It has long been known that Neanderthals show much evidence of treating
their companions with compassion and care. Klein writes:
"However, the same skeletal pathologies and injuries that show that the
Neanderthals lived risky lives and aged early also reveal a strikingly
'human' feature of their social life. The La Chapelle-aux-Saints and
Shanidar 1 individuals, for example, must have been severely
incapacitated and would have died even earlier without substantial help
and care from their comrades. This implicit group concern for the old
and sick may have permitted Neanderthals to live longer than any of their
predecessors, and it is the most recognizably human, nonmaterial aspect
of their behavior that can be directly inferred from the archeological
record."~Richard G. Klein, The Human Career, (Chicago: The University of
Chicago Press, 1989), p. 334
What is less well known are similar examples with Homo erectus.
In 1973, Kamoya Kimeu, a hominid fossil hunter of mythic renown
discovered the fragmented bones of an Homo erectus. After sifting the
earth from the dig, the homo erectus skeleton fragments were mixed in
with the bones of hippos, crocodiles, and turtles among others. The
fragments of this individual were easy to pick out from the 40,000 bones
of other species because the homo erectus' bones were terribly diseased
and deformed. Eventually, the fragments, when glued back together,
turned out to be the first nearly complete skeleton ever found of a Homo
erectus. Unfortunately, the diseased bones allowed very little to be
learned of the normal anatomy of H. erectus.
This fossil was given the museum number KNM-ER 1808. The KNM-ER
stands for Kenya National Museum-East Rudolf. The geologic dating
revealed that the fossil was 1.7 million years old, making this one of
the oldest erectus fossils around. The bones had belonged to an adult
female erectus.
The diseased bones consisted of two parts. There was a normal core
where the osteocytic lacunae are parallel, as is normal. The osteocytic
lacunae are tiny caves in bone where the bone cell once lived.
Surrounding this normal core was a half inch of 'woven' bone, thickest on
the limb bones and almost nonexistent on the skull. The woven bone has
bloated and highly irregular osteocytic lacunae and was deposited near the
end of 1808's life. This fabric develops for one of three reasons: 1)
when the creature grows very rapidly, 2) when fractures heal and 3) when a
disease is operative. Since there is a core of normal bone which
represents an adult-sized skeleton, rapid growth as a cause can be ruled
out. Since the woven bone was all over the skeleton except for the skull,
fractures didn't seem very likely as a cause. This left disease, but what
disease?
Alan Walker consulted with doctors at John Hopkins, looking for a
diagnosis. The consensus seemed to settle onto a diagnosis of
hypervitaminosis A. This type of disease is found among modern health
fadists who take too much vitamin A. But since 1808 could not go to the
local pharmacy and buy vitamin A supplements, how did she get mega-doses
of this vitamin? Walker suggests that she obtained it in the same way
that some arctic explorers got it -- by eating carnivores. More
specifically, she got it by eating carnivore livers.
It seems that when carnivores eat their prey, the obtain fairly
large doses of vitamin A. Vitamin A is then stored "in its liver, where
it is never broken down or detoxified. Carnivores, like dogs, leopard
seals, polar bears, or killer whales, eat other animals, including their
livers. Because a carnivore eats so many livers, its liver becomes a
veritable warehouse of vitamin A."(Walker and Shipman, p. 162)
Sir Douglas Mawson provides an excellent example of hypervitaminosis A in
an arctic environment and the excruciating pain and horrible death it can
cause.
On Nov. 11, 1912, Mawson and two companions, Ninnis and Mertz, left their
base camp to explore a large area on three sleds. They had stashed some
food on the path of the journey but only carried small quantities with
them. On their return, they traveled too slowly and ran out of food.
They abandoned one sled and sorted their gear onto the lead sled,
containing the scientific gear, and placed the food in the trailing sled.
Fearing crevasses, they had the scientific sled go first reasoning
that if it fell into a crevasse there would be no big loss.
Unfortunately, fate had a different idea. On Dec. 13, 1912, Ninnis and
the food sled, fell into a crevasse, killing Ninnis and the team. The
lead sled had made the crossing but apparently had weakened the ice
bridge enough so that it could no longer support the weight of the food-
carrying sled. Mawson and Mertz were 320 miles from base camp with only
enough food for ten days. As they continued on their trek, they began
to kill and eat the sled dogs. The dog meat was tough and chewy. The
livers were soft and better tasting. They ate liver which turned out to
be a fatal mistake.
They began to suffer from dizziness, stomach cramps, nausea, and
balance problems. Their hair fell out and their skin cracked and peeled
off in strips. Their joints throbbed with pain. Delerium set in.
Walker and Shipman write:
"Any sort of movement produced terrible pain, for what they were
experiencing was exactly what happened to 1808. The excess vitamin A they
had eaten--Mawson's biographer reckons they ate sixty toxic doses--
caused the periosteum, the tough, fibrous tissue that encases each bone,
to rip free from the bone with each pull of a muscle. (The muscles are
anchored on bones through the periosteum.) Between the periosteum and
bone, torn apart blood vessels spilled their contents, forcing further
separation of the tissues. In the case of 1808, the blood formed huge
clots, which ossified--turned to bone--before she died." (Walker and
Shipman, p. 164)
Mertz died before reaching base camp. Mawson buried him 100 miles from
base camp. When Mawson reached the base camp, his good friend greeted him
with "My God! Which one are you?"
What does this have to do with H. erectus, specifically, the individual
1808? Walker and Shipman write:
"To have such extensive blood clots, she must have been completely
immobilized with pain. Yet, despite her agony, she must have survived
her poisoning for weeks or maybe months while those clots ossified. How
else could her blood clots have been so ubiquitous; how else could they
have turned to the thick coating of pathological bone that started us on
this quest?
The implication stared me in the face: someone else took care of
her. Alone, unable to move, delirious, in pain, 1808 wouldn't have
lasted two days in the African bush, much less the length of time her
skeleton told us she had lived. Someone else brought her water and
probably food; unless 1808 lay terrible close to a water source, that
meant her helper had some kind of receptacle to carry water in. And
someone else protected her from hyenas, lions and jackals on the prowl
for a tasty morsel that could not run away. Someone else, I couldn't help
thinking, sat with her through the long, dark African nights for no good
reason except human concern. So, useless as 1808 was for telling us much
about normal Homo erectus morphology, she told us something quite
unexpected. Her bones are poignant testimony to the beginnings of
sociality, of strong ties among individuals that came to exceed the
bonding and friendship we see among baboons or chimps or other non human
primates"(Walker and Shipman,p. 165)
As to 1808 lying close to water, consider this: water holes attract
predators at all hours of the day and night. The predators have learned
that their prey will eventually come to the water hole. After describing
this and hominid inability to defend themselves at night, Lew Binford
writes:
"The place I would never choose to establish a camp in the African
savannah is next to a water source! Nevertheless, archaeologists tell us
that our hominid ancestors habitually located home bases in exactly these
places. At this point, it becomes relevant to ask whether the three
criteria used by the East African researchers really permit the reliable
recognition of home-base occupation sites."~Lewis Binford, In Pursuit of
the Past, (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983), p. 68
Typing is slow so tomorrow I will talk about the human-ness of H.
erectus' childhood. The day after I will deal with some issues this book
raises for language ability in the H. erectus.
glenn
Foundation,Fall and Flood
http://members.gnn.com/GRMorton/dmd.htm