOLATE!
BET YOU CAN’T DRINK JUST ONE
Anthropology professor Patricia Crown has long been fascinated by ceramic cylinders excavated at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon by the Hyde Exploring Expedition from 1896-1899 and the National Geographic Society Expedition from 1920 to 1927. Only about 200 of the cylinders exist and most were found in a single room at the site. The cylinders are now housed at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and at the American Museum of Natural History.
Archaeologists generally agreed that the vessels were used for some ritual, but there has been great disagreement about the specific use of the vessels. Crown was thinking about how the Maya drank chocolate from ceramic cylinders, and wondered whether the cylinders found at Chaco might have been used in the same way. It was clear that the Mayans used the cylinders for chocolate. Experts could read the glyphs on the vessels that made it clear they were chocolate containers.
From 2004-2007, graduate and undergraduate students excavated the trash middens directly south of Pueblo Bonito and uncovered thousands of pottery shards that could be used for analysis. Crown selected shards that were from cylinders or pitchers and dated them to between 1000 and 1125 A.D. based on their decorative style. She sent some of the shards to W. Jeffrey Hurst at the Hershey Center (Yes, that’s ‘Hershey’ as in Hershey’s chocolate!). He tested the shards and found the presence of theobromine, a marker for Theobroma cacao or chocolate.
The finding is the first concrete evidence that the people of Chaco Canyon or anywhere in the Southwestern U.S. traded for cacao beans. It’s long been known they traded with the Mayans in Mexico from the evidence of copper bells, cloisonné and skeletons of scarlet macaws. Until this discovery, cacao had been found no further north than central Mexico.
Crown says anthropologists don’t know whether the people at Chaco walked to Mesoamerica to trade for the cacao beans or whether traders brought them north or whether the beans simple passed from hand to hand from one group of people to another.
Inhabitants of Chaco Canyon apparently drank chocolate from cylinders like these about a thousand years ago. (Credit: Image courtesy of University of New Mexico)
Just goes to prove what I’ve known for a very long time. EVERYBODY likes chocolate!!
