Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
examine the cost of this event socially or biologically (
Armelagos and Goodman, 1998; Har-
rison, 1995, 1999; Lieberman and Kirk, 2004; Gravlee, 2009
).
It is a reality that social race exists and that forensic anthropologists can estimate
geographic ancestral origin from different bones. But this same reality makes ancestry esti-
mation a delicate endeavor indeed. On the one hand, biological anthropologists say, “race
does not exist biologically”; yet on the other, they say, “however, we can estimate ancestry
from the skeleton.” This contradictory message confuses the public, in part because they
are not aware of the nuances of the evolutionary forces that have led to certain skeletal
features, but also because such statements would seem to reinforce societal views about
different race categories. Blakey refers to the conundrum of continued racial categorization
as a “tangled web” (1999:42) and it is clear that untangling the web to move past categoriza-
tion is an impossible task since we rely on traditional categories to estimate ancestry from
skeletons. The point is that as anthropologists who estimate ancestry, it is our responsibility
both to the discipline and to society to recognize the societal implications of doing ancestry
estimation. We must consider two major interests of society: (1) victim/decedent identifica-
tion, and (2) combating racism. How do we decide which interest is more important and how
do we convincingly and clearly explain to the public the difference between social race cate-
gories and the characteristics of different geographic populations that we can see and
measure from the skeleton?
MODERN THOUGHT ABOUT ANCESTRY
“To give up all general racial classifications would mean for anthropology freeing
itself from blinkers it has too long worn, and focusing all its energy on its actual goal:
the understanding of human variability, as it really is.” Jean Hiernaux (1964:43
e
44)
One could argue that Franz Boas first laid the overall foundation for our current conception
of ancestry just before the turn of the twentieth century (
Caspari, 2009
). His publications
showcase his interest in human variation outside of race, rejecting both biological determinist
and typological explanations (
Caspari, 2009
; and for example
Boas, 1918b
). He additionally
focused on the concept of culture and the effect of the environment on human variation,
perhaps being at least partially influenced by Edward Tylor's famous definition of “culture,”
still in use today: “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, law, morals,
custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (
Tylor,
1871; Caspari, 2009
). During his career, he continued to publish on similar ideas; however,
typological and racial determinist ideas continued to compete (
Littlefield et al., 1982
).
This began to change in 1951 with Sherwood Washburn's seminal paper, The New Physical
Anthropology. In it, Washburn, a Hooton student, defined a new direction for the discipline:
a movement away from applied typology and toward studies examining evolutionary
change, population genetics, and human variation (1951). Essentially, this paper set up the
framework for modern thought in biological anthropology, i.e., a focus on the population
from an evolutionary perspective. The population in this sense can be defined as a group
of contemporary human individuals living in relatively the same geographic area who
have a shared culture that includes language, traditions, and belief systems and who tend
