> Date:    Sun, 25 Mar 2007 16:29:33 -0300
> From:    Juergen Botz <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: What they died from
>
> Ok, so if I understand correctly you are saying that your
> teacher had the advantage of also being a nurse and thus
> having a finer sense of evidence of age, and this is how
> she discovered this?

*** That was probably part of it. She was a combat nurse in Viet Nam. After 
the war she went back to school for a PhD in anthro, and specialized in 
communicable disease among Native Americans after Contact. Gut-wrenching 
stuff, really--don't know how she did it.
>
> Can you be a little more specific and point to an example
> of how she was able to identify some skeleton as being from
> an older person that originally assumed?

*** Hmm, this is stretching my memory somewhat. I don't recall specifically 
how skeletons were identified as being from older persons--bioaccumulation 
of some metal, maybe? Carbon-dating of some kind? I might have some notes 
somewhere. I more specifically recall that the earlier paleontologists dated 
bones based on the established growth and aging pattern among Europeans, and 
the two just don't compare. It is also difficult to study Native American 
bones because it is offensive to the people to have their ancestors 
disturbed. Nevertheless, the Smithsonian, among other institutions, has a 
large collection of Indian still.

> Is any of this published anywhere?

*** The work done at Ozette has been published. My area of interest was in 
ancient dogs, and nobody minds if you disturb dog bones. Ozette was 
published in 3 volumes, I have only the one that pertains to my own field. 
I'm not sure how much, if any, information on human bones might be in the 
other volumes. Ozette was a Makah village that was buried with its occupants 
in a mudslide early in the 18th century. All of the human inhabitants' 
remains were reintered out of respect for those ancestors. Those bones got 
some study, but I'm not sure how much. I'll see if I can locate more info.

There is plenty of oral history collected by the first anthropologists to 
study Northwest Coast cultures to suggest that the people lived very long 
healthy lives before they were introduced to European diseases and 
lifestyles. The "nasty, brutish, and short" theory of paleo lives no longer 
holds much water in professional anthro circles.

--Carrie