tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/ancestors-28607/articles
Ancestors – The Conversation
2023-06-27T20:07:43Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/207430
2023-06-27T20:07:43Z
2023-06-27T20:07:43Z
‘He was horrific!’: Nearly two thirds of family historians are distressed by what they find – should DNA kits come with warnings?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533425/original/file-20230622-27-w44tuc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4889%2C3257&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Cheryl Winn-Boujnida/Unsplash</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 1853, my great great grandmother Charlotte died giving birth to her 13th child, in a tent on the banks of the Yarra River in what is now South Melbourne – but was then an overcrowded, muddy hellhole known as <a href="https://blogs.slv.vic.gov.au/our-stories/canvas-town-a-floating-city-devoured-by-the-sun/">Canvas Town</a>. The baby, William, died shortly afterwards. Researching Charlotte’s story made me both sad for her loss and angry at the powerlessness of women’s lives then. </p>
<p>I’m not the only one to have experienced intense emotions – both negative and positive – while researching my forebears. </p>
<p>On Facebook pages, in <a href="https://time.com/5492642/dna-test-results-family-secret-biological-father/">media stories</a> and <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/tv-series/who-do-you-think-you-are">on TV</a>, you’ll find a flood of hobby genealogists discovering shocking things about their ancestors – or even their own identity.</p>
<p>My recent research revealed about two thirds of family historians have experienced <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2313-5778/7/2/26">strong negative emotions</a> like sorrow or anger through their hobby.</p>
<p>And nearly all respondents had experienced strong positive emotions such as joy or pride.</p>
<h2>Passionate ‘kin keepers’</h2>
<p>In 2019, Doreen Rosenthal and I surveyed 775 Australian hobbyist family historians to examine their <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Psychology-of-Family-History-Exploring-Our-Genealogy/Moore-Rosenthal-Robinson/p/book/9780367820428">motivations</a>.</p>
<p>They were adults aged between 21 and 93, but most were older and the median age was 63. The majority (85%) were women. This seems to be typical of hobbyist family historians. Women often take on the role of “kin keeper” – and have the time to devote to it when they’ve finished rearing children and have retired from paid work. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=345&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533439/original/file-20230622-21-1n45fx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most family historians are older women.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Moe Magners/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Survey respondents described why they were passionately engaged with their hobby – and how it made them feel. Some 48% “sometimes” felt strong negative emotions about what they found, while 15% did “often”.</p>
<p>There were five common distress triggers.</p>
<h2>1. Ancestors behaving badly</h2>
<p>The first and most common distress trigger was the discovery of ancestors who had behaved badly – either as individuals, or by profiting from unjust social conditions. Finding these forebears made family historians feel confronted, shocked and sometimes ashamed. </p>
<p>They said things like: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[The worst thing was] finding the bigamist! He was horrific!! Very confronting thinking that I have some of his blood in my veins!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[It was] difficult finding that ancestors may have been involved in unsavoury behaviours or events. The problem is trying to understand the context of how they were able to do things that are socially and legally unacceptable today and not things I can be proud of.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/truth-telling-and-giving-back-how-settler-colonials-are-coming-to-terms-with-painful-family-histories-145165">Truth telling and giving back: how settler colonials are coming to terms with painful family histories</a>
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</p>
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<h2>2. Ancestors treated cruelly</h2>
<p>It was also distressing to discover ancestors who had been cruelly treated. This elicited disturbing, even “heartbreaking” feelings – and, at least implicitly, indignation at injustice. Many were deeply moved by what their ancestors experienced. </p>
<p>As one survey respondent put it:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is unexpected is the relationships that can be formed with those who are no longer with us. That I can be moved by the plight of my paternal step great great grandmother who was incarcerated in a mental institution from 1913 to 1948 without review, without visitors, to get her out of the way.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>3. Sad stories</h2>
<p>Sadness was often specifically mentioned. As in the case of my great great grandmother who died in childbirth, sadness was usually a response to the hardships and tragedies ancestors faced in more challenging times. </p>
<p>Women commonly did not survive childbirth, neonatal deaths were frequent, people died of diseases medical science has now conquered. Poverty was rife and war a constant threat. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[It was difficult] discovering the tragedies encountered by my Irish ancestors who came to Australia and their struggles and heartbreaking stories of survival for the next three generations.</p>
<p>[It is distressing] to uncover particularly sad and desperate times in some ancestors’ lives. For example, a destitute widow who admitted her child to an orphan asylum for three years, only to have her child die of typhoid fever within two weeks of returning home.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533444/original/file-20230622-23-3c22fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sadness was often mentioned by family researchers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcus Aurelius/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>4. Family secrets and betrayal</h2>
<p>The fourth distress trigger was a belief by the family history researcher that they had been betrayed by other family members: through secrets, lies and feeling their lived experience was ignored or denied. </p>
<p>This is particularly likely for those who discover “secrets” about their parentage – for example, the late-life discovery of adoption, parental infidelity or previously unknown siblings. </p>
<p>Trust is damaged. If family members can lie about these important things, what else might they lie about? </p>
<p>As one woman commented:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My mother’s half-sister did not accept that she shared a father with my mother. My great grandmother lied about who my grandfather’s father was. My great great grandmother also lied. All these lies were very distressing.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-used-dna-from-beethovens-hair-to-shed-light-on-his-poor-health-and-stumbled-upon-a-family-secret-202440">We used DNA from Beethoven's hair to shed light on his poor health – and stumbled upon a family secret</a>
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</em>
</p>
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<h2>5. Moral dilemmas</h2>
<p>Finally, several respondents expressed doubt and confusion at the moral dilemmas they faced on discovering information that could greatly distress other living relatives. Should they tell or not? </p>
<p>An emotional burden attaches to withholding potentially distressing information of this kind. Yet there is also guilt and fear about the possible outcomes of sharing it. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I knew an aunt had an illegitimate child before she married. Through DNA I found her granddaughter. I have yet to inform this girl who she is. I don’t feel it’s my right as she has absolutely no idea of any adoption of her father.</p>
<p>A really distressing find was that my great aunt’s husband had committed a terrible murder. I have not been able to speak about this with the descendants of the couple.</p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/friday-essay-how-do-i-understand-who-i-am-when-my-family-have-hidden-themselves-from-recent-history-171393">Friday essay: how do I understand who I am, when my family have hidden themselves from recent history?</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Healthy outcomes from bad feelings</h2>
<p>Sometimes these distressing feelings can promote healthy, growth-enhancing outcomes. After the initial shock, some traumatic genealogical discoveries lead to a greater understanding of the past and its influence. </p>
<p>Placing ancestors’ maladaptive or distressing behaviours, or their misfortunes, into historical and social context can help with acceptance and forgiveness, and stimulate emotional healing and personal growth. </p>
<p>Initial feelings of distress about past injustices and tragedies are sometimes replaced by admiration for the strength and resilience of one’s forebears. This can positively influence personal wellbeing and resilience.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/533448/original/file-20230622-27-4wg00v.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Processing distressing discoveries can lead to growth.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Brett Sayles/Pexels</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>How can family and professionals help?</h2>
<p>I processed my great great grandmother’s story by writing it down and sharing it with family members. We reworked our sadness at her fate into a positive family narrative, emphasising her bravery and the strengths her surviving children showed. </p>
<p>Support can mean just disclosing these stories to family members, friends and other family historians. But for some, it may be helpful to discuss these topics privately with a counsellor or therapist, especially if they’ve led to a breakdown in family relationships or an assault on one’s sense of identity. </p>
<p>Counsellors and psychologists should develop strategies to support clients distressed by genealogical findings – and encourage them to use their new knowledge for personal growth and greater understanding of family dynamics. </p>
<p>Should providers of genealogical research products (especially DNA tests) educate their customers about their products’ potential to cause distress?</p>
<p>Trigger warnings might be overkill. But they could issue lists of support resources for those who are upset or disoriented by their findings.</p>
<p>As more people gain access to more genealogical data – with the potential to challenge identity and uncover family secrets – it’s worth thinking about.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susan Moore does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Researching family history is a popular hobby. But hobbyists can find themselves unearthing details of ancestors behaving badly or treated cruelly – or family secrets and trauma.
Susan Moore, Emeritus Professor, Faculty of Health, Arts and Design, Swinburne University of Technology
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/190452
2022-10-17T14:57:17Z
2022-10-17T14:57:17Z
Land reform in South Africa is failing. Ignoring the realities of rural life plays a part
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489772/original/file-20221014-896-pmyzrq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by OJ Koloti/Gallo Images via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There is widespread agreement that land reform in South Africa has failed to deliver the changes <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Land-Matters-Africas-Failed-Reforms/dp/1776095960">many hoped it would</a>. Racially based dislocation and land dispossession were central features of colonial conquest and apartheid rule. To redress this, in 1994, the newly elected African National Congress (ANC) set a target of redistributing 30% of the country’s white-owned agricultural land to black people <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.za/storage/app/media/Pages/2017/october/High_Level_Panel/Commissioned_Report_land/Diagnostic_Report_on_Land_Reform_in_South_Africa.pdf">within the first five years of government</a>. Persistently failing to come close to this goal, the government now hopes to reach it <a href="https://www.gov.za/issues/land-reform">by 2030</a>. </p>
<p>Agriculture continues to be <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2016.1259223?needAccess=true">dominated by large-scale agri-business</a>, and small farmers <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2015-10-15-farmers-rights-must-be-defended/">frequently lack the support they need</a> after land has been transferred. There are many debates about why <a href="https://www.tut.ac.za/news-and-press/article?NID=579">land reform is not working</a>. </p>
<p>My co-researcher <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/donna-hornby-420077">Donna Hornby</a> and I <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">investigated the socio-cultural influences on farming</a>. We reviewed findings from across the social science literature. We also drew on our own research on <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0305750X14000485">small farmers belonging to an irrigation scheme</a> and land reform beneficiaries operating as part of <a href="https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/4199">communal land-holding organisations</a>.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">findings</a> show that South Africa’s land reform programme is misguided. It is designed for a socio-economic context that doesn’t exist. It ignores three important factors: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>land has multiple uses other than production </p></li>
<li><p>small rural farmers aren’t purely economic actors who are self-reliant </p></li>
<li><p>family and community obligations create financial pressures that can force small rural farmers to stop production and fall into poverty. Social obligations may at other times consolidate social networks that keep farmers afloat. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/land-reform-in-south-africa-what-the-real-debate-should-be-about-182277">Land reform in South Africa: what the real debate should be about</a>
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</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Finding ways to support people to produce more food is critical for tackling rising hunger. But the economic viability of land reform programmes depends on their flexibility to accommodate the multiple ways that farmers and residents use and circulate resources, including land, labour and money. A narrow focus on productivity misses a wider picture about people’s diverse needs. </p>
<h2>Land reform programmes</h2>
<p>A strong thread in land reform policy is the aspiration to <a href="https://www.gov.za/sites/default/files/gcis_document/201907/panelreportlandreform_1.pdf#page=26">create “self-reliance” among small farmers</a>. Therefore, “commercial viability” <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150903498739">underpins entitlement to redistributed land</a>. </p>
<p>This way of allocating land overlooks its multiple uses aside from cultivation. Land is valued in ways that do not always lead to increasing yields.</p>
<p>Land reform programmes also assume that farmers are individual economic actors, self-reliant and autonomous. But this is at odds with the realities of life in rural South Africa. People rely on social networks of distribution to make a living. For example, farmers may not necessarily reinvest funds in productive enterprise if the social demands on these resources are more pressing.</p>
<p>Households need a ceremonial fund to pay for life-cycle events such as weddings and funerals. They may also be supporting non-farm activities of other family members, such as job-seeking. </p>
<p>Money circulates in ways that render ideas of “self-reliance” spurious. Interdependence is integral to livelihoods in rural South Africa. Economic life is embedded within social practices. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03066150.2022.2101098?src=">research</a> shows that successful small farming depends on diversified income sources and secure distributional networks. “Self-reliance” is associated with farmers dropping out of production, often into extreme poverty. </p>
<h2>Three social dynamics affecting farming viability</h2>
<p>Three key issues emerged.</p>
<p>First, families do not usually live under a single roof. They are split between country, town and city. Food and resources travel through networks in ways that development policy and planning often ignores. Yet the implications for farming prospects are huge. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2016.1265336">Unemployed youth do not necessarily take up farming</a>, although there is evidence of this happening more during the COVID crisis. Instead, they travel to and from cities in search of work. However, those with salaried income in towns often have more likelihood of success in farming. They are <a href="https://theconversation.com/obstacles-facing-a-young-black-farmer-in-south-africa-a-personal-story-94037">more likely to access loans</a>. </p>
<p>Second, the expectations and roles of women and men, young and old, is changing in South African homes. Contradictory trends are emerging. On the one hand, customary land rights – whereby chiefs control access to land – in many regions have extended to women. This allows women <a href="https://journals.co.za/doi/10.10520/EJC148468">access to land without being married</a>. On the other hand, pressure on women’s land rights may be increasing in recent times, as migrants return from urban to rural homes following COVID job losses. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/black-farmers-in-south-africa-need-support-how-it-could-be-done-182605">Black farmers in South Africa need support: how it could be done</a>
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<p>Marriage rates have declined <a href="http://www.cls.uct.ac.za/usr/lrg/downloads/Women_and_Land.pdf">in the post-apartheid period</a>, in part because of the cost of <em>ilobolo</em> (bridewealth) in the context of <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Time-AIDS-Inequality-Gender/dp/0253222397">high unemployment</a>. One implication for farming is that unmarried adults may be less willing to contribute unpaid labour to household production than if they had married and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260805165_The_Social_Dynamics_of_Labor_Shortage_in_South_African_Small-Scale_Agriculture">built their own homes</a>. </p>
<p>The third issue has to do with the economic significance of customary practices centred on ceremonies such as weddings and funerals. These life-cycle events are a central feature of rural life, and are important for maintaining connection to <em>amadlozi</em> (ancestors). </p>
<p>The ceremonial fund households require to maintain this social obligation can put a strain on farming. Not everyone has four or five cattle and goats to carry out mourning, celebration and marriage feasts or the cash to buy food, goods and services for these ceremonies. </p>
<p>In some communally held land projects acquired through land reform, wealth inequalities emerged quickly due in part to the strain caused by <a href="https://etd.uwc.ac.za/xmlui/handle/11394/4199">ceremonial expenses for some families</a>. In some cases, this led to irresolvable conflict.</p>
<h2>Implications for land reform</h2>
<p>If it doesn’t recognise the social dynamics that impinge on farming decisions, land reform will continue to be poorly suited to rural economic life. Post-transfer support must take seriously the social demands on land and finances that shape collective life, and that sit outside the production-oriented logic of mainstream agricultural policies.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/small-and-medium-growers-and-innovation-are-key-to-south-africas-citrus-export-growth-142112">Small and medium growers and innovation are key to South Africa's citrus export growth</a>
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</em>
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<p>Social demands may occur through trans-local networks and through ceremonial obligations, drawing resources away from farming. Obligations based on age, gender or marital status shape farming decisions and its viability. Without tailoring support more closely to these local realities, the prospect of land reform genuinely meeting the social and economic needs of marginalised communities is remote.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>My co-researcher Donna Hornby received funding from EU/Capacity Building Programme for Employment Promotion (CBPEP) to conduct an earlier version of this study.</span></em></p>
South Africa’s land reform programme is designed for a socio-economic context that doesn’t exist.
Elizabeth Hull, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology, SOAS, University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/188762
2022-08-18T14:11:56Z
2022-08-18T14:11:56Z
South African reedman Linda Sikhakhane’s new album is a revelation
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479662/original/file-20220817-20-7mwj30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Detail from the cover of Isambulo by saxophonist and composer Linda Sikhakhane.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tseliso Monaheng/Linda Sikhakhane</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>People were listening to (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Duke-Ellington">Duke Ellington</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Count-Basie">Count Basie</a>) at home because we felt this is our music and these are our black heroes. The attraction … was that the rhythms were more like our mbaqanga.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So <a href="https://www.thepresidency.gov.za/national-orders/recipient/ramakgobotla-john-mekoa-1945#:%7E:text=Ramakgobotla%20John%20Mekoa%20was%20born,his%20professed%20dream%20was%20concerned">said</a> the late South African jazz trumpeter Johnny Mekoa. He was describing how, in his 1950s childhood, Black South African jazz fans explicitly heard African roots (mbaqanga is a form of South African township jive) in the American jazz they played. </p>
<p>That sense of shared cultural history has persisted, from the country’s earliest dance bands (the <a href="http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/12/78-revolutions-per-minute-majuba-jazz.html">first</a> South African jazz record was cut in 1939) up to today. Successive waves of South African jazz innovators have sought fresh ways to bring the sound back home, drawing on diverse sonic, lyrical and spiritual roots.</p>
<p>Right now, the focus of the new jazz generation in the country is on the spiritual. Pianist <a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-ntu-south-african-piano-maestro-nduduzo-makhathini-on-his-10th-album-183950">Nduduzo Makhathini’s</a> 2022 release, <a href="https://store.bluenote.com/products/nduduzo-makhathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu">In the Spirit of Ntu</a>, <a href="https://www.bluenote.com/spotlight/nduduzo-makhathini-in-the-spirit-of-ntu/">invokes</a> “an ancient African philosophy … where our wholeness resides”. The title of the 2021 <a href="https://mg.co.za/friday/2021-03-09-album-review-indaba-is-a-rite-of-remembrance/">compilation</a> of new South African jazz, <a href="https://indaba-is.bandcamp.com/album/indaba-is">Indaba Is</a>, invoked the writings of philosopher and seer <a href="https://theconversation.com/obituary-south-africas-towering-healer-prophet-and-artist-credo-mutwa-134986">Credo Mutwa</a>. It is in that lineage that reedman <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.com">Linda Sikhakhane</a>’s third album, <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/">Isambulo</a> (Revelation) firmly belongs.</p>
<h2>Who is Linda Sikhakhane?</h2>
<p>Saxophonist and composer Sikhakhane began his music education in his Durban community in KwaZulu-Natal province, in school as a clarinettist, then at trumpeter Brian Thusi’s <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/siyakhula-music-center/?originalSubdomain=za">Siyakhula Music Centre</a>. By the end of high school he knew he wanted to pursue university music studies, but his teacher knew there was no jazz clarinet instructor at UKZN (the University of Kwazulu-Natal) and advised that he pick up the saxophone as a second instrument. “After a few days of translating all that I knew on the clarinet, my love for the saxophone got deeper in such a way that it became my first instrument,” he says. I interviewed Sikhakhane for this article, part of my <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Soweto_Blues.html?id=_fwkCIKoTpgC&redir_esc=y">ongoing research</a> on South African jazz.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An album cover with a photo of a man in traditional attire, his eyes closed and his hands raised as if in praise or prayer." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/479649/original/file-20220817-25-t57qqe.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Isambulo/Linda Sikhakhane</span></span>
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<p>During his university studies he released his debut album <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/album/two-sides-one-mirror">Two Sides, One Mirror</a> and won an <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58dJN1SB-Eo">overseas scholarship</a>, gaining his Bachelor of Music degree at the New School in New York. His second album, <a href="https://lindasikhakhane.bandcamp.com/album/an-open-dialogue-live-in-new-york">Open Dialogue</a>, reflected material from his graduation recital. </p>
<p>The disruptions of COVID-19 sent Sikhakhane home, where he again worked with Makhathini, and he is now studying further at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.</p>
<h2>Zulu spirituality</h2>
<p>Isambulo was recorded during Sikhakhane’s six-week residency at the <a href="https://www.birdseye.ch">Birds Eye Jazz Club</a> in Basel, working with European and African co-players. They are trumpeter Matthias Spillmann, pianist Lucca Fries, bassist Fabien Iannone, drummer Jonas Ruther, vocalists Anna Widauer and Paras (Dlamini), and percussionist El Hadji Ngari Ndong. Says Sikhakhane:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Everyone brought originality and entered the space with so much humility – the qualities that must be central to improvisation. They understood the vision.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That vision focuses on Zulu spirituality, the role of music in ceremonial rites, and the legacy of ancestors, personal and musical. The shared heritage of the music in both jazz and his community “made jazz a safe space” for him from the start. Working with Makhathini, for instance in the ensemble on his album <a href="https://nduduzomakhathini1.bandcamp.com/album/listening-to-the-ground-2">Listening to the Ground</a>, helped him reflect on and appreciate his upbringing – “which hinged on the notion of music as ritual”.</p>
<p>Ritual seeks new visions as well as looking back to heritage, “a process of constant discovery”. Thus the title track is the most abstract, its improvisation reaching forward into the unknown. It is followed by uNongoma, the album’s most explicit allusion to traditional forms, as singer Paras employs vocalese across jazz horns to allude to Sikhakhane’s place of origin (Nongoma in KwaZulu-Natal), and yearn for a parent. “Paras wrote those lyrics,” says Sikhakhane, “sonically projecting from that place, imagining its histories, landscape and cultural outlook.”</p>
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<p>Other of the album’s eight tracks reflect the range of Sikhakhane’s current composing. A Day Passed is a quirky, laid-back ode to procrastination. Inner Freedom revisits a melody from his 2017 debut, more richly textured, with Sikhakhane playing soprano and a more prominent role for Fries’s piano; still, like the original, grounded in Ngari Ndong’s compelling percussion. </p>
<p>Ikhandlela alludes to the light that flickers in darkness, with a gentle bass solo from Iannone. Gog'uldah, in tribute to his grandmother, is a moving, fractured, slow waltz theme with the saxophonist voicing his praises to his ancestor over a saxophone that spirals out into abstraction and finally silence.</p>
<h2>The journey</h2>
<p>Despite the formal academic requirements that shaped the original recital material on Open Dialogue, and the greater freedom of Isambulo, Sikhakhane says he still feels “strong continuity” between the two albums. The releases are, for him, “the continuation of an unending journey”. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/spirit-of-ntu-south-african-piano-maestro-nduduzo-makhathini-on-his-10th-album-183950">Spirit of Ntu: South African piano maestro Nduduzo Makhathini on his 10th album</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>He has <a href="https://www.alljazzradio.co.za/2022/07/14/saxophonist-linda-sikhakhane-thinking-education-and-spirituality-in-music/">described</a> in an interview with Alljazzradio how his learning journey in music has always been motivated by a desire to shift from an “international” saxophone voice to one more radically shaped by South African spaces and sources. In that journey, music has been both a tool for discovery and a tool “to speak my language”.</p>
<p>Isambulo concludes with a tribute to those sources, Hymn for the Majors. Sikhakhane credits a long roll-call of names, from family members to early teachers such as Thusi, and musicians to whom he listens and with whom he has worked. “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Coltrane">(John) Coltrane</a>, <a href="https://abdullahibrahim.co.za/biography/">(Abdullah) Ibrahim</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/remembering-zim-ngqawana-10-years-on-a-singular-force-in-south-african-music-160570">(Zim) Ngqawana</a> and Makhathini are kindred spirits and a lineage of masters that I follow.” He adds:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Isambulo speaks about constant discovery and through following any master you’re likely to find revelation: sound is inspired by the journey.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188762/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gwen Ansell does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Zulu spirituality and the legacy of the ancestors, personal and musical, are the concerns of the saxophonist and composer.
Gwen Ansell, Associate of the Gordon Institute for Business Science, University of Pretoria
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/134986
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
2020-04-01T12:13:04Z
Obituary: South Africa’s towering healer, prophet and artist Credo Mutwa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323972/original/file-20200330-146683-3u49ga.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Vusamazulu. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Artwork © Sindiso Nyoni</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mkhulu <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/people/vusamazulu-credo-mutwa">VusamaZulu Credo Mutwa</a>’s name foretold the role that this towering South African healer, prophet and artist was to play. VusamaZulu can be translated as either ‘awaken the Zulu nation’ or ‘awaken the heavens’, aptly describing his life’s work: asserting the humanity of <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/defining-term-bantu">aBantu</a> – people of African descent – globally.</p>
<p>‘Mkhulu’ means ‘grandfather’ and in this I acknowledge Mkhulu VusamaZulu as well as the ancestors that walk with him as my elders. </p>
<p>uMkhulu passed away at the age of 98. He was born on 21 July 1921 in KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. After falling ill in his teenage years, he was initiated to become a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/sangoma">sangoma</a> or traditional healer. </p>
<p>The sangoma is a diviner and seer, using gifts of spiritual sight, mediation with the ancestors and knowledge of herbal medicine and ritual to diagnose and heal disease. Traditional healers are often ‘called’ to this path by their ancestors ‘<a href="http://scholar.ufs.ac.za:8080/bitstream/handle/11660/2171/MlisaL-RN.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y">through dreams and other significant experiences</a>’ including illnesses and misfortune. </p>
<p>Following this intensive initiation process, uMkhulu embarked on <a href="http://credomutwa.com/credo-mutwa-biography/biography-01/">many journeys</a> through African countries, including Swaziland, Lesotho and Kenya. He wrote </p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was not travelling for enjoyment, however, I was travelling for knowledge … I came into contact with men and women of countries that I had not known before … I found myself amongst men and women possessing knowledge that was already ancient when the man Jesus Christ was born. </p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=933&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323933/original/file-20200330-146671-1kgv2qy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1172&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Credo Mutwa in Soweto, 1997.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The pan-African nature of his training provided him with a vast <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4aXrxYWfxHbwbJCBThdMa07TQrQ8anOr">knowledge</a> of African folklore, mythology and culture which, he lamented, was dying. He became adamant that he needed not only to preserve it, but to educate South Africans about this heritage, which is not taught in schools. </p>
<h2>Prolific artist</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was astonishingly prolific despite his many years, working across mediums and forms as a teacher and healer. He was a storyteller of mythologies, the author of five books, the best-known being <em><a href="https://canongate.co.uk/books/236-indaba-my-children-african-tribal-history-legends-customs-and-religious-beliefs/">Indaba, My Children (1964)</a></em>. He wrote a play called <em>uNosilimela</em>, worked on a <a href="http://vusamazulu.com">graphic novel</a>, and created a <a href="http://credomutwa.com">website</a> and two living museums – <a href="https://www.sa-venues.com/things-to-do/gauteng/credo-mutwa-cultural-village/">KwaKhaya LeNdaba</a> in Soweto and <a href="http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=7&aid=1&dir=2010/January/Friday15/">Lotlamoreng</a> in Mahikeng. Here visitors can see some of his countless sculptures and artworks. </p>
<p>In many, there is a recurring figure of a woman, whom he called Ma in <em>Indaba, My Children</em>. This is the depiction of the goddess of creation, known to the Zulu people as <a href="http://paton.ukzn.ac.za/Collections/Nomkhubulwane.aspx">Nomkhubulwane</a>. He frequently exalted the spirit of women as life givers and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK13Yw9cXQQ">spoke</a> against the abuse of women. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323934/original/file-20200330-146705-16az95m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1185&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Penguin Random House</span></span>
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<p>With no formal training, his art became an expression of his wish to share the oral tales and symbols of traditional African spirituality. </p>
<p>Through these various works, he allowed us to trace our roots, philosophy and <em>ubuntu bethu</em>; the humanity of aBantu. Ubuntu here refers to a specific humanity accessible only to aBantu; an assertion that foregrounds the African worldview. </p>
<p>At the time of his passing uMkhulu had received little financial gain from his writings as his royalties were owned by others, according to the <a href="https://www.sabcnews.com/sabcnews/credo-mutwa-trust-opened/">Credo Mutwa Trust</a>.</p>
<p>This was not his only challenge. uMkhulu acknowledged that in his writing about African spirituality, he was risking being called a traitor by his people for sharing its secrets. </p>
<p>In 1976, students burnt down parts of his Soweto cultural village after he was misquoted on an Afrikaans radio station. It was burnt down again in 1980, his son murdered and wife raped, after being unjustly accused of working with white men under apartheid. </p>
<p>With his work easily exploited by conspiracy theorists, he was at times ridiculed as a false prophet. He was largely neglected as a cultural figure by the South African state. To maintain his safety, he retired to the small town of Kuruman in the North West province.</p>
<h2>Revered sanusi</h2>
<p>uMkhulu was a revered sanusi, loosely translated as ‘one who lifts us up’. Isanusi, according uMkhulu VVO Mkhize of <a href="https://umsamo.org.za/south-african-healers-association-soaha/">Umsamo Institute</a>, is a healer who reveals that which is hidden, such as mysteries erased by history, and who tells us about the future. </p>
<p>As he filled in some of the blanks in Bantu history, his predictions of significant global events garnered international interest.</p>
<p>Many were expressed through his <a href="https://www.artranked.com/topic/credo+mutwa">art</a>. His 1979 sculpture of King Khandakhulu discussing his sexually transmitted diseases with the gods is seen to pre-empt HIV and Aids. A 1979 painting is said to predict the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/September-11-attacks">September 11</a> attacks in the USA. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/323937/original/file-20200330-146666-1n96wwi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mutwa’s sculptures of King Khandakulu and the gods.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some of his many <a href="https://www.power987.co.za/news/documentary-celebrating-human-rights-day-with-credo-vusamazulu-mutwa/">predictive utterances</a> – among them those related to the 1976 Soweto youth <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/june-16-soweto-youth-uprising">uprisings</a> and the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/marikana-massacre-16-august-2012">Marikana</a> massacre – were told to visitors or made in video recordings posted on the Credo Mutwa Foundation Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LifeandTimesofCredoMutwa/">page</a>. His prophecy was embedded in South Africa’s popular culture, especially through the <a href="https://www.politicsweb.co.za/news-and-analysis/credo-warns-evil-is-upon-us--daily-sun">mass print media</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76h62Z8OqMI">YouTube</a>.</p>
<p>Taken together, his life’s work proposed that knowledge was not finite and that the soul was able to traverse different times and dimensions to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/JtRpdpeJJDc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A short documentary on Mutwa’s cultural village in Soweto.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>New ways of knowing</h2>
<p>uMkhulu broadened the view of Africans. In his work, we were exposed to a type of knowledge that had been <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227583160_Developmental_Psychology_as_Political_Psychology_in_Sub-Saharan_Africa_The_Challenge_of_Africanisation">oppressed</a>. He taught us that South Africans’ history did not begin in 1652, when <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/arrival-jan-van-riebeeck-cape-6-april-1652">Jan Van Riebeeck</a> hit our shores and the colonisation project <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">began</a>, but that we have a long legacy of philosophy and medicine, interrupted by this colonisation. </p>
<p>Through his work, he gave us the voice, the agency and the tools with which to fight against a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01459740.2015.1100612">single story</a>. One that placed the white man as the ideal and any other category of human as ‘other’ and <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/1516556/69a8a25c597f33bf66af6cdf411d58c2.pdf">lesser</a>. We are now able to assert that the story is of multiple interpretations, dimensions and times.</p>
<p><em>Lala ngoxolo Khehla lethu</em> (rest in peace our old man); your prophecies are well heeded, and teachings continuously awaken <em>uBuntu bethu</em> (our humanity), <em>thina aBantu beThonga laseAfrika</em> (us children of the ancestor of Africa).</p>
<p><em>The portrait ‘Vusumazulu’ is by Sindiso Nyoni. See his work <a href="https://studioriot.com">here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/134986/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sinethemba Makanya receives funding from the Mellon Foundation and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human and Community Development. I have previously received funding from Fulbright </span></em></p>
His life’s work was asserting the humanity and history of the Bantu people, while proposing that the soul was able to bring knowledge of the past and of the future into the present.
Sinethemba Makanya, Doctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/125437
2019-11-09T18:51:55Z
2019-11-09T18:51:55Z
Mining activities continue to dispossess black families in South Africa
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/299694/original/file-20191031-187894-g9tc9j.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A cemetery in Phola, a black residential area near Witbank, to which some graves were relocated to make way for coal mining</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Supplied</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dispossession in South Africa is associated with the period of colonialism and apartheid. As a result, not much consideration is given to how previously marginalised black communities continue to be dispossessed by coal-mining activities in democratic South Africa.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://docs.wixstatic.com/ugd/de7bea_3030b7a84f674c838fb58b7f3f8c8eca.pdf">paper</a> that formed part of my PhD research, I investigated what communities lose because of coal mining. The research was conducted in Ogies, a town that lies 29km south-west of Witbank (Emalahleni), in Mpumalanga province.</p>
<p>I found that the relocations continue as a result of coal mining companies buying up land owned by white farmers. Black farm dwellers and labour tenants are given short shrift because the mining companies see houses – and graves – as mere movable structures and, therefore, replaceable.</p>
<p>Dispossession is historically thought about only in relation to <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/natives-land-act-1913">land</a>. But this framework is limited, given that relocation affects more than people’s homes. It happens to the graves of their families too. In my research I refer to this as loss of the intangible – families lose their spiritual security, identity, heritage and belonging. Household and grave relocations feature as an aspect of dispossession in my work. </p>
<h2>Household and grave relocations</h2>
<p>In my paper I traced the relocation of 120 families between 2012 and 2016 from Goedgevonden farm, Tweefontein farm and other farms in the vicinity of Ogies, 112km east of Johannesburg. Families were moved to make way for the Goedgevonden open-cast colliery mine, which is owned by the global mining giant Glencore. </p>
<p>As part of the relocation, at least 1,000 graves were relocated from Tweefontein farm. The graves belonged to former migrant labourers and labour tenants who came from various parts of South Africa and from other countries such as Mozambique and Swaziland. Most of the deceased people’s relatives live in the surrounding black townships such as Phola and Witbank. Others left a long time ago. This meant that some graves were claimed and others were not. </p>
<p>The study found that graves are subject to contestation because of contradictions in South Africa’s laws. On the one hand, the National Heritage Resource Act (1999) protects graves. But the South African Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act (2002) allows land to be used for mining purposes. </p>
<p>The result is that the laws undermine government’s stated objective of protecting previously marginalised communities. </p>
<p>Importantly the study also found that graves are material evidence of a history that is entangled with narratives of land dispossession and restoration – even today. Graves matter because they validate citizenship for African communities that were previously denied such status. </p>
<p>Relocating graves for mining activities removes the material obstacles to a company’s desire to make profit. For the affected families, though, the relocation erases the evidence of their historical ties to a place and, above all, disrespects their ancestors. </p>
<p>The relocations at Ogies left the families feeling spiritually vulnerable and disconnected from their ancestors.</p>
<h2>Contradictions in the laws</h2>
<p>Mining companies have to provide heritage impact assessment reports when they apply for mining rights, in line with the <a href="http://www.energy.gov.za/files/esources/pdfs/energy/liquidfuels/act28r.pdf">Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act</a> and the <a href="http://www.dac.gov.za/sites/default/files/Legislations%20Files/a25-99.pdf">National Heritage Resources Act</a>. The reports often detail the structures which will be impacted during development. </p>
<p>In section 36 of the Heritage Act, graves are classified and protected according to their age and spatial location (for example, inside or outside a formal cemetery). But these measures, which are meant to reduce any possible adverse effects of mining on communities, aren’t enough. </p>
<p>The Minerals Act trumps the Heritage Act in most cases. This is evident in that no mining right or development has been denied because of the existence of graves on the site. Moreover, mining houses, and to some extent heritage consultants who are hired by mines to facilitate the relocations, don’t understand people’s attachment to their homes, and the sacredness attached to ancestral remains, as well as the meaning of land in African communities. </p>
<p>The intricate meanings of land in African communities were best
described by an anthropology professor, Peter Geschiere. He <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/P/bo6017282.html">noted that</a>
when a child is born in most African communities, her umbilical cord is buried in the soil to mark the space to which she shall be returned when she dies. Essentially, the piece of land becomes sacred at the birth – and in death. </p>
<p>During the interviews with the families whose graves were relocated, it was evident that death only marked a disconnection with the physical body. The interviewees believe that the spirits of ancestors continue to live. They bring about good omens, but also bad luck if violated. Hence, the relocated families complained that the treatment of their ancestral remains – such as putting them in plastic garbage bags during the relocations and using child-like coffins for the reburial – caused them and the ancestors distress. </p>
<h2>Intangible loss</h2>
<p>The people’s stories reveal a continued violation of the previously marginalised black majority. Even in death, the colonial and apartheid era experiences remain very much a part of post-apartheid South Africa.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/125437/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dineo Skosana receives funding from The Ford Foundation.</span></em></p>
Mining companies and some heritage consultants don’t understand the sacredness attached to ancestral remains, and the meaning of land in African communities.
Dineo Skosana, Researcher, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/105016
2018-11-21T16:03:43Z
2018-11-21T16:03:43Z
We have weaker bones than our hunter-gatherer ancestors – this is what you can do about it
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245364/original/file-20181113-194519-mdr5yx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Modern life is weakening your bones.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Technology is continuously advancing to make our lives “easier”, more efficient and often more sedentary. All of this has an impact on our body and, specifically, our bones.</p>
<p>Loss of bone strength is one of the least talked about risks of sedentary lifestyles, but is arguably one of the most important, with <a href="https://nos.org.uk/">osteoporosis</a> related fractures occurring in <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5214576/">one in three women and one in five men</a>. There is a direct relationship between the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bt4c3m">lack of oestrogen after menopause</a> and the development of osteoporosis. </p>
<p>As a society, we are more sedentary than ever before. The use of transport, electric rather than manual bikes, and having our weekly grocery shopping ordered online and delivered to the comfort of our homes are all at odds with keeping active. Children in particular are less active – with computer games replacing “playing out” during a crucial time of development when exercise (especially jumping) can optimise bone strength gains by up <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16956802">to 5.5% over six months</a>. </p>
<p>Research is also demonstrating that what’s known as “epigenetic memories” may also be <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6335/320">passed down several generations</a>, which means that our lifestyle today could influence gene expression in future generations. If sedentary trends continue, humans are at risk of becoming frailer and more dependent – needing increased support from already stretched health services.</p>
<h2>The science</h2>
<p>Our skeleton has many roles: it supports our body, provides attachment points for muscles, tendons and ligaments that enable our bodies to move, and stores minerals like calcium and phosphorus. However, when external forces and demands are removed, our muscles can waste, and our bones become lighter, less dense and less “useful” – this increases the risk of osteoporosis and fracture. </p>
<p>A loss of around 3% of cortical bone in the leg, for example, can occur <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19732856">during one month of bed rest</a>, and in space, astronauts can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4707416/">lose over 10% of their bone strength</a> on a typical 120-180 day mission. This is because of the absence of loading to the skeleton in the microgravity environment. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245365/original/file-20181113-194513-b00ev8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Without proper physical activity, bones become weak and can fracture easily.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.dur.ac.uk/research/directory/staff/?mode=staff&id=17333">Our current ongoing research</a> shows that sedentary time is a risk factor for reduced bone strength in middle age. Reduced activity after retirement and sitting for prolonged periods of time, are shown to be the main factors as this removes functional stimuli to bone – as does letting robotics and machines take over tasks we used to do for ourselves. </p>
<p>On the other hand, when bone is “loaded” through various forces, it responds by becoming stronger. This is evidenced by numerous exercise <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20663158">intervention studies</a>, and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51870221">previous research</a> shows around 20-30% greater <a href="http://dro.dur.ac.uk/26166/">bone strength in athletes</a> from “impact” sports – such as football, hockey and running – <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/51161081">compared to non-athletes</a>. </p>
<h2>Lessons through time</h2>
<p>Analysis of bones from over hundreds and thousands of years ago suggests that our skeleton today is more fragile than that of our ancestors, and the differences <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-world-history/what-did-agriculture-do-for-us/FCCA03FCDE982296D7E86DA50739CD30">became more pronounced</a> when humans started to farm their food (domesticating animals and plants). </p>
<p>Before this time, humans foraged wild plants and hunted animals. They were much more active than their descendant farmers, ate leaner meat, and were more often than not, “on the move”. Research has found that their bone mass <a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/112/2/372">was around 20% greater</a>. A decrease in leg bone size and changes in its cross-sectional shape are also evident at the advent of farming. This reflects changes in loading on the skeleton due to the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biological-Anthropology-Human-Skeleton-Katzenberg/dp/0471793728">different activities people did</a>. </p>
<p>Research also suggests that prehistoric women in the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages had around 5-10% more arm bone strength than <a href="http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/11/eaao3893">modern female athletes</a>, indicating heavy use of their arms for specific activities. This suggests modern humans are falling short of their bone strength potential.</p>
<h2>What you can do</h2>
<p>Simple exercises and lifestyle changes that are similar to activities of a hunter gatherer can help build bone strength. Interval training and sports including bouts of fast sprinting such as football, along with lifting weights can help. But it doesn’t have to be all about going to the gym, simple changes like using a rucksack when walking and shopping can increase loading to the spine. </p>
<p>Do your own food shopping as often as you can, and carry your own shopping bags to provide some loading to the arms and back muscles – and also indirectly to your legs (and all related bones). </p>
<p>Walk more often and further and with your dog if you have one. Park your car further away from work or the shopping centre, take regular walking breaks at work and at home and hold walking meetings or practice social walking with family and friends. Aim to use the stairs instead of escalators or a lift and try to take two stairs at a time to get a glute and quad work out while loading the bones at the hip joint.</p>
<p>Regular gardening and having a vegetable plot or even an allotment can offer similar advantages, as can doing housework vigorously. And if you have a wood burning stove, chopping your own logs goes some way towards mimicking how our ancestors prepared their kill and building materials for shelter.</p>
<p>These small changes can help to build bone strength – which is vitally important given that the number of people aged 50 years and over with a high risk of <a href="https://www.iofbonehealth.org/">osteoporotic fracture</a> was 158m in 2010 and is <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00198-015-3154-6">projected to double by 2040</a> globally. And while increasing life expectancy may be part of the explanation, lifestyle habits unfavourable to bone health and strength are also a large part of the problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105016/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Hind is the UK-Ireland Chair for the International Society for Clinical Densitometry.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlotte Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Analysis of bones from over hundreds and thousands of years ago suggests that our skeleton today is more fragile than that of our ancestors.
Karen Hind, Assistant Professor in Sport and Exercise Sciences, Durham University
Charlotte Roberts, Professor of Archaeology specialising in bioarchaeology (human remains), Durham University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/102084
2018-08-29T10:15:20Z
2018-08-29T10:15:20Z
The surprising role cheese played in human evolution
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234042/original/file-20180829-195298-c94cey.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A solid white mass found in a broken jar in an Ancient Egyptian tomb has turned out to be the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-45233347">world’s oldest example</a> of solid cheese. </p>
<p>Probably made mostly from sheep or goats milk, the cheese was found several years ago by archaeologists in the <a href="http://time.com/5371503/ancient-egypt-tomb-old-cheese/">ancient tomb of Ptahmes</a>, who was a high-ranking Egyptian official. The substance was identified after the archaeology team carried out <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.analchem.8b02535">biomolecular identification of its proteins</a>.</p>
<p>This 3,200-year-old find is exciting because it shows that the Ancient Egyptian’s shared our love of cheese – to the extent it was given as a funerary offering. But not only that, it also fits into archaeology’s growing understanding of the importance of dairy to the development of the human diet in Europe. </p>
<h2>Dairy in diets</h2>
<p>About two-thirds of the world’s population <a href="https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/360136">is lactose intolerant</a>. So although dairy products are a daily part of the diet for many living in Europe, Northern India and North America, drinking milk in adulthood was only possible from <a href="https://depot.ceon.pl/bitstream/handle/123456789/13155/nature14507.pdf?sequence=2">the Bronze Age</a>, over the last 4,500 years. </p>
<p>For most of human history, adults lost the ability to consume milk after infancy – and the same is true of people who are lactose intolerant today. After weaning, people with lactose intolerance can no longer produce <a href="https://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/360136">the enzyme lactase</a>. This is necessary to break down the lactose sugars in fresh milk into compounds that can be easily digested. People with lactose intolerance experience unpleasant symptoms if they consume dairy products such as bloating, flatulence and diarrhoea. </p>
<p><a href="https://depot.ceon.pl/bitstream/handle/123456789/13155/nature14507.pdf?sequence=2">Ancient DNA analysis</a> on human skeletons from prehistoric Europe places the earliest appearance of the gene lactase gene (LCT) – which keeps adults producing lactase – to 2,500BC. But there is plenty of evidence from the Neolithic period (around 6,000-2,500BC in Europe) that milk was being consumed. </p>
<p>This is not totally surprising though, as the Neolithic marks the start of farming in most regions of Europe – and the first time humans lived closely alongside animals. And although they were unable to digest milk, we know that Neolithic populations were processing milk into substances they could consume. </p>
<h2>Archaeological evidence</h2>
<p>Using a technique called “<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/nature07180">lipid analysis</a>”, sherds of ancient pottery can be analysed and fats absorbed into the clay identified. This then allows archaeologists to find out what was cooked or processed inside them. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234044/original/file-20180829-195325-gf7shx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We have ancient ancestors to thank for the cheese we eat today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although it is not yet possible to identify the species of animal, dairy fats can be distinguished. It is also challenging to determine what techniques were being used to make dairy products safe to consume, with many potential options. Fermenting milk, for example, breaks down the lactose sugar into lactic acid. Cheese is low in lactose because it involves separating curd (from which cheese is made) from whey, in which the majority of the lactose sugars remain. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471">Clay sieves from Poland</a>, similar to modern cheese sieves, have been found to have dairy lipids preserved in the pores of clay, suggesting that they were being used to separate curds from the whey. Whether the curds were then consumed or attempts made to preserve them by pressing into a harder cheese is unknown. Fermentation of milk was also possible to our ancestors, but harder to explore with the techniques currently available to archaeology. </p>
<h2>Early cheese making</h2>
<p>While the techniques from bioarchaeology have provided this fantastic detail on Neolithic diets, where the science stops, experimental archaeology can explore what was possible. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVx-O9ZYa3A">We have been making cheese</a> using the <a href="http://www.prehistoricsociety.org/files/PAST_84_for_web.pdf">utensils, plants and techniques</a> available to Neolithic farmers. The aim of the experiments is not to faithfully recreate early cheeses, but to begin to capture some of the decisions available to early cheese makers – and the experiments have thrown up some interesting results. </p>
<p>By using these ancient techniques, we have discovered that a wealth of different means of curdling the milk would have been possible, each producing different forms, tastes and amounts of cheese. </p>
<p>And such specialist knowledge may have been akin to the spread of bronze smelting at the end of the Neolithic. Dairy may have had a special status among foodstuffs. For example, at the major late <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/feeding-stonehenge-cuisine-and-consumption-at-the-late-neolithic-site-of-durrington-walls/E60784FB3D83BFF8ED22A2E9393B5B3E">Neolithic feasting site of Durrington Walls</a>, not far from and contemporary with Stonehenge, dairy residues were found in a particular kind of pottery vessel and concentrated in the area around a timber circle – a form of Late Neolithic monument. </p>
<p>From the Bronze Age, however, lactase persistence offered an advantage to some people who were able to pass this on to their offspring. It also seems that this advantage was not solely because of increased calorie and nutrient intake alone – but because of the special status dairy foods may have had. The development of this biological adaption to fresh milk took place after humans had already found ways to safely include dairy products in the diet. </p>
<p>This shows that humans are not only able to manipulate their food to make it edible, but that what we consume can also lead to new adaptations in our biology.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102084/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Bickle receives funding from the AHRC. </span></em></p>
Archaeologists have discovered the world’s oldest cheese, and it reveals how our ancestor’s cooking methods helped the human diet adapt.
Penny Bickle, Lecturer in Archaeology, University of York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/94452
2018-04-06T15:36:55Z
2018-04-06T15:36:55Z
Rwandans discuss how best to commemorate genocide
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/213577/original/file-20180406-125161-11q39dr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A memorial to the victims of the 1994 Rwanda genocide in Kigali. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/Ahmed Jallanzo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Rwanda is commemorating the 24th anniversary of the 1994 Tutsi genocide. This claimed the lives of between 800,000 and one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus <a href="http://unictr.unmict.org/en/genocide">over 100 days</a>.</p>
<p>This is a good time to reflect on the history of policy and practice of memory, justice, and recovery in the country over the past 24 years. Two questions are especially pertinent: how have Rwandans engaged in various forms of memory after genocide? How have these processes been meaningful?</p>
<p>From a series of nearly <a href="https://commons.clarku.edu/chgspapers/9/">60 interviews</a> conducted in the country since 2015, I have learned from a diversity of perspectives about memory and justice. </p>
<p>The findings suggest that genocide memory in Rwanda is diverse and dynamic. The interviewees’ often offered surprising and unexpected perspectives. These could not have been assumed from reading secondary reports or by observing the commemorations from a distance. </p>
<p>For example many people – including genocide survivors and former perpetrators – have a more holistic concept of justice than punishing perpetrators. And there is a huge desire for spaces for dialogue about how memories of genocide emerge impact everyday life. These spaces would bring together survivors, perpetrators, returnees, and ordinary citizens. There is also a great desire for knowledge about how to use these memories to seek justice, validation, and promote coexistence, especially for future generations.</p>
<h2>What we learnt</h2>
<p>I interviewed genocide survivors, former perpetrators and ordinary citizens who were neither targeted for genocide but who did not take part in killing. Officials engaged in memory processes in Rwanda were also interviewed.</p>
<p>The commemoration ceremonies take place over 100 days, known as the Kwibuka period, beginning on April 7 each year. During this period Rwandans visit village, district, or national memorial sites known as <em>urwibutso</em> where genocide victims are buried. There they hold memorial ceremonies which include listening to survivor testimonies and representatives from survivors’ organisations. Local and national leaders relate the history of the genocide, and sometimes perpetrators give testimonies. </p>
<p>Bodies of victims are still being found to this day, in pits or on farms. These bodies are reburied in communal memorial sites during the <em><a href="http://kwibuka.rw/">kwibuka</a></em> period. Sometimes <em><a href="https://rwandanights.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/icyunamo/">icyunamo</a></em> (time of mourning) is observed. This is the cultural practice of informal mourning that takes place throughout the night, usually around a fire. </p>
<p>Regardless of the programme of <em>kwibuka</em>, each process ideally pays respect to genocide victims and works to bring Rwandans together. </p>
<p>But not all acts of memory are necessarily guided by the intention of achieving peace and justice, unity and reconciliation. Some of this is because of individual differences in perspective and resilience. Simply put, some people cope better with the harms that they suffered for various reasons, among them faith, education and economic gains since the genocide.</p>
<p>Some individuals do not feel particularly connected to the memorial sites. Yet they still attend the ceremonies. This can cause conflicts of memory, especially when what is being remembered differs according to an individuals’s experience of the genocidal process. So it is important to ask Rwandans how urwibutso and kwibuka have or have not led to senses of justice, and what aspects of these processes are meaningful.</p>
<h2>Local cultures of memory</h2>
<p>It is also important to go back into the culture of Rwanda to inform the process of reflecting on and remembering the genocide. That serves to ensure that these processes are salient to Rwandans themselves, regardless of their backgrounds.</p>
<p>Achieving these goals is not an easy process. For example, proximity matters, as genocide survivors, genocidaires, returnees, and others still live together in close contact, in local communities and villages in Rwanda. </p>
<p>In addition, the genocide took place during a time of a <a href="https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/Rwandan_Civil_War.html">civil war (1 October 1990-4 July 1994)</a> and it was planned by a government that had abandoned its people. The government coerced many to participate in the killings. It used years of deliberate propaganda, hate speech and dehumanisation tactics to indoctrinate others into <a href="https://blogs.library.duke.edu/rubenstein/2013/05/10/radio-in-the-rwandan-genocide/">hate ideology</a>.</p>
<p>Many of the survivors were born of so-called mixed marriages, with one Hutu and one Tutsi parent. This reality challenges the binary nature of victimisation and perpetration of genocide in Rwanda. </p>
<h2>Meaning making and memorialisation</h2>
<p>The interviews raise further questions: what are Rwandans empowered by and what do they find meaningful about memorial sites and <em>kwibuka</em>, in order to sustain these processes over time?</p>
<p>For example, the research shows that, although some survivors feel validated when former perpetrators join them at commemoration ceremonies, others fear that requiring former genocidaires to attend when they still don’t accept their guilt might result in a backlash.</p>
<p>Some individuals attend <em>kwibuka</em> to support their neighbours but do not consider it their “own story.” Others consider it to be one of the most significant and emotional days of their lives each year. Some embrace <em>kwibuka</em> as a chance to remember their loved ones among the comfort of friends and neighbours. Yet, others fear it, because of the retraumatisation, grief, depression, and anger they might feel. </p>
<p>These are some examples of the diverse perspectives of <em>kwibuka</em>, all of which are valid and coexist in the same physical and emotional space every April in Rwanda.</p>
<p><em>Eric Ndushabandi, Director, Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace, Rwanda, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samantha Lakin consults with the Institute of Research and Dialogue for Peace. She receives funding from Fulbright-IIE. She is affiliated with the Fulbright Association and SURF. </span></em></p>
The genocide memory in Rwanda is diverse and dynamic.
Samantha Lakin, PhD Candidate, Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies; Fulbright Scholar, Clark University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84865
2017-12-20T11:32:42Z
2017-12-20T11:32:42Z
What Neolithic rock art can tell us about the way our ancestors lived 6,000 years ago
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/199254/original/file-20171214-27575-1am1f6q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rock art in central Northumberland, northern England.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The British and Irish countryside is often celebrated for its wealth of unique places of heritage, significance and interest. But not many people know that this heritage includes thousands of ancient <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-42123939">panels of neolithic art</a>, which are usually found out in the open for anyone to see. </p>
<p>Known also as “cup and rings”, these rock carvings were made by our Neolithic and Early Bronze Age ancestors between 6,000 and 3,800 years ago. About 7,000 carved panels are known about – occurring mostly in England (3,500 panels) and Scotland (2,500 panels). </p>
<p>The carvings were usually made on open air outcrop rocks and boulders, but they have also been found in monuments and burial cairns. The carved panels vary from well-decorated massive outcrops to small cup-marked portable rocks. </p>
<p>Recently uncovered carved rocks have revealed that different types of pecking tools were used – from fine nail-like points to a broad chisel, and various sizes in between. To make the indentations, people back then probably used some sort of mallet to hammer the tools. </p>
<h2>Signs of the past</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=651&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191372/original/file-20171023-1738-1wshx6s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=818&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A multi-ringed motif in Ireland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ever since the carvings were recognised as ancient, people have wondered why they were made. Noting the link between cup marks and burials, in 1877 Canon Greenwell, a Victorian antiquarian and Church of England priest, <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=MUHJBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA343&lpg=PA343&dq=Involved+the+deepest+and+most+esoteric+principle+of+the+religion+held+by+these+people&source=bl&ots=IvrIgcGke9&sig=PUt4hHI4t1FCVsdngOX4twWDX5Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiWjcW_t5bYAhViCcAKHW2dBbcQ6AEIJzAA#v=onepage&q=Involved%20the%20deepest%20and%20most%20esoteric%20principle%20of%20the%20religion%20held%20by%20these%20people&f=false">suggested the markings</a> “involved the deepest and most esoteric principle of the religion held by these people”. </p>
<p>Since then more ideas have been proposed, and in the 1970’s, Ronald Morris, a lawyer who did extensive recording of rock art in Scotland, <a href="http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/era/section/learn_more/learn_aa_10.jsf?part=2">listed 104 ideas he collected from other people</a> in a bid to explain why ancient people made this type of art. He ranked these in order of plausibility – ideas he scored highly included burials and alignment markers.</p>
<p>Then in the 1990s, University of Reading archaeologist Richard Bradley suggested there was a link between the complexity of the carved designs and their position in the countryside. He claimed that rock carvings on higher ground were associated with a mobile pattern of obtaining food as they were at strategic places that overlooked grazing land. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=514&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191373/original/file-20171023-1746-guwfk3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=645&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Square shaped rock art from north Northumberland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Also in the 1990s, British archaeologist Clive Waddington proposed that the beginning of carving was linked to a new relationship with the countryside as people changed from being hunter-gatherers to sheep or cattle farmers. </p>
<p>The carvings, he argued, were inspired by patterns occurring in nature – which acted to disguise the control people were beginning to exercise over the land. It was suggested that in time, the carvings were included in ceremonial monuments. And that this symbolically linked the past and present, merging old with new beliefs as people increased their control through farming.</p>
<h2>Under threat</h2>
<p>While the true intentions or purpose behind the rock artists may never be fully known, what we do know is that around 6,000 years ago a Neolithic person picked up a hard stone tool and started pecking away on softer rock. It was the beginning of a process, which led to the creation of many thousands of open-air carvings across Britain and Ireland. </p>
<p>But being out in the open, these carvings are now under threat. These ancient artefacts are deteriorating primarily because of modern life – with increasing population densities, agricultural activity, and climate change all taking their toll. Indeed, in many places the rocks have been scratched by livestock, and driven over by cars, tractors or farming equipment. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191371/original/file-20171023-1710-1fhed3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=614&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Portable art and several cups with peck marks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To understand the threats better, heritage and science researchers at Newcastle University and Queen’s University Belfast <a href="https://research.ncl.ac.uk/heritagescience/">have studied</a> 78 of the carved panels in 18 different places in England, Scotland and Ireland. As part of the research, we completed forms to monitor the condition of each panel and took about 180 soil samples and 800 portable X-ray fluorescence readings – a nondestructive technique that determines the elements in the rock.</p>
<h2>Modern methods</h2>
<p>Ongoing monitoring of the condition and threats to the panels has been recognised internationally as an important part of protecting rock art. But until now, this has always been done on paper, which is why we have developed the first ever app to monitor the condition of the carvings and the threats they face. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=435&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/191374/original/file-20171023-1703-1bktrcn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the public completing a site monitoring form in the countryside.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://rockartcare.ncl.ac.uk/">The Rock Art care app</a> allows members of the public to contribute to the protection of UK and Ireland’s open-air rock art by providing information about the condition of motifs and panels. Once uploaded, reports are made available to the project team, known custodians of rock art and heritage agencies. </p>
<p>It is hoped that by monitoring the rock art in this way, it can help to preserve it for future generations to enjoy. And while we can’t be sure about the thoughts and feelings of the people who made the carvings, it is hoped our neolithic ancestors would approve of the efforts being taken to try and ensure their art survives for many thousands of years to come.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84865/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aron David Mazel receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the British Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Myra J Giesen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Trying to save Neolithic rock art made by our ancient ancestors is no easy task. But it tells us how people used to live.
Aron David Mazel, Reader in Heritage Studies, Newcastle University
Myra J Giesen, Visiting Fellow, Newcastle University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/85959
2017-10-31T02:16:34Z
2017-10-31T02:16:34Z
What Chinese philosophers can teach us about dealing with our own grief
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192499/original/file-20171030-18704-iwed0k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Confucius sculpture, Nanjing, China.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AConfucius_Sculpture%2C_Nanjing.jpg">Kevinsmithnyc, via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>November 2 is All Souls’ Day, when many Christians honor the dead. As much as we all know about the inevitability of death, we are often unable to deal with the loss of a loved one.</p>
<p>Our modern-day worldview could also make us believe that loss is something we should be <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/getting-grief-right/">able to quickly get over</a>, to move on with our lives. Many of us see grieving as a kind of impediment to our ability to work, live and thrive. </p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/understanding-asian-philosophy-9781780937700/">scholar of Chinese philosophy</a>, I spend much of my time reading, translating and interpreting early Chinese texts. It is clear that dealing with loss was a major concern for early Chinese philosophers. </p>
<p>So, what can we learn from them today?</p>
<h2>Eliminating grief</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=463&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192500/original/file-20171030-18730-11h769f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=581&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zhuangzi butterfly dream.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AZhuangzi-Butterfly-Dream.jpg">Ike no Taiga (Japan, 1723-1776), via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Two influential philosophers who reflected on these issues were Zhuang Zhou and Confucius. Zhuang Zhou lived in the fourth century B.C. and is traditionally credited with writing one of the most important texts of the Daoist philosophy, <a href="https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html">“Zhuangzi.”</a> Confucius, who lived more than a century before Zhuang Zhou, had his teachings compiled in a text written by later students, commonly known in the West as the <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Ep374/Analects_of_Confucius_(Eno-2015).pdf">“Analects of Confucius.”</a> </p>
<p>On the face of it, these two philosophers offer very different responses to the “problem” of death. </p>
<p>Zhuang Zhou offers us a way to eliminate grief, seemingly consistent with the desire to quickly get beyond loss. In one <a href="http://ctext.org/zhuangzi/perfect-enjoyment#n2831">story</a>, Zhuang Zhou’s friend Hui Shi meets him just after Zhuang Zhou’s wife of many years has died. He finds Zhuang Zhou singing joyously and beating on a drum. Hui Shi upbraids him and says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“This person lived with you for many years, and grew old and died. To fail to shed tears is bad enough, but to also beat on drums and sing – is this not inappropriate?”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Zhuang Zhou replies that when his wife first died, he was as upset as anyone would be following such a loss. But then he reflected on the circumstances of her origins – how she came to be through changes in the elements that make up the cosmos. He was able to shift his vision from seeing things from the narrowly human perspective to seeing them from the larger perspective of the world itself. He realized that her death was just another of the changes of the myriad things constantly taking place in the world. Just as the seasons progress, human life generates and decays. </p>
<p>In reflecting on life in this way, Zhuang Zhou’s grief disappeared. </p>
<h2>Why we need grief</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=458&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192501/original/file-20171030-18720-wgnffr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Analects.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ARongo_Analects_02.jpg">Confucius and his disciples, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/168406/summary">For Confucius,</a> though, the pain of grief was a natural and necessary part of human life. It demonstrates commitment to those for whom we grieve.</p>
<p>Confucius suggests <a href="http://ctext.org/liji/tan-gong-i#n9599">a three-year</a> mourning period following the death of one’s parent. In a <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/yang-huo#n1557">passage from the Analects</a>, one of Confucius’s students, Zaiwo, asks him if it is possible to shorten this mourning period, which seems excessively long. </p>
<p>Confucius responds that a person who honestly cared about his parent would simply be unable to bring himself to mourn in any less serious way. For such a person, the usual joys of life just had no attraction for three years. If, like Zaiwo, someone considers shortening this period, it reveals for Confucius <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/yang-huo#n1557">a lack of sufficient concern</a>. Early Confucians, thus, followed this practice of a three-year mourning period.</p>
<h2>Remembering our ancestors</h2>
<p>There is more to the Confucian response to death than grief. Our encounter with others inevitably changes us. Those closest to us, <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/488827">according to the early Confucians</a>, particularly family members, play the greatest role in determining who we are. In that sense, we are representatives of particular communities than detached and autonomous individuals. </p>
<p>After all, many of our physical features and personalities originate from our ancestors. In addition, we learn many of our attitudes, preferences and characteristic ways of acting from our families, friends and neighbors – the creators of our culture. So, when we consider the question of what we are as individuals, the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/confucian-ethics/tradition-and-community-in-the-formation-of-character-and-self/CCF1EE2580B305B5C4E8D413786DA44C">answer necessarily encompasses</a> members of our closest community.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/192502/original/file-20171030-18730-18v2z9s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Chinese funeral.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AShanghai._A_Chinese_funeral_(NYPL_Hades-2359270-4043626).jpg">Scan by NYPL, via Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>According to the early Confucians, this acknowledgment suggested how to deal with the death of those close to us. To grieve was to honor your parent or another person who died and to commit to <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1188">following their way of life </a>. </p>
<p>Even if their way of life involved flaws, Confucius notes that individuals were still duty-bound to follow their way while doing their best to <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1186">eliminate the flaws</a>. In Analects 4.18, <a href="http://ctext.org/analects/li-ren#n1186">Confucius says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“In serving your parents, you may lightly remonstrate [if your parents stray from the virtuous way]. But even if your parents are intent on not following your advice, you should still remain respectful and not turn away from them.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Developing an understanding of grief</h2>
<p>So how do the seemingly contrasting Daoist and Confucian approaches to grief apply to us today? </p>
<p>From my perspective, both views are helpful. Zhuangzi does not eliminate grief, but offers a way out of it. The Daoist response could help people find peace of mind by cultivating the ability to see the death of loved ones from a broader perspective.</p>
<p>The Confucian response could challenge assumptions that devalue grief. It offers us a way to find meaning in our grief. It reveals our communal influences, tests our commitments and focuses us on the ways in which we represent and carry on those who influenced us and came before us. </p>
<p>Ultimately, both philosophers help us understand that enduring grief is a necessary part of the process of becoming a fully thriving person. It is not something we should look to eliminate, but rather something we should appreciate or even be thankful for.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/85959/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alexus McLeod does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The pain of grief is part of human existence. Daoist and Confucian philosophy can help find meaning in grief.
Alexus McLeod, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian American Studies, University of Connecticut
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/84716
2017-10-12T13:46:01Z
2017-10-12T13:46:01Z
Ancient DNA increases the genetic time depth of modern humans
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/189965/original/file-20171012-31375-hmz15a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Tapping into ancient DNA can help us understand ancient humans' movements and lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.google.co.za/search?q=DNA&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdmrr14efWAhVIChoKHQ4qB2IQ_AUICygC&biw=1522&bih=708#imgrc=GOr_O-uj32HSEM">Illustration: Marlize Lombard, Maryna Steyn and Anders Högberg</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been about 2000 years since a young boy died on what is today a beach in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. In the 1960s the child’s remains were exposed to wind and rain. It was carefully excavated and taken to the museum in Durban and later to Pietermaritzburg. Over the past four years I have worked with a team of researchers who reconstructed the DNA of the boy from Ballito Bay and other ancient individuals, and what we’ve <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2017/09/27/science.aao6266.long">discovered</a> changed what we know about deep human history.</p>
<p>The boy lived about 2000 years ago, which helped us to recalculate the time at which humans like us – <em>Homo sapiens</em> – first split or branched from archaic or pre-modern human groups to between 350 000 and 260 000 years ago.</p>
<p>Previously, it was thought that we emerged just a little less than 200 000 years ago. This was mostly based on the shape of fossil skulls found in Ethiopia, and on earlier work on the DNA of people currently living in southern Africa, such as Khoe-San groups. </p>
<p>Then, earlier in 2017, a <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/world-s-oldest-homo-sapiens-fossils-found-morocco">skull from Morocco</a> that looks like a combination of us and older human groups was dated to about 300 000 years ago. This age also overlaps with that of <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/homo-naledi-human-evolution-science/"><em>Homo naledi</em></a> in South Africa.</p>
<p>Our deeper genetic estimate for the origin of modern humans further tallies with the ages of two other southern African archaeological finds, the <a href="http://showme.co.za/tourism/florisbad-museum-and-research-centre-soutpan/">Florisbad skull</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8599389">Hoedjiespunt fossils</a>. If we take all the DNA, archaeological and fossil evidence together, the period roughly between about 200 000 and 350 000 years ago is becoming increasingly interesting for exploring our origins. </p>
<p>Collectively, this research shows that humans might have originated from several regions in Africa instead of just one, with different groups interacting with each other through time and across the landscape. We do not know exactly how or where – yet. But work like ours helps to fill gaps and highlight interesting new questions. For example, by pushing back our genetic origins it is now necessary to revisit interpretations of “what is human” in the fossil record.</p>
<h2>Digging into DNA</h2>
<p>South Africa has a fascinating archaeological record, with a Stone Age spanning more than 2 million years. But archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past.</p>
<p>So how do we get from the stones and the bones to the people? One way is through DNA. The last decade saw remarkable development in the technology and methods to understand ancient human DNA. As an archaeologist I became fascinated by what these approaches could tell us about our human origins in Africa, and started working with colleagues in <a href="https://h3africa.org/component/contact/contact/15-other/37-dr-himla-soodyall">South Africa</a> and <a href="http://katalog.uu.se/profile/?id=N9-1616">Sweden</a> who are geneticists associated with a <a href="http://www.iob.uu.se/research/evolution-and-development/jakobsson?languageId=1">laboratory</a> in Uppsala specialising in ancient human DNA. </p>
<p>Some of my previous research has focused on Stone Age sites in KwaZulu-Natal, so that it made sense to focus on ancient DNA from this province. The team at Uppsala’s laboratory, assembled experts to do the extraction, analysis and interpretation of the results, resulting in this newest research.</p>
<p>We were able to reconstruct the full genome of the Ballito Bay child together with six other individuals from KwaZulu-Natal. The remains of one adult male also come from Ballito Bay; those of an adult female were found on the beach at Doonside, further south. Together with the boy, they are associated with the Stone Age more than 2000 years ago in South Africa. Genetically, they are related to <a href="http://www.san.org.za/history.php">San groups</a> who were on the landscape before herders from East Africa came in to live among them and formed local herding groups, historically known as the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/khoikhoi">Khoe or Khoikhoi</a>.</p>
<p>The remains of the four other individuals are from contexts that archaeologists associate with the <a href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/iron-age-kingdoms-southern-africa">Iron Age</a>. These were farmers who came into southern Africa from West Africa, possibly through what is today Angola. </p>
<p>All four of these individuals were found not on the coast, but in KwaZulu-Natal’s inland areas. Interestingly, these Iron Age individuals had gene variations to protect them against <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9_Vq78Ljzc">malaria</a> and sleeping sickness. We didn’t find similar variations among the Stone Age individuals. This shows that the Iron Age individuals lived or moved through areas in Africa long enough to build resistance against these diseases, whereas those from the Stone Age probably did not.</p>
<h2>Building our understanding</h2>
<p>This is an important addition to our understanding of human history.</p>
<p>Cumulatively, the fossil, ancient DNA and archaeological records indicate that the transition from archaic to modern humans was older than previously thought, and probably did not occur in one place in Africa. Instead there might have been <a href="https://vimeo.com/19797501">gene flow</a> between groups from, eastern, southern and northern Africa, who all potentially played a role in our common human history.</p>
<p>Reconstructing the full genomes of human remains even older than 2000 years will help us to understand the relationships between the different groups that roamed the African landscape during ancient times.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marlize Lombard receives funding from the African Origins Platform of the National Research Foundation of South Africa. </span></em></p>
Archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past. DNA is one way to get from the stones and the bones to the people and their stories.
Marlize Lombard, Professor with Research Focus in Stone Age Archaeology; Director, Centre for Anthropological Research in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, University of Johannesburg
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/64059
2016-09-26T19:07:15Z
2016-09-26T19:07:15Z
3D technology brings a lost mammalian ancestor back to life
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134406/original/image-20160817-3592-11nn3qp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A 3D model of the long-lost Scalopocynodon gracilis skull.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evolutionary Studies Unit, Wits University</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At the very beginning of the 1960s, a South African palaeontologist embarked on a series of ambitious works. Dr A.S. Brink wanted to better understand the anatomy and evolution of humans’ pre-mammalian ancestors, the <a href="http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Therapsid">therapsids</a>. </p>
<p>Brink worked with therapsid skulls found in South Africa’s Karoo region. He ground the skulls at thin and regular intervals to assess their internal cranial anatomy. The technique, known as serial grinding, was commonly used at the time. </p>
<p>As he neared the end of the process on one of the skulls Brink realised that he had uncovered a unique specimen. The skull represented a <a href="http://blog.everythingdinosaur.co.uk/blog/_archives/2011/09/23/4908360.html">holotype</a>, which is the single specimen used in the definition of any new species. But by then it was too late.</p>
<p>More than 50 years later, we were among a group of scientists who followed in Brink’s footsteps. Our task was <a href="http://palaeo-electronica.org/content/2016/1478-reconstructing-scalopocynodon">to recreate</a> this unique specimen. Technology has moved on enormously in the last half century, so we were able to use 3D renderings and 3D printing – and one of our mammalian ancestors was reborn.</p>
<h2>Historical techniques</h2>
<p>South Africa was a good place for Brink’s work. The country’s Karoo region is home to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-looking-250-million-years-into-the-past-could-save-modern-species-60338">a wealth</a> of therapsid fossils, making it an important place to study the ancestry of mammals. </p>
<p>Brink was not the first palaeontologist to use serial grinding. The technique emerged at the beginning of the 20th century. Before then scholars had to wait for the discovery of naturally preserved casts of internal structures, like the mold of the “fossil brain” of the <a href="http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/taung-child">Taung Child</a>, <em>Australopithecus africanus</em>. Or they had to break fossils open.</p>
<p>With its introduction, serial grinding became the only fully controlled way to access the “interior” of fossils. Because of their abundance, South African therapsids were among the first fossils to be studied using this new, revolutionary approach. Sadly, their abundance turned out to be a curse.</p>
<h2>Accidental destruction</h2>
<p>In 1961, Dr Brink started the serial grinding study of a well preserved skull. At this stage, he thought the specimen belonged to a common form of therapsid. </p>
<p>But during the process, the sections revealed anatomical structures that suggested the specimen may actually represent a new species of fossil therapsid previously unknown to science. By then it was too late to save the fossil: it had already been mostly ground down. Brink tried to compensate by making a very thorough and accurate description and drawings of the specimen. He named it <a href="http://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/16091"><em>Scalopocynodon gracilis</em></a>.</p>
<p>As in zoology, the designation of type specimens is the most critical step when naming a new species in palaeontology. This type specimen, called a holotype, is meant to serve as an anatomical reference for future comparative works. A new species can’t be recorded without a holotype. So this ground specimen was particularly important: it constituted the holotype of <em>Scalopocynodon gracilis</em>. </p>
<p>Sadly this valuable and irreplaceable piece of South Africa’s heritage and evidence of the evolution of pre-mammalian therapsids was lost. The irony is that it was destroyed by the very author of the species.</p>
<p><em>Scalopocynodon</em> was considered dead and forgotten – until 2016.</p>
<h2>Recreating our ancestor in 3D</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=587&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/134407/original/image-20160817-3608-1fzwxbo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evolutionary Studies Institute, Wits University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s then that a team from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand retrieved some of Dr Brink’s drawings of the <em>Scalopocynodon gracilis</em> from 1961. These drawings represent each thin section ground by Brink. Their detail presented us with an unprecedented opportunity to virtually reconstruct the long lost specimen of <em>Scalopocynodon gracilis</em>.</p>
<p>The drawings were digitised. Then, using cutting edge software and innovative computer-based technology, every slice was digitally reassembled in a single stack. This allowed us to reconstruct a 3D model of the original skull. Afterwards a physical model of <em>Scalopocynodon</em> was printed in 3D so we could recreate a life-sized reconstruction of this specimen.</p>
<p>To our knowledge, this is the first time 3D technology has been used to recreate and print in 3D a serially ground fossil vertebrate (though it is quite often used in invertebrates palaeontology).</p>
<p>This is a great initiative for South African heritage conservation. These techniques can be used on other fossils lost through serial grinding. </p>
<h2>Breathing new life</h2>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VAUfDJ4xVmc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Recreating a fossil using 3D technology is painstaking work.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The 3D printed skull, serving as a holotype, could also help to breathe new life into this mysterious specimen. Taxonomists can now study it and one day might be able to say definitively that Brink was right: <em>Scalopocynodon gracilis</em> was indeed different from any other therapsid.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/64059/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julien Benoit receives funding from from PAST and its Scatterlings projects; the National Research Foundation of South Africa; and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences (CoE in Palaeosciences). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sandra Jasinoski received postdoctoral funding from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Palaeosciences. </span></em></p>
An old technique to explore the inside of fossils unfortunately ended up destroying some unique specimens. New technology has been used to reconstruct one such fossil.
Julien Benoit, Postdoc in Vertebrate Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
Sandra Jasinoski, Postdoc in Palaeontology, University of the Witwatersrand
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/61312
2016-06-21T14:09:06Z
2016-06-21T14:09:06Z
Meet 3-million-year-old Lucy – she’ll tell you a lot about modern African heritage
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/127540/original/image-20160621-13012-sb7uig.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A replica of the remains of "Lucy" at the National Museum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Barry Malone</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Lucy, you want to see Lucy?” young, would-be tour guides prompt in Ethiopia’s capital, <a href="http://global.britannica.com/place/Addis-Ababa">Addis Ababa</a>. <a href="http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20141127-lucy-fossil-revealed-our-origins">Lucy</a> stars in tourist brochures as one of the East African country’s great attractions. She also appears in the cultural history collage at the entrance of the <a href="http://www.africa.com/countries/ethiopia/museum-guide/">Ethiopian National Museum</a>. Ethiopians are clearly proud of Lucy, a hominin specimen of special renown, a cultural heritage attraction.</p>
<p>You meet Lucy, or <a href="http://www.africanglobe.net/africa/ethiopia-celebrates-return-iconic-fossil-dinknesh/">Dinknesh</a>, meaning “you are marvellous” in <a href="http://www.omniglot.com/writing/amharic.htm">Amharic</a>, in the lobby of the Ethiopian National Museum. “Hi, I’m Lucy,” greets a sketch of <em>Australopithecus afarensis</em>. “I am almost 3.2 million years old, but am walking fully upright.” It goes on to suggest: “Please meet my world-famous ancestors and descendants, all from Ethiopia,” prompting a visit to the palaeoanthropological exhibit in the basement.</p>
<p>This is striking. Lucy, an ape-like creature, becomes a human-like cultural ambassador for African archaeological heritage in Ethiopia. What does it mean to humanise the remains of our ape ancestors? What kinds of things are they made to say about the countries that display them? And what do they say about Africa as a place of scientific “discovery”?</p>
<h2>Simplifying complicated science</h2>
<p>One reason why fossil remains are humanised is because it helps make confusing biological leftovers sensible. It also simplifies complicated scientific findings for the media. But this simplification of science also creates problems. These stories often hinge on the idea of “discovery”, a word linked to colonial exploitation, and recycle stereotypes about who is allowed to produce, and what counts as, new scientific knowledge. </p>
<p>Let’s take Lucy. Popular media accounts state that she was “discovered” by <a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/djohanson.html">Donald Johanson</a> in Hadar, in Ethiopia’s Afar Valley, in 1974. He happened upon the remains by chance while walking back to his car near an ongoing archaeological dig. The team celebrated the find that night, playing music by the <a href="http://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-beatles-mn0000754032/biography">Beatles</a>, which led to the specimen being named Lucy, after the song <a href="https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/lucy-in-the-sky-with-diamonds/"><em>Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds</em></a>. </p>
<p>Told differently, we could say, the remains of a female ape-like hominin were found in a developing African country by a highly educated man from America. This white man is portrayed as having the strength, expertise and skill to recover precious female fossil remains in black Africa. He takes credit for digging up, identifying and explaining its importance, as an <a href="http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0001063/bio">Indiana Jones</a>-like hero of science. </p>
<p>This is a common way of explaining how hominin fossils are recovered in Africa. Think about how <a href="http://ewn.co.za/Features/Naledi"><em>Homo naledi</em></a> was found northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa, and identified, and how Professor <a href="http://profleeberger.com/">Lee Berger</a> became the dominant voice in explaining its scientific importance. In reality, archaeology does not work like this. <a href="http://www.africanstudies.uct.ac.za/cas/staff/shepherd">Nick Shepherd</a>’s <a href="http://jsa.sagepub.com/content/3/3/334.full.pdf">article</a>, “When the Hand that Holds the Trowel is Black…”, shows that simple stories like these actively erase the black labour and nous that go into recovering such finds.</p>
<p>This shows that the unearthing of important fossil remains often entails the burying of important information about who should share in the prestige it brings.</p>
<h2>Story of our ancestors</h2>
<p>The palaeontology exhibition in Ethiopia’s National Museum uses Lucy’s remains to make claims about shifts in deep time. One panel declares, “These remains tell us a long story of great transformation in landscapes, living beings and techniques. They tell us the long story of our ancestors.” </p>
<p>Referencing human and spiritual predecessors, ancestors are a potent explanatory idiom in Africa. My <a href="https://www.academia.edu/26281014/An_African_Story_of_Creation_Heritage_Formation_at_Freedom_Park_South_Africa">original research</a> shows, for example, how “ancestors” informed the heritage claims made by <a href="http://www.freedompark.co.za/">Freedom Park</a> in South Africa. </p>
<p>Exhibition panels also flag Ethiopia as a special site of palaeoarchaeological remains. It has “the most complete and richest record of human ancestors and with the longest record of stone and tool making”. Indeed, one panel declares, “the oldest known remains of <em>Homo sapiens</em>, our very species, were discovered in Ethiopia around 200,000 years ago”.</p>
<p>Ethiopia makes a distinctive contribution to the African story of human evolution. “Hominid species are known only in Africa and nowhere else on earth,” a panel explains. Ethiopian fossils, however, complete the African story of human evolution. “Early hominids have been found in several African countries,” its says. “Together with Ethiopian fossils [they] contribute to a general understanding of evolution in Africa.” </p>
<h2>Where humankind originated</h2>
<p>Surprisingly, South African heritage sites make similar claims. Maropeng and the Sterkfontein Caves, for example, are <a href="http://www.maropeng.co.za/">described</a> as “the oldest and most continuous palaeontological dig in the world”. Known as the “Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site”, it is “widely recognised as the place from which all of humankind originated”. Visitors could take comfort in the company slogan, “Welcome Home”.</p>
<p>This was the site of major shifts in human evolution. It is the place where “the best evidence [has been unearthed] of the complex journey which our species has taken to make us what we are”. “Our ancestors were able to use and control fire at least one million years ago in the Cradle of Humankind,” the website <a href="http://www.maropeng.co.za/content/page/introduction_to_your_visit_to_the_cradle_of_humankind_world_heritage_site">states</a>. It is a special place in Africa, “the birthplace of humankind … where our collective umbilical cord lies buried”.</p>
<p>It is not surprising these countries appear to be making similar, competing claims. African fossils are valuable remains, and much is at stake. They reference problematic ways of talking about archaeology as a science of “discovery” in Africa. </p>
<p>The fossils serve as evidence distinguishing countries as important sites of archaeological research. They also allow countries to make claims to and about Africa, and the idea of Africa as the cradle of humankind. And finally, they have the potential to attract, entertain and educate visiting tourists, and generate revenue in the process.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/61312/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Duane Jethro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
When it comes to valuable African fossils, much is at stake. They often unearth disputed ways of debating archaeology as a science of ‘discovery’.
Duane Jethro, Postdoctoral Fellow, Archive and Public Culture Research Initiative, University of Cape Town
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.