Adventures in the Bone Trade The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in
Over the past 25 years, a stream of fossil and artifact discoveries in the Afar Depression of Ethiopia has produced the longest single record of human ancestors in the world. Many of the fossils found in this region are the missing links leading to modern
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Adventures in the Bone Trade The Race to Discover Human Ancestors in Ethiopia’s Afar Depression
J ON K ALB
COPERNICUS
BOOKS
A n I m p r i n t o f S p r i n g e r- Ve r l ag
© 2001 Jon E. Kalb All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published in the United States by Copernicus Books, an imprint of Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., a member of BertelsmannSpringer Science+Business Media GmbH. Copernicus Books 37 East 7th Street New York, NY 10003 www.copernicusbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kalb, Jon E. Adventures in the bone trade: the race to discover human ancestors in Ethiopia’s Afar Depression/Jon E. Kalb. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-387-98742-8 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Fossil hominids—Ethiopia—Awash River Valley. 2. Human remains (Archaeology)—Ethiopia—Awash River Valley. 3. Paleoanthropology—Ethiopia—Awash River Valley. 4. Excavations (Archaeology)—Ethiopia—Awash River Valley. 5. Awash River Valley (Ethiopia)—Antiquities. I. Title. GN282 K35 2000 599.9⬘0963⬘3—dc21 00-030837 Manufactured in the United States of America. Printed on acid-free paper. 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ISBN 0-387-98742-8
SPIN 10557407
FOR JUDY, JUSTINE, SPRING, AND
SLESHI
Preface
I
n the last few hundred years Africa has witnessed the slave trade, the ivory trade, the diamond trade, and the rubber trade. Each has represented a separate chapter of discovery and exploitation. Beginning in the 1920s, another type of “trade” burst onto the scene with the discovery of our oldest human ancestors: Fossil Man. Most notable was the headline-making Taung Child, Australopithecus africanus, found in South Africa in 1924. Then, beginning in the late 1950s, came the sensational discoveries in East Africa by Louis and Mary Leakey, Zinjanthropus and Homo habilis; and those by their son Richard Leakey, which, beginning in the 1960s, consisted of an unprecedented array of australopithecine and early Homo fossils. Each new discovery represented extraordinary wealth of information about our origins and instantly captured the public’s attention. Although trafficking in slaves and extracting minerals can hardly be equated with the pursuit of human origins, these diverse quests have followed a similar trajectory: exploration, discovery, territorial competition, exploitation, and personal gain or acclaim. In the early 1970s the search for early hominids (from the family Hominidae) shifted to the Afar Depression of Ethiopia, also known as the Danakil—one of the last major regions in eastern Africa to be scientifically explored. There the “bone trade” would reach its zenith amid the discovery of immense fossil- and artifact-bearing deposits, yielding Lucy, the First Family, Bodo Man, the Aramis skeleton, the Buri Skull, and some of the oldest and most extensive stone tool finds i
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