ANTHRONOTES - DSpace · AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007 The archaeological record also...

ANTHRON OTESMUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY PUBLICATION FOR EDUCATORS

VOLUME 28 NO. 1 SPRING 2007

ORIGINS OF THE GREAT SOUTHWESTERN PUEBLOSby Douglas W. Schwartz

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When the Spanish Conquistadors first entered the north-ern American Southwest (northern Arizona and NewMexico and southern Utah and Colorado) in 1540, theyencountered communities of farmers living in massivepueblo villages. Yet, for hundreds of years, prior to thefourteenth century, the ancestors of these pueblo peoplehad lived in small hamlets averaging some fifty rooms. Itwas only near the early years of the 1300s that an abrupttransformation occurred and they began living in theselarge mud settlements of a thousand or more rooms.This startling increase in settlement size radically trans-formed pueblo life from one that had been character-ized by hundreds of small villages widely scattered overthe whole of the northern Southwest, to a cultural land-scape where pueblo people lived in relatively few largesettlements concentrated in the Rio Grande Valley, on theHopi mesas, and around the present day pueblos of Zuni,Acoma and Laguna. This pa-per addresses the question ofwhy this revolution in settle-ment size occurred and howit led to the origins of thegreat pueblo architecturalstyle.

For decades, thewidely accepted explanationfor the origin of these greatpueblos has been a simplestory of a great drought in thelate 1200s that devastated theregional farming economy ofthe large population living inthe Mesa Verde region in what

is now southern Colorado and Utah. This drought, thestory went, forced its peaceful inhabitants to abandontheir old homes and migrate south into northern NewMexico and Arizona, where they constructed a new styleof huge aggregated pueblos and here they continuedtheir peaceful lives.

I said this was a simple story, but remember theold saying: “Seek simplicity and distrust it.” New researchin climatology, history, ethnography and archaeology hasforced a rethinking of the old story of a peaceful pueblopeople affected by a great drought who migrated southto originate the big pueblos.

Basic to this old story was the assumption thatpueblo people were profoundly nonviolent. This notionwas reinforced by Ruth Benedict in her classic book Pat-terns of Culture, in which she wrote: “the Zuni [who forher represented all pueblos] …have no place for… force

of will…or the dispositionto take up arms against asea of troubles.” Rather, shewrote, they are “incorrigi-bly mild.”

Yet, when the Spanishentered the Southwest inthe 1500s this was not at allwhat they encountered.More exactly, they foundexperienced, committedpueblo fighters who werewilling to go to greatlengths to protect theircommunities. At Acoma,for example, the SpanishPueblo village.

AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007oNotes

came upon ahigh plateauholding apueblo villagewhich, as theywrote, con-tained, “twohundred war-riors-robberswho weref e a r e dthroughoutthe land.”Around theirhilltop villagethey had con-structed ashielding wallbehind fromwhich theycould hurl down rocks in numbers so large that no armycould reach the top.

Throughout their occupation, the Spanish recordedcases of pueblo aggression and conflict. For example,Adolph Bandelier, the pioneering Southwestern anthro-pologist, found that war played an “…mportant role…inpueblo life.” He described that during their clashes withothers the pueblos used shields, bows and arrows, warclubs, and strong buffalo hide helmets worn by their war-riors. He also wrote about their scalp societies, scalp dances,warrior societies, war chiefs, war dances and war gods.

Pueblo hamlet averaging fifty rooms.

B a n d e l i e rc o n c l u d e dthat conflictwas not justpresent butwas a perva-sive part ofpueblo life.

T h eSpanish leg-ends also de-scribe the bel-ligerence ofwhich pueblopeople werecapable. OneLaguna talebegins: “Longago thepeople…were

ready to fight…some men were brave…and.. not at allafraid to die…they never ran away from a fight. Everydaythe Navajo and Apache [who historically were pueblo ad-versaries along with neighboring pueblos] would come tosteal…people would call for help from the war chief. Whena Navajo is killed they always take his scalp and carry ithome, sometimes displaying it on a pole in the plaza. Ev-ery night…they danced the war dance.”

Mimbres pot depicting decapitation.

Ancestral pueblo area.

AnthroNotes Volume 28 No. 1 Spring 2007

The archaeological record also provides confirma-tion of pueblo conflict, as admirably demonstrated inSteven LeBlanc’s book Prehistoric Warfare in the AmericanSouthwest. He identified widespread discord among thepueblos, especially during periods of drought. And, herecords evidence for massacres, the rapid construction ofdefensive settlements, burned kivas, and the fiery destruc-tion of villages. Some archaeologists feel this evidence canbe explained in other ways, but none have marshaled thesubstantial data necessary to refute LeBlanc’s argument,which is why his book is such an important contribution toSouthwestern archaeology.

Lawrence Keeley’s book, War Before Civilization,documents that conflict among traditional people— likethe pueblos—was common worldwide, even a regular partof their life. All traditional people, he reports, resort toraiding, theft, and fighting whenever their vital interests areat stake. This work puts pueblo aggression in the widercontext of more universal violent behavior and underliesmy whole argument regarding the origins of the big four-teenth century pueblos.

In the arid Southwest, good climate was critical tothe success of traditional farming, and pueblo people con-tinually struggled to control the capriciousness of theirweather through prayerful ceremonies for rain and fertility.A graphic example of what they feared was discovered inthe late 1920s from the study of ancient tree rings. Thisdata led to the recognition that the Mesa Verde region en-dured a great drought in the latter part of the 1200s, lead-ing archaeologists to conclude that the “Great Drought,”as it became known, was the cause of the region’s aban-

donment by ancestral pueblo people, formally referred toas the Anasazi. Because large pueblos, built in the 1300s,had been discovered to the south just following thedrought, many archaeologists assumed these had been builtby the fleeing Mesa Verde people.

One of the recent challenges to this story has comefrom new discoveries about climate change in deep icecores drilled in the Greenland glacier. These cores haverevealed two significant findings that relate to the ancientpueblo story. First, they show that climate change can comequickly, lurching dramatically from one stage of weatherto another. And, second, they confirm that there were twoquite different climatic periods over the time of ancestralpueblo development.

The ice cores confirm what other studies haveshown that beginning about A.D. 900 and lasting to aboutA.D. 1270 the climate in the northern hemisphere becamewarm, moist and excellent for farming. Climatologists callthis the Medieval Warm Period and historical records fromEurope provide important comparative information thatsheds light on what happened in the American Southwestduring this climatic episode.

Beginning about A.D. 900, a pattern of superbweather began in Europe, resulting in bountiful harvests, aquadrupling of the population, and a flourishing economythat supported the construction of grand architecturalworks like the soaring medieval cathedrals. In the Ameri-can Southwest this same remarkable climate also greatlyimproved the economy of the ancestral pueblo people.These warm, moist centuries produced exceptional har-vests and a similar rapid growth in population over thenext three hundred years. With the demographic increase,small farming hamlets were built everywhere, even in lo-cations we now think of as marginal, like the bottom ofthe Grand Canyon, where I have excavated several settle-


ments from this time period and where we know fromsurveys that hundreds more exist. The favorable weatherof the Medieval Warm Period also led to a great popula-tion increase in the Mesa Verde region.

However, after three hundred years of incompa-rable weather, and a population boom, a new and de-structive climatic episode abruptly arrived. This was thedevastating Little Ice Age that emerged first in the late1100s and lasted well into the 1700s. A similar downturnin climate was also recorded in great historical detail inEurope at this time. By 1300 Europe had entered a periodof deep cold and dreadful storms. Harvests plummeted,malnutrition was common, diseases were rampant, andstarvation was so common that millions died. Bands ofravenous, homeless men roamed the countryside, plun-dering for food and creating a landscape of violence.

In the Southwest, the Little Ice Age brought asimilar period of cold, resulting in a decline in harvests,widespread famine, devastating raids and incidences ofviolent carnage. Its effects first appeared in marginal re-gions like the Grand Canyon, where in the late 1100s therewas a sudden decline in population and dramatic evidenceof extreme anxiety when nearly inaccessible rock mesaswere used for the planting and storing of food, appar-ently as a safeguard from thieving pueblo neighbors. Thepresence of these defensive locations coincided with therapid drop in population, suggesting a time of trouble,famine and raids, with many people either dying fromstarvation, killed during raids for food, or moving away,no longer able to live off their withered land. Eventually,by whichever course, or a combination of them all, theGrand Canyon and the whole northeastern segment of

Mesa Verde cliff dwelling.

ancestral pueblo territory had become completely depopu-lated.

While pueblo life was vanishing in the northwest,it was flourishing on the more fertile lands to the east, inthe Mesa Verde region. However, by 1250 this area alsobegan feeling the damaging force of the Little Ice Age,and over the next decades it too was eventually struck bycold, famine and violent raiding for food. To protect them-selves from attack by neighbors, the people of Mesa Verdefirst moved out of their vulnerable mesa top villages andinto the protection of cliff overhangs where they couldbuild a new kind of defensible dwelling. But the unyieldingbad weather soon overwhelmed them even here with thesame sequence that had affected their cousins to the west.They experienced deep cold, famine, and finally raids bydesperate neighbors in search of food. Eventually theseraids destroyed whole villages. The starvation and brutalityfatally devastated the Mesa Verde population, as it had atthe Grand Canyon, and in the end, the once lush MesaVerde region could no longer sustain a farming life.

In the face of famine and carnage, those who sur-vived moved out, not in great conquering columns, but assmall bands of stragglers seeking survival in warmer landsto the south. Now the Little Ice Age had taken its lethal tollon the whole northern part of the Southwest, which bythe late 1200s was a cold and deserted landscape, withonly ruins as a reminder of its great pueblo past.

There was still a pueblo population to the south,however, in the Rio Grande Valley and further west toHopi country. This area survived the earliest decades of

Mesa top defensive village.


the Little Ice Age because of its lower latitude and warmertemperatures, which somewhat moderated the increasingcold. Nevertheless, archaeological research has demon-strated that these more southern settlements also experi-enced drought, drastically reduced harvests, malnutrition,frenzied attacks by starving neighbors, and the burning ofvillages to expel competitors. Horrible as their conditionswere, they were not as fatal as those that had depopulatedtheir whole northern pueblo region from the Grand Can-yon to Mesa Verde. The slightly more ameliorated climatein the south allowed them to continue to farm successfully.They also ar-rived at an ar-chitectural inno-vation that al-lowed them tosurvive theraids that inten-sified in thefourteenth cen-tury.

In theRio Grande val-ley, pueblopeople hadlived in diminu-tive, open sidedhamlets thathad been de-signed for theb o u n t i f u l ,peaceful timesof the MedievalWarm Period.But, with the onset of the Little Ice Age, these small de-fenseless villages became a liability. So, if the pueblo peoplewere to survive, they had to transform the way they lived.

This transformation took the form of larger, stron-ger and safer settlements for protection to house morewarriors. This is the kind of settlement I excavated at Ar-royo Hondo, five miles south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Itbegan about 1300 and ultimately expanded to a thousandrooms in response to the new landscape of violence thatcame with the famine and raids brought on by the LittleIce Age. In establishing this new type of great pueblo, thelocal people first found an extraordinary location that con-

tained all the essentials for making a living - water, farm-land, and a wide range of surrounding ecological zonesthat held an exceptional variety of plants and animals. Inaddition, the builders focused on critical qualities of de-fense. The location they chose was positioned at the edgeof a deep arroyo whose steep sides would slow access toany attackers. Its elevated position provided good sight linesin all directions, reducing the possibility of sneak assaults.

To ensure their safety further, they incorporatedinto the architecture of their settlement several defensivefeatures, some of which were new. They planned a larger

plaza aroundwhich they thenconstructedblocks ofrooms formore house-holds and agreater fightingforce thancould be ac-commodatedin their formerhamlets. Nodoors werebuilt intoground floorrooms. Theonly access wasthrough a roofopening byway of laddersthat could bepulled up after

the family was inside. Each residence then became a tinystronghold. Entry to the plaza also was made more secureby abutting the corners of the four surrounding roomblocks to form a solid barrier that could only be enteredthrough a single gate, which could be closed in time ofdanger. The surrounding back wall of each room block,with no openings, created another strong barricade againstraiders.

This combination of walls, gates and a strategicplacement made Arroyo Hondo Pueblo a fortress in addi-tion to being a working community. This citadel was situ-ated above the surrounding landscape, large enough to hold

Arroyo Hondo pueblo territory.


more warriors than any settlement in the region. It alsomaintained a vast surrounding territory of some eightysquare miles in which its settlers could farm, hunt andgather, and which served as one more buffer against out-siders.

Others instantly recognized the Arroyo Hondostronghold’s success in holding off raiders. Neighboringvillagers soon flooded in to join the original settlers forprotection and rapidly built, adjacent to the original plazaroom block, additional plazas and residences. These re-sulted in a growing series of adjoining fortified units, eachadding more warriors to protect the new town. Over arelatively short time Arroyo Hondo pueblo acquired ninebordering plazas that held nearly one thousand villagers,more than ten times the size of most earlier hamlets.

As the Arroyo Hondo Pueblo fortress rapidly at-tracted more neighbors and grew in size, this new townpresented a serious menace to other smaller villages in theregion. Ultimately other settlements replicated ArroyoHondo’s size, construction and defensive location in order

to protect themselves more effectively. Throughout the RioGrande Valley, and to the west, traditional hamlets wereabandoned and almost overnight new fortified towns ap-peared. This radical replacement in design completelychanged the once peaceful pueblo homeland of hundredsof small scattered villages into a province of relatively fewbig, brawny, competitive towns. These were not utopiancommunities built by peaceful migrants from Mesa Verde,as the old story proposed, but sanctuaries for local peopleseeking protection during a time of regional chaos.Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries these largecompetitive settlements continued to raid one another forscarce food, which may have given rise to new, aggressive

elements in ancestral pueblo culture like scalp taking, scalpdances, war chiefs, warrior societies, and war gods. Thisthen is the Native American life the Spanish found whenthey arrived in the northern Southwest: pueblo people liv-ing in large fortified settlements interacting in a region ofconflict.

The Little Ice Age and the famine and belligerenceit provoked turned pueblo culture upside down and couldhave destroyed its will, or brutally have ended the old wayof pueblo life. But throughout their centuries of suffering,pueblo people in some way remained resilient. This resil-ience eventually allowed them to reemerge, not as passivesurvivors, but as buoyant victors with robust, flourishingcommunities filled with music, dance and spirituality.

I wonder if Alfred North Whitehead was correctabout this kind of ordeal and renewal when he wrote:

Reconstruction of Arroyo Hondo pueblo.

Mesa Verde cliff dwelling.

Archaeologists surveying at Arroyo Hondo pueblo.


“There must be a degree of instability which is inconsistentwith social life, but on the whole, the great ages have beenthe unstable ones.” I feel this thought holds true for theancient pueblo farmers of the northern Southwest wholived a precarious life with the onset of a rapid climatechange with its resulting famine and conflict.

But in the end they triumphed over these adversi-ties and successfully evolved a thriving, imaginative, anddevout existence. It is this extraordinary emergence of avibrant way of life that arose out of the depths of turbu-lence that is the powerful lesson I take from the conten-tious origins of the great pueblo architectural style.

ReferencesBenedict, Ruth. 1934. Patterns of Culture. Houghton Mifflin.

Castaneda, Pedro de. 1922. The Journey of Coronado, 1540-1542,From the City of Mexico to the Grand Canon of the Colorado. Trans-lated by George Parker Winship. Fulcrum Publishing.

Keeley, Lawrence. 1996. War Before Civilization. Oxford UniversityPress.

LeBlanc, Steven. 1999. Prehistoric Warfare in the American Southwest.University of Utah Press.

Linden, Eugene. 2006. The Winds of Change: Climate, Weather, andthe Destruction of Civilization. Simon and Schuster.

Rohn, Arthur H., and William M. Ferguson. 2006. Puebloan Ruinsof the Southwest. University of New Mexico Press.

Schroeder, Albert H., and Dan S. Matson. 1966. A Colony on theMove: Caspar Castano de Sosa’s Journal. School of American ResearchPress.

Schwartz, Douglas W. 1981. “Population, Culture and Resources:A Rio Grande Pueblo Perspective.” Geoscience and Man, vol. XXII.

Schwartz, Douglas W. ca. 1986. On the Edge of Splendor: ExploringGrand Canyon’s Human Past. School of American Research Press.

Schwartz, Douglas W. 2001. An Introduction to An Introductionto the Study of Southwestern Archaeology by Alfred Kidder, newedition of 1924 original. Yale University Press.

Schwartz, Douglas W. 2005. Foreword to A Space Syntax Analysisof Arroyo Hondo Pueblo, New Mexico: Community Formation in theNorthern Rio Grande. School of American Research Press.

Schwartz, Peter, and Doug Randall. 2006. An Abrupt ClimateChange Scenario and its Implications for United States Natinoal Secu-rity. A report commissioned by the U.S. Defense Department.

[This paper was originally presented at the American Anthropo-logical Association 2006 annual meeting in the Society for An-thropology in Community Colleges (SACC)-sponsored sympo-sium, “Five Fields Update: Current Issues in Anthropology” andsubsequently published in Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes(Spring 2007). Reprinted with permission, 2007 SACC Notes.]

Douglas W. Schwartz is president emeritus and senior scholar ofSchool of American Research, now School for Advanced Research,in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Walled pueblo settlement.

Ancient petroglyph showing conflict.


WRITTEN IN BONEREADING THE REMAINS OF THE 17TH CENTURY

by Kari Bruwelheide and Douglas Owsley˜ ˜ ˜

[Editor’s Note: The Smithsonian’s Department of Anthro-pology has had a long history of involvement in forensicanthropology by assisting law enforcement agencies in theretrieval, evaluation, and analysis of human remains foridentification purposes. This article describes howSmithsonian physical anthropologists are applying this sameforensic analysis to historic cases, in particular seventeenthcentury remains found in Maryland and Virginia, whichwill be the focus of an upcoming exhibition, Written in Bone:Forensic Files of the 17th Century, scheduled to open at theSmithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in No-vember 2008. This exhibition will cover the basics of hu-man anatomy and forensic investigation, extending thesetechniques to the remains of colonists teetering on the edgeof survival at Jamestown, Virginia, and to the wealthy andwell-established individuals of St. Mary’s City, Maryland.These “bone biographies,” as compiled through a uniquecombination of scientific and historical evidence, will pro-vide intriguing information on people and events ofAmerica’s past. At no other time in our history have wehad the technological capabilities or opportunities to tellthis story through archaeology. The colonists can now speakfor themselves because their story, as ours, is written inbone.]

“There is properly no history; only biography.” RalphWaldo Emerson

If one views history, as Emerson did, as a compilationof individual personal biographies, think of how manygaps in history exist. This is especially true for the 17th

century Mid-Atlantic region of North America for whichlittle written documentation remains, but whose settlementshad a tremendous impact on our nation as we know ittoday. The stories of only a few individuals stand out inthis history—John Smith, John Rolfe, and Pocahontas, be-ing the primary people who have shaped our understand-ing of this era. The vast majority of biographies are strik-ingly absent from the early colonial record. These are theuntold stories of the countless men, women, and children

who came to America, many willingly and others underduress, whose anonymous lives helped shaped the courseof our country.

As we commemorate the 400th anniversary of thesettlement of Jamestown, it is clear that historians and ar-chaeologists have made much progress in piecing togetherthe literary records and artifactual evidence that remain fromthe early colonial period. Over the past two decades, his-torical archaeology especially has had tremendous successin charting the development of early colonial settlementsthrough careful excavations that have recovered a wealthof 17th century artifacts, materials once discarded or lost,and until recently buried beneath the soil (Kelso 2006). Suchdiscoveries are informing us about daily life, activities, traderelations here and abroad, architectural and defensive strat-

Figure 1: Doug Owsley measures a human skel-eton from a clandestine burial discovered dur-ing the excavation of a 17th century house cellarin Anne Arundel County, Maryland.


egies, and much more. But what do we know about thebearers of this material culture? Imagine how enhancedour view of the past would be if we were also able to fillin some of the human gaps of history, stories of indi-vidual lives not previously known to us. Wouldn’t 17th cen-tury America seem more immediate and compelling if,instead of only reading about important dates and placesin time, we learned more about the actual people wholived that past and heard their personal stories of life anddeath?

Although time travel has yet to be invented in theliteral sense, for a number of years physical anthropolo-gists from the National Museum of Natural History(NMNH) have had the privilege of “meeting” individualsfrom seventeenth century America on a daily basis and“hearing” their stories first hand. This is possible becausephysical anthropologists at the NMNH, like those else-where, have the job of examining human skeletal remains.In their role most familiar to the public they are the “fo-rensic anthropologists” who locate and analyze bones frommodern contexts, usually related to criminal or missing

persons’ investigations. The information these scientistsobtain from contemporary bones and burials is used tosolve crimes and identify individuals (see past issues ofAnthroNotes for more details on forensic anthropology:1993 Vol.15 No.1; 1998 Vol.20 No.1; 2006 Vol. 27 No.1;2006 Vol. 27 No.2). Most people are not aware, however,that the same investigative techniques used to examinemodern human remains are being applied to bones hun-dreds, or even thousands, of years old. Such work is con-ducted in much the same way and with the same degreeof compassion, respect, objectivity, and scientific inquiryas are modern forensic investigations.

This is because people from the present and thosefrom the past share a fundamental connection: we all havea skeleton. Bones provide the framework for our soft tis-sues, allow for movement, protect many of our vital or-gans, serve as the center for the production of blood cells,and help regulate tissue metabolism as an important ware-house of nutrients necessary for life. With this shared foun-dation, all humans are remarkably similar—from the num-ber of bones in our bodies, to the types of bones present,to the way we grow and develop. And yet, differences inour bones do exist. These slight differences, mostly in sizeand shape, separate males from females, young from old,and tall from short. Slight variations in skull form giveeach of us our unique facial appearance, and more broadly,can differentiate people from various parts of the world.Injuries to bones can alter their shape permanently, anddiet affects not only bone growth and form, but also af-fects bone chemistry. The old adage “you are what youeat” is certainly true for the skeleton. In short, bones storea vast amount of data on who we are and how we live.

What, then, can we learn from our bones? Theanswers gathered from the forefront of scientific skeletalanalysis are remarkably detailed and include a person’s age,sex, and stature, as well as clues to their ancestry, diet, health,activity patterns, and much more. This information is en-coded in the bones of past peoples and in our own bonesand teeth throughout our lifetime. Skeletons may not pro-vide information on one’s thoughts or ideas, but they cer-tainly yield information about our aches and pains, as wellas providing a durable physical record of who we are asindividuals—information that cannot be obtained so clearlyfrom any other source.

Figure 2: Kari Bruwelheide and Doug Owsley examineinfant remains recovered during Project Lead Coffins,St. Mary’s City, Maryland.

(continued)


and are increasingly being used to answer questions of an-cestry and diet. DNA retrieval and analysis, once imple-mented solely within the realm of contemporary forensiccases, is now being successfully attempted in studies of oldbones (Owsley et al. 2006). If preservation allows, deter-mination of biogeographical ancestry, sex, and even per-sonal identity are possible through DNA studies of oldskeletal remains. Dietary information is also obtainablethrough bone chemistry and is based on the differentchemical signals of foods and the transmission of thesedifferences to the tissues of the consumer. Dietary pat-terns, changes in diet, and the movement of people intonew environments are often distinguishable by measuringthe chemical signals in bone. The application of dietarystudies to colonial period skeletal remains has proven es-pecially useful in that for the first time in history we havethe ability to identify the human remains of first generationimmigrants versus American-born colonists by the chemi-cal signals in their bone (Ubelaker and Owsley 2003).

The 17th Century Skeletal RecordOver the past decade numerous skeletons representing thefirst century of British colonial settlement in North Americahave been discovered. These human remains have comefrom a variety of contexts with differing circumstancesprompting their removal. Burials dating to the 17th centuryhave been discovered during archaeological excavations inVirginia and Maryland. Some of these discoveries are partof large-scale investigations at historically important sitessuch as Jamestown, Virginia, and Historic St. Mary’s City,Maryland. Others have come from isolated, incidental find-ings of small, unmarked cemeteries removed by salvagearchaeological work necessitated by land development andconstruction projects. A good place to live and build aresidence community today often was a good place to liveand bury the dead three centuries ago. Surprisingly, other17th century remains come from seemingly unconventionaldiscard contexts, such as old trash pits and wells linked tohabitation areas.

Systematic study of all of these skeletal remainshas resulted in the collection of life-history information onmore than two hundred early European and a much lessernumber of African immigrants who lived and died in theChesapeake region during the 1600s. With rare exceptions,these remains have come from forgotten, unmarked, andunnamed burials, yet this fact doesn’t lessen their identity.

Reading the RemainsHow is the information extracted from the bone? Muchlike the archaeologist who reads the clues left in the soiland material remains from a site in order to reconstructlife-ways, events, and habitation patterns, the physical an-thropologist uses his or her training in human anatomy andhuman variation to read the clues left in the bones. Thescientific methods used in this process are at the same timeboth basic and complex, and are often interdisciplinary,combining aspects of both human biology and chemistry.

At the most basic level, visual inspection of thebones is performed. This examination, sometimes done inthe field (Figure 1, p. 9), but more often performed in thelaboratory (Figure 2, p. 10), confirms the identification ofbone as human or non-human, and is the first step towardcompiling a detailed bone and tooth inventory for each setof remains analyzed. Determinations of age, sex, stature,body build, and sometimes ancestry then follow based onspecific observations of bone morphology, such as shape,robusticity, and development of the areas on bones wheremuscles attach. Examination at this stage is assisted bymethods of greater complexity involving two- and three-dimensional measurements of specific skeletal elements andmathematical calculations in order to determine stature andancestry. Radiography through standard X-ray and computedtomography (CT) complements the visual inspection ofthe skeleton by obtaining images of the internal structureof teeth and bone (Figures 3a & 3b). These images assist inevaluating the health and well-being of an individual: his orher dental pathology, childhood illness, nutrition, disease,and trauma, all of which can modify bone, both externallyand internally. When performing these types of analyses itis essential to have a good understanding of the appear-ance of normal versus abnormal bone, in addition to un-derstanding how natural processes can alter bone. Morerecently, CT scans have been used to compile three-dimen-sional coordinate data on bone size and shape, providing avirtual image record useful for comparing bone structureand form within and between populations. A model ofthe bone can also be made from the CT data creating analmost permanent anatomical record of the remains.

Perhaps most exciting within the field of physicalanthropology are modern applications of molecular biol-ogy and bone chemistry, which are carrying the interpreta-tive abilities of physical anthropologists one step further


Each individual becomes known through the biologicaldata obtained from their skeleton, along with informationfrom the burial context and period documentation. Thisevidence produces amazingly detailed personal profiles foreach set of human remains.

One Boy’s Case HistoryAn excellent example of this can be found in the humanremains dating to 1607 Jamestown, the first permanentEnglish settlement in the New World. Efforts by archae-ologists to uncover the original James Fort have simulta-neously resulted in the discovery of human skeletons bur-ied within and near the three-sided log palisade, includingthe remains of men and boys from the first voyage. Dur-ing the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiq-uities (APVA) excavation of James Fort in August, 2005, askeleton was discovered along the western palisade wall(Figure 4, p. 12). Clues from the grave, including its loca-tion relative to the fort, indicate the burial took place earlyin the settlement. The original burial shaft, distinguishableby slight variation in the color and consistency of the soil,appeared to have been poorly and hastily prepared as indi-cated by the unevenness of its walls and floor and its length,which was short relative to the length of the body. No

coffin was used, as no remains of one were visible. Thepresence of a loose shroud was evidenced not by the ma-terial itself, which had decomposed long ago, but by theposition of the mandible, legs and feet of the skeletonwithin the grave. The mandible had fallen out of articula-tion with the upper jaw during decomposition and hadshifted downwards due to the pressure of the earth on theshroud covering the face. If a shroud had not been used,the mandible would have been held in place by the sur-rounding soil. The position of the mandible also revealsthat no wrapping or chin strap was used around the headto hold the mouth closed and which would have also heldthe jaw in place in the grave. The shroud appears to havebeen tied or wrapped around the ankles keeping the lowerappendages together. Also, the feet remained pointing up-ward toward the top of the grave. The shroud wrappedaround the ankles prevented the feet from falling laterallyto the grave floor after the body was buried. The arms,however, were not tightly secured within the shroud, al-lowing them to fall at awkward angles as the body waslowered into the grave.

The position of this skeleton not only yields clueson how the body was prepared for burial, but also pro-vides evidence regarding the actions of the burial party.

Figures 3a & 3b: Radiographies of a child’s skull showing internal structure and development of thedeciduous (“baby teeth”) and permanent (adult) dentition.


The position of the bones indicates that the burial partylowered the remains from the left side of the head andfoot ends of the grave shaft. This interpretation is evidencedby the slight upward inclination of the left side of the re-mains, the position of the arms, and the body’s curvature.The right side of the torso settled first leaving the left sideat a slightly higher elevation in the grave. A consequence ofthe weight of the torso falling to the right side of the bodyis that the untied arms gravitated toward the right side ofthe shroud. The abdominal and hip regions of the bodyare more toward the right side grave wall, while the headand feet regions are directed slightly toward the left wall.This subtle curvature of the extended body suggests theburial was somewhat rushed, as is also indicated by un-evenness of the floor of the grave, resulting in slightly higherelevations of the head and feet. As stated, the grave was

too short to fully accommodate the individual. Thus, thefeet are elevated from the grave floor and are in directcontact with the bottom grave wall. The head is uplifted aswell by a pedestal of dirt. In effect, the in situ positioningof the arms and the distortion in the body layout indicatesthat no effort was made to reposition the body in the graveafter it was lowered.

Circumstances relating to the subtle neglect of carein the burial process are further revealed by clues in thebones. The skeleton does not represent a grown man, whichexcludes identification of the remains as one of the older“gentlemen” of the Jamestown venture. Rather, the bodyis that of a young boy. The bones and teeth show incom-plete growth, and suggest an age of about 15 years. Fea-tures of the skull and additional dietary information ob-tained through bone chemistry indicate the boy is of Eu-

Figure 4a (left): In situ remains of a boy found buried within the original perimeter of James Fort. The contortedposition of the right arm, a broken clavicle, and the presence of a stone arrowhead pointing towards the boys leftthigh bone suggest traumatic death. Figure 4b shows a close up of the arrowhead against the thigh bone.


ropean decent. His socioeconomic status is unknown, butwas likely modest as suggested by bone markers of poorhealth and nutritional stress. The skull has a remodeleddepression fracture on the bone of the forehead, abovethe left eye orbit indicating a healed blow. The boy hassigns of nutritional deficiency in the form of porosity inthe roofs of both eye orbits. This condition, known ascribia orbitalia, is typically related to iron deficiency andanemia. In addition, radiographs of the boy’s leg bonesreveal multiple, transverse, radiopaque bands. These bands,or lines, are markers of disturbed bone growth and arereferred to as “Harris lines.” They form during periodsof arrested and then resumed growth and are the resultof nutritional or disease stress during childhood. Mosttelling of the boy’s health,however, is a severe toothabscess that was active at thetime of death. The abscesshad its origin in a brokenmandibular incisor crown,which exposed the pulpchamber to bacterial infec-tion. The cavitation formedby the abscess is large andincludes most of the chin(Figure 5). In life, the chinwould have been inflamed,undoubtedly painful, with si-nuses of draining pus into thevestibule between the lowerlip and front teeth. The se-vere tooth abscess had turnedinto a severe osteomyelitis, anexpanding bone infection thatwas destroying the front por-tion of the jaw.

This boy’s compro-mised health and weakenedcondition provides contextfor evidence pointing to hisviolent death. The boy exhib-its a fracture of his right

clavicle that is unhealed and therefore, was broken at ornear the time of death. This trauma is supported by thepositioning of the right shoulder and arm in the grave. Inorder for the shoulders to have been so close together,one or both of the clavicles had to have been broken,indicating upper thoracic trauma. This extreme compres-sion of the upper thorax was not caused postmortem, orby natural conditions in the grave after burial. Furthermore,a stone projectile point was found with the skeleton. Thepoint of the arrowhead was directed toward the lateralsurface of the distal left femur (Figures 4a & 4b). No tipdamage is evident indicating the projectile did not directlyimpact bone, but its position indicates that it was lodged inthe flesh of the lower thigh. This arrow injury might not

have been immediately fa-tal, but combined with evi-dence of upper bodytrauma signifies a violentconfrontation that ended indeath.

This boy’s story, astold from the remains, par-allels two historic accountsfrom the early days ofJamestown. Both can befound in “Jamestown Nar-ratives,” a compilation ofeyewitness accounts of theVirginia Colony during itsfirst decade (Haile 1998).Both accounts relay the cir-cumstances of an attack inMay 1607 on the English-men by Native Americanssoon after the men landed.Both accounts mentionthe death of a boy, butneither referred to him byname, possibly due to hisyounger age and/orlower status within thegroup. Regardless, the

Figure 5: Skull of the boy from James Fort showing alarge area of missing bone in the front of the jaw. Thishole was formed in life as a result of a cracked tooth,which allowed bacteria to enter the pulp chamber,resulting in a deep bone infection.


event and death were traumatic enough to warrant de-scription in diary entries from the time.

. . .They came up almost into the fort, shot throughthe tents, appeared in this skirmish, which endured hotabout an hour, a very valiant people.

They hurt us 11 men, whereof one died after—and killed a boy, yet perceived not they this hurt in us. Wekilled divers of them, but one we saw them tug off ontheir backs, and how many we hurt we know not . . .

. . .28. Thursday. We labored palisading our fort.

Gabriel Archer: A relation of the discovery of our river fromJames Fort into the main, made by Captain Christofer Newport,sincerely written and observed by a gentleman of the colony. (pp.115)

. . .Had not God beyond all their expectations,by means of the ships at whom they shot with theirordnances and muskets, caused them to retire, they hadent’red the fort with our own men, which were then bus-ied in setting corn, their arms being them in dryfats andfew ready but certain gentlemen of their own; in whichconflict most of the council was hurt, a boy slain in thepinnace, and thirteen or fourteen more hurt. . .

John Smith: A True Relation / of such occurrences and accidentsof note as hath hap’ned in Virginia since the first planting of thatcolony which is now resident in the south part thereof, till the lastreturn from thence. Written by Captain Smith, one of the said colony,to a worshipful friend of his in England. [1608] (pp. 147).

The story of this boy, compiled through cluesfrom the bones and grave, is compelling in its own right.More fascinating is its ability to fill in the narrative of aknown event and place it in early colonial history. It cannotyet be said for certain that these remains are those of theboy killed in the referenced attack, but the evidence alongthese lines is intriguing. What the skeleton does providewith relative certainty is physical evidence for early conflictbetween the English and the native population, a tenuousrelationship that held the lives of many people, both En-glishmen and Native Americans, in the balance. It also pro-vides an intimate portrait of the harsh conditions faced inthe New World, even by the young, who were also par-ticipants and victims of the Jamestown venture.

The ability of this boy’s skeleton to introduce usto the events of the past is not unique. From the inden-tured servant, to the African slave, to a ship’s captain, tothe established families of England, each individual whocame to and died in America left behind an equal andlasting legacy of bone. It is the job of physical anthro-pologists specializing in human skeletal research to revealthe legacy and investigate the “mysteries of history” asthey present themselves through archaeology. It is thismessage that will be featured in the exhibition, Written inBone: Forensic Files of the 17th Century.

ReferencesHaile, E.W., ed. 1998. Jamestown Narratives, Eyewitness Accounts ofthe Virginia Colony, The First Decade: 1607-1617. Roundhouse.

Kelso, W.M. 2006. Jamestown, The Buried Truth. University of Vir-ginia Press.

Owsley, D.W., B. B. Elwood, and T. Melton. 2006. Search for theGrave of William Preston Longley, Hanged Texas gunfighter.Historical Archaeology 40(3): 50-63.

Ubelaker, D.H., and D.W. Owsley. 2003. Isotopic evidence for dietin the seventeenth century colonial Chesapeake. American Antiq-uity 68(1): 129-139.

We thank the APVA and lead archaeologist William Kelso forallowing us to assist with the exciting investigations being con-ducted at Historic Jamestown. Photography was done by ChipClark, Scientific Photographer, Smithsonian Institution.

Kari Bruwelheide is a physical anthropologist in the Department ofAnthropology, National Museum of Naturalist History and DougOwsley is curator and head of the physical anthropology division.

ANTHROPOLOGY EXPLORED

The revised and expanded edition of Anthropology Explored:The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes® is edited by RuthOsterweis Selig, Marilyn R. London, and P. Ann Kaupp(Smithsonian Books/HarperCollins). Order fromAmazon.com or Google: Anthropology Explored Revised 2ndEdition. For a desk copy or a classroom adoption, callHarperCollins at 1-800-242-7737. ISBN#: 1-58-834093-7, or contact [email protected]. Free Instructor’s Guide avail-able online at http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro//out-reach/anthropology_explored.htm.


RACE Are We So Different?A New Public Education Program

by Mary Margaret Overbey

After more than six years of planning, the AmericanAnthropological Association (AAA) has created ahighly acclaimed public education program on race

and human variation to promote broad understanding ofrace and human variation, to explain what race is and isnot, and to produce tools to teach about race. The pro-gram, RACE Are We So Different?, was made possible withnearly four million dollars in funding from the Ford Foun-dation and National Science Foundation. The RACE ex-hibit opened at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St.Paul in January 2007 with outstanding reviews from visi-tors and the media and began a national tour in May 2007.Twelve other cities across the U.S., including Washington,D.C., will host the exhibit through mid-2011. At this time,more than 18 cities are on a waiting list to host the exhibit.

Race remains an unspoken, yet powerful and notwell understood, facet of life in the United States. Morethan 40 years after the civil rights movement and with long-standing remedies and mechanisms in place to counter andtrack discrimination and social injustice, we like to thinkthat America has moved beyond race. But have we?

Educators know more than most that race con-tinues to underlie relationships among students, teachers,and administrators and daily life in schools and communi-ties across the U.S. Increasingly diverse student popula-tions require schools to ensure that administrators, teach-ers, and students understand and appreciate diversity.Multicultural activities celebrate the foods, dress, and lan-guages that reflect the many cultures represented amongstudents, faculty, and administrators in schools.

Focusing on differences, however, make it diffi-cult to see and celebrate the similarities among people. Andit does little to explain and disentangle notions of race fromthe concept of culture, adding to the confusion about whatrace is and isn’t.

Project Goal & ResourcesThe goal of the RACE Are We So Different? project was toproduce a traveling museum exhibit, a website, and educa-tional materials to convey a comprehensive and integrativestory about race and human variation. The story, gearedfor middle-school aged children through adults, relays threeoverall messages:

• Race is a recent human invention;• Race is about culture, not biology; and• Race and racism are embedded in our institu-

tions and everyday life.

The exhibit and website present three themes:• The history of the idea of race;• The science of human variation; and• The experience of living with race and racism.

The interactive website (http://www.understandingRACE.org) includes a virtual tour of theRACE exhibit., videos, historical timelines, and quizzes. It

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This photograph of people on a bus welcomes visitors tothe RACE Are We So Different? exhibit. One of many imagesof community life, taken by Wing Young Huie, featured inthe exhibit. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey.


also includes scholarly papers, written specifically for theconferences and activities supported by the project, and abibliography.

Teachers and families can access educational ma-terials in the website’s resources section(www.understandingRACE.org/resources/index.html).Two teacher’s guides, one for middle school teachers andone for high school teachers, present race and human varia-tion through the integrated lenses of biology, culture, andhistory. The guides meet national and select state standardsfor science, biology, social studies, and social science andprovide more than 10 lesson plans that address humanbiological variation, cultural variation, and the experienceof living with race and racism. The teacher’s guides includesome of the background material and lesson plans pub-lished in a related resource for teachers, How Real Is Race?A Sourcebook on Race, Culture, and Biology by CarolMukhopadhyay, Rosemary Henze and Yolanda Moses(Rowman and Littlefield Education, 2007).

The lesson plans are designed to be infused intoexisting curriculum, and we encourage teachers to considerteam teaching. For example, a biology teacher, a historyteacher, and a social science teacher may want to worktogether to design a module that integrates the science ofhuman variation with the history and lived experience ofrace in their classes.

A family guide, also in the website’s resources sec-tion, helps parents talk to small children about race. It pre-sents activities, stories, and exercises for parents and chil-

A high school cafeteria table invites visitors to lis-ten in on students’ conversation about race and howrace affects where they sit in the cafeteria and howthey think about themselves and others. Photo: byMary Margaret Overbey.

dren to do together as well as suggestions for discussionsabout race.

A glossary complements the teacher’s guides andfamily guide. We found that there is no common languagefor talking about race so we developed a glossary to assistteachers, students, parents, and scholars in discussing race.

Project BackgroundI want to emphasize a few points about the experience ofdeveloping the RACE Are We So Different? program.

First, understanding peoples’ perception of raceand human variation was important. We undertook exten-sive audience research to ensure that we had a good ideaof what people think about race. Over the course of theproject, we interviewed students at a diverse high school,interviewed visitors at two museums, held focus groups,and convened fourteen community meetings at seven mu-seum sites across the U.S. to better learn how people talkabout race, what they want to know about race, and whatsuggestions they had on how to draw others to an exhibit,website and educational materials on race. From this re-search, we learned that people are fascinated by humandifferences and similarities, and they want to know moreabout race and human variation. Although conversationswere not easy, people wanted to talk about how race af-fected their communities and their lives.

Calipers and hair samples are among the tools scien-tists used to measure human differences from early tomid-1900s. The calipers belonged to WilliamMontague Cobb, the first African American physicalanthropologist. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey.


Second, we designed this as an interdisciplinaryproject from the start to ensure inclusion of many criticalaspects of race and human variation, from the history ofthe idea of race, to the genetics of human variation, to theeffects of racism on education, health and housing. Di-versity also was central to the effort, and we worked tomake certain that there was diverse representation in theplanning and development of the program and in all projectactivities. A diverse, multidisciplinary 22-person AdvisoryBoard of scholars oversaw the effort. As a result of thisinterdisciplinary approach, the complicated story of raceis made understandable. Visitors can see and understandhow science, society, and government shaped the idea ofrace in such a way that it remains a powerful force thatcontinues to impact our institutions and everyday lives.

Third, developing the RACE Are We So Different?program was a collaborative effort, involving more than20 organizations, including the Smithsonian Institution’sNational Museum of Natural History and seven othermuseums. The AAA worked with the Science Museum ofMinnesota to develop the exhibit, S2N Media, Inc. to de-velop the website, Randi Korn & Associates to evaluatethe exhibit, Museum Solutions to evaluate the website, andMarmillion + Company to develop a communicationsstrategy and materials. More than 150 individuals contrib-

A turn of the century ceremonial vest with Americanflags stands in contrast to signs illustrating discrimi-nation. The exhibit explores “white” as a racial cat-egory. Photo: Mary Margaret Overbey.

Piles of money show the wealth disparities that existamong those who identify as white, Asian, AfricanAmerican, and Hispanic/Latino. The exhibit explainshow wealth accumulation occurred. Photo: MaryMargaret Overbey.

uted to the project. It took many people and organiza-tions working together to make the RACE Are We So Dif-ferent? program what it is, and we believe the very positivepublic response demonstrates that the result was well worththe effort.

I encourage you to visit the RACE Are We So Dif-ferent? website, acquaint yourself with the variety and rangeof activities, review and use the teacher’s guides and glos-sary. If the RACE exhibit comes to your city or nearby,consider taking your students to visit, or take a virtual tourof the exhibit with your students and incorporate a lessonplan in your class. I think you and your students will beglad you did.

ReferenceMukhopadhyay, Carol, Rosemary Henze and YolandaMoses. 2007. How Real Is Race? A Sourcebook on Race, Cul-ture, and Biology. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Edu-cation.

Mary Margaret Overbey is an anthropologist and serves as principalinvestigator and director of the RACE Project at the AmericanAnthropological Association.


Ubelaker, Douglas H., volume editor. Handbook of NorthAmerican Indians. Volume 3: The Environment, Origins, and Popu-lation. 2006. William C. Sturtevant, gen. ed. SmithsonianInstitution. 1,160 pp.

This 14th volume of the Handbook encyclopedia consistsof 72 illustrated chapters, authored by 96 scholars fromleading academic institutions and research firms, with 9,600references. The volume is divided into four majorsections: Paleo-Indian, Plant and Animal Resources, Skel-etal Biology and Population Size, and Human Biology,edited by Dennis Stanford, Bruce D. Smith, Douglas H.Ubelaker, and Emoke J.E. Szathmary, respectively.

The section on Paleo-Indian summarizes currentinformation about the human colonization of the conti-nent before about 9,000 B.C. when glacial ice sheets cov-ered the northern landscape and saber-toothed cats roamedthe area.

The Plant and Animal Resources section documentshow American Indians survived and adapted by utilizing theplant and animal components of the environment. Specialtopics in the section explore the presence of the dog, tur-key, and tobacco in Indian cultures; domestication of plants;and, the introduction of plants and animals from Mexicoand Europe.

The section on Skeletal Biology and PopulationSize focuses on biocultural history and what is currentlyknown about Indian populations based on archeologicalsamples of human remains. Thematic discussions includedentition, paleopathology, and population inferences frombone chemistry.

The last section, Human Biology, deals with con-temporary studies of Indians and Eskimos (Inuit) – physi-cal types and bodily adaptations, health, demography, and

VOLUME 3: HANDBOOK OF NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS

genetics—providing the reader with different viewpointsand interpretations on the question of origins, admixture,and population variation.

The Handbook of North American Indians is a lead-ing source of information on Indian history and culture,described by the Wall Street Journal (March 9, 2005) as “thebible of scholarship on native people.”

Two volumes in production are Volume 2: Indiansin Contemporary Society and Volume 16: Technology and VisualArts. Other published volumes include: Volume 4: Historyof Indian-White Relations, 1989; Volume 5: Arctic, 1984; Vol-ume 6: Subarctic, 1981; Volume 7: Northwest Coast, 1990;Volume 8: California, 1978; Volume 9 :Southwest (Puebloanpeoples and Southwest prehistory and history), 1980; Vol-ume 10: Southwest (non-Puebloan peoples), 1983; Volume11: Great Basin, 1986; Volume 12: Plateau 1998; Volume 15:Northeast, 1979; and Volume 17: Languages, 1996; Volume13: Plains, 2001; Volume 14: Southeast, 2004.

The Handbook of North American Indians is avail-able from the Government Printing Office: http://bookstore.gpo.gov; (866) 512-1800.

In Memoriam

William C. Sturtevant, world-renowned expert on the tra-ditional cultures of the North American Indians and gen-eral editor of the Handbook of North American Indians, diedMarch 2 at the age of 80.

He had worked at the Smithsonian Institution forfifty years. He was hired as an ethnologist by the Bureau ofAmerican Ethnology in 1956, becoming a curator in theDepartment of Anthropology in the National Museumof Natural History when the Bureau was closed in 1965.In 1970 he led the planning of the Smithsonian’s Handbookof North American Indians, a massive encyclopedia of a pro-jected 20 volumes, and he was its General Editor until hisdeath. He retired in January of this year and lived in Wash-ington, D.C.

Sturtevant received a B.A. from the University ofCalifornia at Berkeley in 1949 and a Ph.D. from Yale Uni-versity in 1955. His doctoral dissertation was on the medi-cal beliefs and practices of the Mikasuki Indians of Florida.In 1996 he received an honorary doctorate of humaneletters from Brown University.

Illustration of an early North American petroglyph byHandbook illustrator Roger Roop.


FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGYWorkshop for High School Students

July 16–July 27, 20079am – 4pm* M-FCatholic University of AmericaWorkshop Director: David T. Clark, Ph.D.

Human skeletal remains have much to tell us about howpeople lived and died. Forensic Anthropology is the studyof human skeletal remains in order to reconstruct the eventsof death. Archaeologists and biological anthropologistsscientifically investigate human remains and related physi-cal evidence to determine causes and circumstances sur-rounding human death and facts about human activities.Trauma, violence, disease, nutrition, and longevity are a fewcommon types of evidence revealed by human skeletalstudies.

This workshop will study archaeological/biologi-cal and anthropological methods used to investigate anddocument human remains and their associated archaeo-logical sites. Students will study all aspects of the humanskeleton, and learn how forensic scientists determine, ana-lyze and interpret clues from sites associated with humanremains. Ideas will be reinforced though daily hands-on,interactive projects. Examples of human remains, sites andmethods will be exhibited through a variety of visual me-dia: slides, DVD, movies, etc. Students will conduct dailyinternet projects related to the study of forensic sciences.

Class information will be augmented by field tripsto forensic exhibits and local research facilities. Limited fi-nancial aid is available for qualified students. Please contactSummer Sessions below for an application.Tuition-$950 Room & Board-$825

For more information, contact The Office of Sum-mer Sessions, Catholic University of America, 321 PangbornHall Washington, DC 20064; [email protected]; 202-319-5257

*Students may stay until 6pm for recreational activities, ifthey need to wait to be picked up by their parents at noextra charge.

He was a pioneer in and helped to define the in-terdisciplinary field of ethnohistory and that of ethno-science. While still a graduate student, he testified persua-sively in 1954 against a bill that would have terminated thefederal recognition of the Seminole tribe, beginning a life-long commitment to supporting tribes in their struggle tomaintain and regain their rights and land.

In 2002 he was honored by a festschrift writtenby 34 of his friends and colleagues (Anthropology, History,and American Indians: Essays in Honor of William CurtisSturtevant, edited by William L. Merrill and Ives Goddard;Smithsonian Contributions to Anthropology 44).

Bill Sturtevant wrote or edited more than 200 pub-lications and served on many professional boards and com-mittees. He was president of the American Society forEthnohistory (1965-1966), the American Ethnological So-ciety (1977), the Anthropological Society of Washington(1992), and the American Anthropological Association(1980-1981).

The American Philosophical Society (104 S. FifthSt., Philadelphia, PA 19106) has set up, at the request ofthe family, the William C. Sturtevant Memorial Fund insupport of research in museums and archives on collec-tions pertaining to the Native Peoples of the Americas.

He will be greatly missed.Ives Goddard

(With thanks to Sally McLendon, Harriet Shapiro, and BillMerrill)


AnthroNotes® offers in-depth articles on current anthropo-logical research, teaching activities, and reviews of new resources.AnthroNotes was originally part of the George Washington Uni-versity/Smithsonian Institution Anthropology for Teachers Pro-gram funded by the National Science Foundation. It is pub-lished free-of-charge twice a year. A compendium of AnthroNotesarticles is available as Anthropology Explored: The Best of SmithsonianAnthroNotes (http://www.nmnh.si.edu/anthro//outreach/anthropology_explored.htm).

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1. To more widely disseminate original, recent researchin anthropology in order to help readers stay current in thefield;

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3. To create a national network of anthropologists, ar-chaeologists, teachers, museum and other professionals in-terested in the wider dissemination of anthropology, particu-larly in schools.

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