Bones and Chromosome

The Ancient DNA Revolution in Archaeology

This article is the first of two parts addressing some tensions between archaeologists and geneticists as new scientific methods are used to uncover the past. This short article firstly tackles this tension in the form of a fictional story in which an archaeologist reads new articles that fundamentally change the research they were interested in. The articles revealed that molecular anthropologists sequenced the genome of living and ancient South American indigenous peoples. Upon reading, these archaeologists had to grapple with the idea that the peopling of the America’s occurred differently than the archaeological evidence suggests. Not only would this have been hard to digest, but the archaeologists also speak about how they dream of having their research accepted so widely and being taken so seriously as a scientist. Specifically, the idea of working in a lab in a coat seems more credible than how Indiana Jones has depicted archaeology. The archaeologists take into account that the molecular anthropologists experience “molecular chauvinism” because their methods are costly and the data are privileged over other sources of data. Often, these differences cause tension between the sub disciplines of anthropology; however, these differences are essential for reconstructing the past. At the end of the article, the archaeologists settle on the idea that more archaeologists need to be active in collaborating with molecular anthropologists as a means for greater representation of the past. It is important for scientists to not be threatened by new methodologies or evidence. This fictional scenario was adapted to reflect what many departments are likely experiencing due to this new wave in anthropology.



https://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/58385680/Piscitelli_2019_The_Office_Odd_Couple.pdf?response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DThe_Office_Odd_Couple.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A%2F20200217%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20200217T190739Z&X-Amz-Expires=3600&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=64c4ac491bba56bebce9f6f6ee063e90030a0bdaf0bbaba0489bb2feb30bb8f2
Kristin Carline potluck contribution 2/17/20