http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/perspectives003.
htm A major cause in the rise of human fossil localities was the changing view
Cultural Biases Reflected in the Hominid Fossil Record
By Joshua Barbach and Craig Byron
Abstract: An examination of the published hominid fossil record reveals political and
5 cultural bias. An example of this societal influence is the Age of Enlightenment of the
mid-19th century. Prevailing European ideology established specifically Eurocentric
recovery patterns. Later developments, such as the Neo-Darwinian Synthesis in the
mid-1900s, led to an increasingly sophisticated understanding of humanity’s origins.
These developments are reflected by an increase in the recovery and publication of
10 Asian and African fossil hominid sites.
Introduction
The discipline of Anthropology has served the data for several ethnocentric
arguments interpreting human antiquity. Biometrics and modern human
variation have been the vehicle for racist programs throughout the 19th and
15 early 20th century. A significant factor of this equation is the prevailing view
of human origins. Specifically, the geographic location of fossil humans has
been used to argue for continuity of modern people and their pre-historic
fossil counterparts. Given this factor, a differential recovery of fossils
between continental regions could lead to misunderstood notions of human
20 evolution.
An examination of the published human fossil record reveals a significant
bias favoring the European continent. The early stages of human fossil
recovery are near entirely contained within Europe throughout the 1800s. As
discussed below, we believe this to be the product of several cultural biases.
25 Of these were prevailing notions of science and man’s place in nature. Also,
the individual biases inherent with each researcher severely limited any
collecting or interpretational activities. Not until the modern theoretical
framework of human evolution was established do significant human fossil
localities create a more representable spatial and temporal pattern of pre-
30 history. As evidenced by the line graph in figure 1, the early to mid-1900s (~
1900-1950) saw a surge of fossil localities being recorded from the Asian
and African continents.
of man by the scientific community. In this view, the integration of Darwin’s
35 theory of natural selection, Mendel’s principles of heredity and genetics,
and the molecular evidence for DNA combined to forge the New
Evolutionary Synthesis or otherwise referred to as the Neo-Darwinian
Synthesis. This new paradigm opened the Asian and African continents
to a changed collecting pattern.
40 Methods
We used Oakley et al’s Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, Parts I, II, III as well
……………………………………………………………………………………
Discussion
Of extreme importance when considering human fossils is the notion of
45 man’s place in nature and the understanding of evolutionary processes
by the ‘culture’ that discovers and describes these fossils. An
interpretation always operates according to the limits set by the interpreter
and the environment in which the interpretation takes place. A severely
limiting notion held by the Western community throughout the past two
50 millennia was Plato’s Typology represented by such works as Republic.
It is in the seventh book of this collection, The Allegory of the Cave, that
deals with the notion of typology. This long-accepted notion of physical
reality posited that all objects, including animals and people, were unable
to mimic their ideal form. As a result, variation in attributes reflects the
55 imperfection in nature which is attempting to produce ideal types.
Specifically, the work of Johann F. Blumenbach, 1752-1840, is shaped
according to this philosophy. Blumenbach was committed to the idea of
monogenism, in which proponents interpreted the human races as unified
and descended from a single origin. Operating under this view of the
60 human races and Plato’s Typology, Blumenbach created an argument
that helped forge the early paradigm for the search of human fossils. It
was his belief that Caucasians represented the Platonic Ideal and that all
other human races, descended from the same origin according to the
monogenist philosophy, were divergences from this ideal type (Wolpoff
65 and Caspari 1997:62). Essentially, Blumenbach emplaced a search and
recovery model for human fossils according to the regional location of the
ideal human type, i.e. Europe.
 Also during this time, early 1800s, the scientific community at large was
dealing with the notion of man’s place in the natural world. Chevalier de
70 Larmarck, 1744-1829, first presented the notion of evolution as an
explanation for the diversity but yet unity of all life on earth. His Zoological
Philosophy, of 1809, presented a natural philosophy for the plants and
animals around the world (Birx 1984:12). Where humans figured into this
naturalist philosophy was controversial. If man was a product of this natural
75 process of evolution, some felt their view of religion, and more specifically
Christianity, was compromised. It was through the work of Ludwig
Feuerbach, 1804-1872, that helped place man in this natural realm of
evolution. Feurbach was a German theologist and philosopher who broke
from the German idealists (Leibniz, Kant and Hegel) by positing a new school
80 of thought known as naturalist humanism. This philosophy featured a
scientific and rational attitude towards man in nature. More importantly, our
species was seen as an evolved animal; we were the product of an
evolutionary process (Birx 1984:8).
The Age of Enlightenment, mid-1800s, synthesized many of these newly
85 emerging philosophies as well as sciences such as geology, paleontology
and archaeology. A new worldview was gleaned from this growing body of
evidence arguing for human evolution (Birx 1984:12). The Age of
Enlightenment saw a new view for European pre-history provided by
Jacques Boucher de Perthes and Christian Thomson. Boucher de Perthes
90 published his study of hominid fossils associated with Paleolithic artifacts in
1836. The evidence of these artifacts associated with extinct faunal remains
argued for the antiquity of man in France (Schick and Toth 1993:61).
Thomson was from Denmark and invented the three age system, (Stone
Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age), which was used throughout the world. This
95 system was created to interpret European pre-history. A major bias occurs
simply as the result of applying this specifically European concept to the pre-
history of the other continents.
Throughout this time, the revolution of scientific philosophy was an insular
occurrence. The European continent saw this change in worldview. Africa
100 and Asia were little, if at all, affected by this paradigm shift. We think it follows
then that the recovery of fossils in Europe and their interpretation as having
to do with man’s ancestry were contingent upon the paradigms set in place
by the Age of Enlightenment.
One of the most influential ideas to come from the Age of Enlightenment
105 was Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection. This theory synthesized what
had been floating in the circles of progressive philosophy. By the end of
the 1800s, most of Western and Eastern European naturalists accepted
this view (Birx 1984:18). Unfortunately, Darwin’s view of man’s ancestral
affinities to apes and the location of those fossils was ignored by many.
110 The idea of deep human ancestry in Africa or Asia was difficult to accept
and a full realization of this notion does not occur until the mid-20th
century.
Arthur Shopenhauer, 1788-1860, was an early proponent of man’s ape
origins. His was a metaphysical approach as evidenced by The World as
115 ……………………………………………………………………………………
Conclusion
The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis, otherwise known as the New Evolutionary
Synthesis, was the product of several scientific endeavors including
Mendel’s experiments in heredity and genetics with pea plants, Darwin’s
120 theory of natural selection, and Watson and Cricks molecular
identification of DNA. Evolution now had a theoretical means, process and
mechanism. The integration of these fields were, in part, done at the
urging of paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson and others in the
1930s. With this new synthesis came new fossil discoveries. The Taung
125 Skull in 1924, Peking Man in 1926 and Mary and Louis Leakey’s
excavations at Olduvai Gorge provided fossil evidence to alter the
misunderstood notions of man’s deep antiquity in Europe. It is our belief
that this history of evolutionary thought is sufficient to explain the
European human fossil bias as seen in figure 1.
130
Literature Cited
Birx, James H. 1984. Theories of Human Evolution. Charles C. Thomas, Publisher.
Springfield, Illinois.
Brace, C.L. 1995. Race is a Four Letter Word, Course Manuscript, University of Michigan.
135 Day, M.H. 1986. Guide to Fossil Man. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Oakley, K.P., B.G. Campbell, and T.I. Molleson. 1971. Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, Part
II: Europe. British Museum (Natural History), London.
Oakley, K.P., B.G. Campbell, and T.I. Molleson. 1975. Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, Part
III: Americas, Asia, Australia. British Museum (Natural History), London.
140 Oakley, K.P., B.G. Campbell, and T.I. Molleson. 1977. Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, Part I:
Africa (Second Edition). British Museum (Natural History), London.
 Schick, K.D., and N. Toth. 1993. Making Silent Stones Speak: Human Evolution and the Dawn
of Technology. Simon and Schuster, New York, NY.
Wolpoff, W., and R. Caspari. 1997. Race and Human Evolution. Simon and Schuster, New York,
145 NY.