Alan G. Morris

Muscle marking morphology and labour intensity in prehistoric Khoisan foragers

As indicators of the intensity and frequency of muscle activity, the rugosity and size of muscle insertion areas in human skeletal remains may provide a record of average work effort in past populations. In this paper a diet breadth model derived from optimal foraging theory was used as a heuristic means of exploring the utility of musculoskeletal stress markers (MSM) for determining subsistence labour intensity in prehistoric populations. The model was used to make predictions about relative muscle scar rugosity and size in three samples of pre-European-contact Khoisan skeletons from distinct biomes that vary in primary productivity and biomass structure (thus requiring different average subsistence work efforts). Equality of MSM scores between groups could only be rejected for the upper limb among males. In this case, the between-group differences were also in the direction predicted by the diet breadth model (forest>fynbos>savanna). The same pattern obtained for the lower limb in males, but the groups were not significantly different in median scores. Female samples did not differ significantly in mean MSM scores in either the upper or lower limb. Results suggest that ecological differences between biomes may have had a greater impact on the labour costs of male-foraged rather than female-foraged food items. Correlations between variables and analysis of additional measures of activity further suggest that MSM may reflect certain types of muscle activity (loading intensity) better than others (loading frequency and duration), which may account in part for the obtained results. These results invite further study of the ecological correlates of muscle scar rugosity and robusticity in the post-cranial skeleton of foraging peoples.

Stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analyses of the underclass at the colonial Cape of Good Hope in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Analysis of the stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios of burials in a colonial cemetery in Cape Town, South Africa, reveals life histories of the underclass there. We are able to distinguish foreign from local-born people, and to infer social status, specifically slavery, by linking bone chemistry and somatic modification. This is the first use of bone chemistry to reconstruct the life histories of a mixed population of diverse origin, buried in a cosmopolitan colonial city. As such, it may be used as a guide for future work in other colonial sites.

Reconstruction of the late Pleistocene human skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa.

Human skeletal remains from sub-Saharan Africa are virtually non-existent for the period when genetic models indicate the first modern human emigration from this region. The skull from Hofmeyr, South Africa, which has been dated to c. 36ka, is one of the only specimens known from this critical part of the late Pleistocene. The Hofmeyr skull was largely intact at the time of its discovery but has suffered post-recovery mishandling, with the resultant loss of most of the lower facial skeleton, the mandibular angle, the right mastoid process, and much of the occipital. Given the potential significance of this specimen, we have undertaken its restoration and reconstruction so as to provide a more complete picture of the cranial morphology of the late Pleistocene population from which it derived. On the basis of photographs, measurements, and morphological description recorded prior to its having been damaged, we reconstructed some of the missing bone in modeling clay on a high resolution plastic cast of the cranium. The original specimen was CT scanned, as was the cast with the reconstructed maxilla and mastoid; these scans were employed in the final computer reconstruction of the skull. Virtual reconstruction of the remainder of the cranium was accomplished using mirror-imaging and reference-based methods, employing 3D geometric morphometrics from a sample of recent human crania to compute coordinate-based estimates of the missing parts. This reconstruction provides a more complete picture of the Hofmeyr cranium and serves as a basis for more comprehensive morphometric comparisons.

The myth of the East African 'Bushmen'

Recent genetic studies of living African peoples have suggested that the KhoiSan in particular are of very ancient stock and that they share some ancient genetic features with living East Africans. Archaeological and linguistic evidence for an ancient KhoiSan presence in East Africa has been used to support these arguments. A re-examination of the archaeological evidence does not support this stance. In particular, the bulk of the osteological evidence for KhoiSan presence in East Africa is flawed because it is drawn from a typological context where individual osteologicalfeatures were interpreted as KhoiSan and the total morphological pattern was not considered. More recent studies of archaeological specimens and living East Africans have not confirmed any KhoiSan linkage with East Africa. Linguistic evidence is also equivocal and the clicks found in East Africa may represent the remains of ancient linguistic phonemes rather than remnants of KhoiSan languages. Without the support of archaeological and linguistic evidence, the genetic similarities of East and South Africans should be seen as a more distant commonality of underlying genetic features of all Africans rather than a specific KhoiSan genetic identity. (The terminology used in this paper conforms to that of Jenkins & Tobias [1977]. The spelling of KhoiSan was adopted by the session on Nomenclature of People at the Origins of Humanity Workshop at Stellenbosch in September 2002 as part of the HSRC Africa Genome Initiative.)

First ancient mitochondrial human genome from a prepastoralist Southern African

The oldest contemporary human mitochondrial lineages arose in Africa. The earliest divergent extant maternal offshoot, namely haplogroup L0d, is represented by click-speaking forager peoples of southern Africa. Broadly defined as Khoesan, contemporary Khoesan are today largely restricted to the semidesert regions of Namibia and Botswana, whereas archeological, historical, and genetic evidence promotes a once broader southerly dispersal of click-speaking peoples including southward migrating pastoralists and indigenous marine-foragers. No genetic data have been recovered from the indigenous peoples that once sustained life along the southern coastal waters of Africa prepastoral arrival. In this study we generate a complete mitochondrial genome from a 2,330-year-old male skeleton, confirmed through osteological and archeological analysis as practicing a marine-based forager existence. The ancient mtDNA represents a new L0d2c lineage (L0d2c1c) that is today, unlike its Khoe-language based sister-clades (L0d2c1a and L0d2c1b) most closely related to contemporary indigenous San-speakers (specifically Ju). Providing the first genomic evidence that prepastoral Southern African marine foragers carried the earliest diverged maternal modern human lineages, this study emphasizes the significance of Southern African archeological remains in defining early modern human origins.

Race and Iron age human skeletal remains from Southern Africa: An assessment

This paper reviews the concept of race as applied in southern Africa, and with particular reference to the idea of the “Negro”. After examining earlier work in the field of physical anthropology, more recent theoretical concepts are applied in a critique of modern practice. It is concluded that the revolution in physical anthropological theory has been largely “silent”, with the consequence that new ideas have not been systematically applied in archaeology. It would seem that there is little firm, and still acceptable, evidence for the identity of early farming communities in southern Africa.

Isotopic Evidence for Diets of Prehistoric Farmers in South Africa

Economies based on plant and animal husbandry are relatively recent occurrences in southern African prehistory. Prior to about 2000 B.P. southern African populations were hunter-gatherers, with emphasis on different kinds of terrestrial or marine resources, depending on the region. The diets and subsistence bases of hunter-gatherers along the western and southern coastal margins have received a great deal of attention (e.g. Deacon 1976; Parkington 1976; Klein 1978, 1981; Schweitzer 1979; Sealy 1986; Sealy and van der Merwe 1986, 1988; Inskeep 1987); the lifeways of hunter-gatherers in the interior have received less attention. Major changes occurred at about 2000 B.P., or shortly thereafter, with the emergence of various food-producing groups in South Africa. Mixed farmers appeared in parts of the relatively wetter eastern side of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, manufacturing characteristic ceramics, practising iron metallurgy and raising domestic animals (ovicaprines and cattle) and cereal crops (millet and sorghum). This complex of traits is generally known as the Iron Age. At about the same time, or soon after, ovicaprines and cattle appeared in the drier western parts of the country, herded by pastoralist groups. These animals are not indigenous to southern Africa, and hence must have been imported from more northerly parts of the continent. The extent to which this process involved migration of human populations (Smith 1983, 1986), or the the spread of a new way of life among existing groups (Schrire 1980,1984), remains unresolved. Recent research on food producing communities has been summarized by Maggs and Whitelaw (1991).

Biological Anthropology at the Southern Tip of Africa. Carrying European Baggage in an African Context

One of the biggest surprises in the rise of apartheid in South Africa in the 1940s was that, unlike in prewar Germany, it was not rooted in the physical anthropology of the previous decades. The engineers of apartheid were, for the most part, Afrikaans-speaking ethnologists operating out of the Afrikaans-medium universities, where little or no physical anthropology was taught. The University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Cape Town, both English-medium schools based on the traditions of British academia, were the centers of biological anthropology. Although none of the early practitioners from these schools were directly involved in the implementation of the apartheid policy, their strict typological approach to human variation provided a solid growth medium in which the government policies could develop without credible scientific opposition.

Dynamics of Indian Ocean Slavery Revealed through Isotopic Data from the Colonial Era Cobern Street Burial Site, Cape Town, South Africa (1750-1827)

The Dutch East India Company (VOC) intended the Cape of Good Hope to be a refreshment stop for ships travelling between the Netherlands and its eastern colonies. The indigenous Khoisan, however, did not constitute an adequate workforce, therefore the VOC imported slaves from East Africa, Madagascar and Asia to expand the workforce. Cape Town became a cosmopolitan settlement with different categories of people, amongst them a non-European underclass that consisted of slaves, exiles, convicts and free-blacks. This study integrated new strontium isotope data with carbon and nitrogen isotope results from an 18th-19th century burial ground at Cobern Street, Cape Town, to identify non-European forced migrants to the Cape. The aim of the study was to elucidate individual mobility patterns, the age at which the forced migration took place and, if possible, geographical provenance. Using three proxies, 87Sr/86Sr, δ13Cdentine and the presence of dental modifications, a majority (54.5%) of the individuals were found to be born non-locally. In addition, the 87Sr/86Sr data suggested that the non-locally born men came from more diverse geographic origins than the migrant women. Possible provenances were suggested for two individuals. These results contribute to an improved understanding of the dynamics of slave trading in the Indian Ocean world.

Controversies About the Study of Human Remains in Post-Apartheid South Africa

South African physical anthropology has followed a strange pathway divorced from its sister field of sociocultural anthropology. Physical anthropology was a research subject in the museums and medical schools which focused heavily on the nature of racial types. Its practitioners believed that it was a pure science which should not concern itself with ‘unscientific’ political issues. The separation of social and physical anthropology and the emphasis on typology were only broken in the 1970s, but this came too late for the subject to meaningfully engage in the sociopolitical development of the country either in support or in rejection of apartheid. There was a resurgence of self-defined ethnicity after the first democratic election in 1994. This was driven by claims for land by those dispossessed during apartheid but most specifically amongst the Khoesan descendants who were disposed of their land and culture in the Colonial period. The new heritage legislation of 1999 has been developed particularly to deal with these issues of claims for heritage, and very precise controls have been placed over the excavation of human remains. Although facilitating reburial is a central plank in the new legislation, physical anthropology continues to be an important academic subject that is helping to provide knowledge about the past peoples in South Africa’s ancient heritage.