Expert: John Shea - 2/5/2004

Question
I noticed on previously asked questions, the response given was not completely accurate. For example, Neanderthals is spelled without the "h" a common mistake but it referenced that the "h" spelling is found in Europe. The late Stephen Jay Gould presented an excellent explanation to the correct spelling in an article "A Novel Notion of Neanderthal" in Natural History, 1988.

Also, it was stated that the Leakey's found "Lucy". The Leakey's are famous, but didn't this put Donald Johanson on the perpectual road to fame-followed by the discovery of "The First Family"?

My point? Please be honest if you cannot answer my question. It appears from your profile however, that you can.

I understand that there are direct and indirect methods of cultural research and that circumstances only offer you indirect methods in most all cases. What quantitative measurements and sampling methods do you use?

I am not a student of Anthropology and would appreciate laymen terms. Thank you for your time and understanding. I look forward to hearing your response.

Regina


Answer
Dear Regina
The Neandertal vs. Neanderthal spelling question is, as you note, complicated. It resulted from a change in the way German scripts were translated in to English. (A parallel example - Peking now spelled Beijing).  The german word for valley used to be spelled Thal, now it is spelled Tal.  By the rules of biological taxonomy, though, the species name for Neandertals was spelled the old way, neanderthalensis, and so we're stuck with this archaic spelling for the species name.  In common terminology, though, many scholars use the modern spelling (Neandertal) for the region of the Neandertal find-spot.

The Leakey's most certainly did not find "Lucy".  I'm pretty sure I didn't write that!  However, a fossil mandible from Laetoli, Tanzania, was among the fossils that Donald Johanson identified as belonging to the Australopithecus afarensis group.  Maybe this is the point of confusion.

I'm not really sure what you are asking about direct and indirect methods of cultural research (the terms are not familiar to me).  In my work, mostly archaeology, we use many quantitative measurements of tools (length, width, thickness) as well as qualitative ones (typological classifications).  The particular suite of measurements I use depends on the question I am researching.  Sampling is another issue, most of our samples (fossils, sites) are non-probabilistic (relationship between sample and population from which it is drawn remains unknown), but the same is true of all archaeology, paleontology, and most historical sciences.
Best wishes,
John Shea