Ancient/Now - January 13th
Monkeying with the archaeological record, self-healing Roman concrete, Japan's first black samurai, the archaeology of war, and more
Monkeys complicate the prehistoric archaeological record
We humans have always been navel-gazing anthropocentrists, so perhaps we should not be surprised that it’s infecting our archaeological conclusions. Archaeologists investigating prehistoric Pleistocene-era sites in Brazil have determined that capuchin monkeys are responsible for the creation of 50,000 year old stone tools that were initially thought to be the work of early humans. These prehistoric stone tools “are indistinguishable from some ancient stone tools carved by early humans,” and are remarkably similar to those produced by capuchin monkeys at Brazil’s Serra da Capivara National Park.
“Our work reinforces the idea that the human settlement of this part of the American continent is more recent and is in line with the studies that determine its arrival some 13,000 or 14,000 years before the present,” Agustín Agnolín, of Argentina’s National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought, added. “This questions the hypotheses that proposed an excessively old settlement of South America.”
This latest evidence throws yet another monkey wrench into the so-called “Pre-Clovis” hypothesis, which suggests that the human presence in the Americas began more than 14,000 years ago. Given that capuchins have been making tools for around 100,000 years, scholars have recently begun to study capuchin tool-making practices in order to reconsider the attribution of stone tools to human manufacture without other evidence of human habitation. Time to eat some humble pie, humanity…
The secret to the durability of Roman concrete
From the dome of the eternal Pantheon to aqueducts, sewers and docks, many examples of the Romans’ engineering mastery still stand within their enduring architecture for all the world to see. Researchers have long sought the secret to a key component of Roman architecture—concrete. While modern concrete cracks and crumbles within decades, Roman concrete has endured for millennia, often surviving intact in challenging environmental forces like seawater and earthquakes. A research team of combined experts from MIT, Harvard University, and European laboratories published a study this month which details their findings. They reveal that by using quicklime and a process called “hot mixing,” the Romans were able to create a self-healing concrete. As soon as cracks form, “lime clasts” within the concrete can react with water and form calcium carbonate, which fills the cracks before they have a chance to grow. This is an excellent example of the need to revise our modern exceptionalism. Just because a people were ancient, does not mean they were primitive. There is much to learn from the ancient world today, and researchers are using their Roman concrete findings to create lighter-weight concretes with longer lifespans and even the ability to absorb carbon dioxide from the air (yes, please, late-state, research university capitalism??!). Researchers hope these innovations in concrete formulations will help reduce the environmental impact of manufacturing concrete, which contributes to an estimated 8 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally.
Japan’s first black samurai
This article by Smithsonian Magazine is a great introduction to the mysterious 16th century historical figure of Yasuke, Japan’s first black samurai. Yasuke was an African warrior who served the feudal lord Oda Nobunaga, a powerful figure of the Sengoku period. Yasuke’s life is not well-documented aside from his service to Nobunaga, which culminated in a massacre at Honnoji Temple in Kyoto, Japan. When it was clear all hope was lost, we are told, Yasuke was asked by the daimyo to help him commit sepukku (ritual suicide) and return his head to his son. Yasuke’s origins are unclear—was he a merchant lost at sea? Was he a mercenery solder on the move? was he enslaved or trafficked as a child? How did his life outside of Africa begin? Although there aren’t many solid historical facts known about Yasuke’s life, what is known is a fascinating history full of danger, violence, and adventure that has all of the makings of a legendary tale and offers a new perspective on feudal Japan. There are several adaptations of Yasuke’s life (including on Netflix) and a few books written by historians but, Oxford University professor Natalia Doan points out, none were produced with the benefit of Yasuke’s own voice since any records he may have produced did not survive to present day. Even so, Doan notes,
“Even without a large number of surviving historical sources for us to understand the full extent of Yasuke’s activity or personal experiences, Yasuke’s story is an example of the kind of exciting and unexpected transnational encounters occurring within Black and Japanese history.”
War tactics, archaeology, and the human experience
When was war invented? Are humans becoming more peaceful or increasingly violent? In other words: War, what is it good for? To answer these pressing human questions we can turn to archaeology. But, you might say, archaeological evidence of war and violence is always interpreted in different ways, depending on the identity and biases of the researcher; and you would be right! The experts of Mayan warfare in this linked article argue that archaeologists should give
“a greater focus on ‘martial practice,’ meaning social processes and human behaviors surrounding war, including questions about fighting styles, weaponry, armor, wound types, and interactions with the landscape.”
Time to get busy in the experimental side of things, in other words. Understanding the practical side of warfare and taking into account the nuances of how humans engaged in violent conflict, they argue, can help archaeologists avoid simplistic interpretations of war in the past. For instance, the lack of fortifications at an archaeological site does not necessarily mean those who lived there were surrounded by peaceful neighbors; other factors like access to labor, resources, and whether a population was nomadic, semi-nomadic, or sedentary must be taken into account. If we actually try out old chariot technology or spear throwing engineering or figure out how long it might take an invading army to march a hundred miles through thick jungle, we can study warfare and its marks on the human experience in a way that avoids assumptions and charges of primitivism. Let’s not forget that awesome Roman concrete, after all…
The Face of Ramses II
It seems we never get tired of attempting to put a face on famous figures from ancient Egypt. Pharaohs! They’re Just Like Us! Combining science, technology, and a little imagination to connect with the humanity of people from the distant past is not necessarily a bad idea, but it has been known to go horribly wrong. (Witness the epic fail of the Tutankhamun facial reconstruction, which clearly shows European racial bias of its creators, not to mention their love for Barbara Streisand.) The facial reconstruction of Ramses the Great revealed by this study not only took on the task of putting a face on the king, but also took on age regression, since he died in his 90’s. While it can be fun to imagine you’re looking at a face from the distant past, it is important to remember that, from the code in the software used to create it to the technician rendering the image, our cultural and racial biases are built into that manipulated face and reflected back at us, making these reconstructions more of a mirror for us to peer into rather than a portal to the past. And do you think he’s “handsome”?!? More fodder for Pharaoh’s Groupies, if you follow Kara’s book The Good Kings…
What we’re reading
There are some good books out there, and we wanted to make some recommendations!
Harem Histories: Envisioning Places and Living Spaces is an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the harem in Middle Eastern and North African societies and is one of the latest volumes to have ended up at the top of the “to read” stack. Both Kara and Jordan have recently published on topics related to this subject—the harem in ancient Egypt and the orientalization of ancient Egyptian women, respectively—in Ancient Egyptian Society: Challenging Assumptions, Exploring Approaches. Published in 2011, this book is not exactly hot off the presses, but the study of gendered spaces, the social distribution of bodies, and the way such spaces are represented and imagined are timely topics in our post, post post-“Me Too” era.
