A proposal for research: Hominid archaeology in Idaho's Salmon National Forest mountain limestone caves

I. Introduction

The phenomenon of repeated reports of "wild men" and "hairy monsters" throughout the history of the world is well-known in native and folk lore (Forth, 2007) and has been elaborated upon by a plethora of relatively recent sightings, tracks, and other "physical" evidence depicting a large, bipedal hominoid or ape roaming arboreal forests in the mountainous regions of the United States and Canada (Leggett, 2009).

Krantz proposed that these reports were correlated to a long-thought extinct ancient species of Asian primate, Gigantopithecus blacki (Krantz G. , 1999) while Meldrum has assigned taxonomy to footprints (Anthropoidipes ameriborealis) made by the subject of the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin film footage of a purported sasquatch exiting a creek bed adjacent to Willow Creek, CA (Meldrum, Ichnotaxonomy of giant hominoid tracks in North America, 2007).

The legend of the European "Wildman" has extensive literary and artistic presence throughout the continent of Europe since the late Middle Ages, yet is widely considered to be fiction (Forth, 2007). While legends were pervasive in Asia and the Pacific describing hair-covered, bipedal primate-like subjects with accounts from villagers in Tibet ("Yeti") to aborigines in Australia ("Yowie") as well as Malaysian legends ("Orang Pendak") European "wild men" stories differ from those accounts in the variety of manifestations of physical appearance, behavior, and supernatural qualities (Forth, 2007). In contrast, recent North American bigfoot stories are consistent accounts of large, hirsute figures sometimes accompanied by apparently younger individuals, with most subjects exhibiting shy and reclusive characteristics, much like behavior initially reported by G. g. gorilla or "lowland gorillas" upon that species' discovery in 1847 (Meldrum, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, 2006).

It is possible that this fictional iconic status of wild man folklore in Europe became an episode of cultural transference in North America as colonies were settled in the 17th and 18th centuries, attributing early American accounts of bigfoot or sasquatch to similar European lore, and quite possibly incorrect categorization (Forth, 2007). It is also possible that the present intense skepticism towards the existence of sasquatch or bigfoot by formal academia has roots in this historical context (Meldrum, Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science, 2006). However a paucity of hard, scientific evidence supporting the existence of a second bipedal hominoid on this continent does not help the effort of legitimate study of the phenomenon (Murad, 1988). Nonetheless, the scale of the phenomenon across cultural and geographic boundaries warrants the inclusion of the subject matter in a conscientious, academic, and scholarly pursuit, and is entirely relevant to the search for scientific knowledge (Bartholomew & Bartholomew, 1991).

II. Rationale

Interestingly, the evidence of multiple-species hominid cohabitation is clear as recently as 15 kyr (thousand years) ago in a region in the eastern Mediterranean known as the Levant where Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis have been confirmed via stable isotope analysis to have shared some cultural aspects (McBrearty, 1990). In addition, the two species habituated and hunted an open range savannah replete with large game mammals (Shea, 2001). Archaeological evidence for multiple-species cohabitation is plentiful in examples from Flores, an island in Indonesia, and France where the first Homo neanderthalensis (Bayanov & Bourtsev, 1976). fossils were discovered as well as many locations in Eastern Europe

In Flores, part of the Indonesian island arc, an entirely new hominin species was discovered in 2004. Homo floresiensis was initially theorized to have originated from a Homo erectus population that had come to the island before 840 kyr ago, but more recent study suggests ancestry from Australopithicene (Baab & McNulty, 2008). The new species was persistent until at least 10 kyr ago (Morwood, et al., 2004). The physical characteristics of the new species were interesting. While brain size and limb metrics were primitive in comparison to modern man, Homo floresiensis was bipedal and the first individual specimen measured approximately 100 cm tall when upright (Blaszczyk & Vaughan, 2007). In addition to these surprising details, "LB1" (as the first subject was known, named for the limestone cave "Liang Bua" or "cold cave" where she was discovered) was found in similar geologic stratigraphic layers as fossilized remains from a pygmoid stegodon (elephant) unique to the island, and various stone tool artifacts and charcoal consistent with Homo erectus technology. There is still a great deal of controversy surrounding the validity of this discovery. Many believe that the group of individuals found in Liang Bua were pathologically microcephalic Homo sapiens precursors to existing populations of pygmies on the island (Jacob, et al., 2006) but a growing majority of scholars consider the discovery an entirely new species (Baab & McNulty, 2008). In the higher sediments of the Liang Bua cave, evidence of pathologically normal non-pygmoid Homo sapiens was found, as the caves were close to existing modern villages and traditionally considered a refuge from the intense tropical heat. (Morwood, et al., 2004) It has been widely known via other excavation sites on Flores that Homo sapiens has been persistent on the island since at least 50 kyr ago (Jacob, et al., 2006). While this establishes a potential for overlap of species, little is known regarding cultural exchange between the two on Flores, if any. This presentation of relatively recent co-mingling of hominid species in a compressed ecological setting sets the stage for further questions into the phenomenon of multiple bipedal hominoid radiation into other parts of the world as a facet of the hominid Diaspora from Africa theory.

While this paper does not focus primarily on the Flores discovery, the importance of Homo floresiensis to the overall picture of hominid radiation should not be underestimated. The unusual morphology of the specimens, namely the small intracranial size, has all but nullified legacy theories of brain evolution for primates (Baab & McNulty, 2008). It has also opened up the human evolutionary tree to many branches that were never considered before (Argue, Morwood, Sutikna, Jatmiko, & Saptomo, 2009) and the variety of hominid species that have shared the planet with Homo sapiens. In light of this new understanding of the limitations of the past hominid evolutionary models, further questions erupt into the potential for North American hominid appearance in history, and evidence yet to be discovered to support these concepts.

IV. Discussion

Since evidence of overlap between multiple hominid species in Eurasia and Africa is plentiful via the archaeological record (Richards, Pettitt, Trinkaus, Smith, Paunovic, & Karavanic, 2000) it is appropriate that every effort is undertaken to establish a similar record for North America. This is particularly compelling considering the theories regarding the existence of the Bering land bridge prior to, during, and just after the late Holocene glaciations about 15 kyr ago, and hominid radiation behavior patterns during the Quaternary period.

Many limestone caves exist in the mountainous regions of the western United States (Frost, Raines, Almquist, & Johnson, 1996) but rarely are human remains from earlier than 9 kyr ago found in North America (Green, et al., 1998). In fact, archaeological research takes a back seat to development and exploitation of natural resources in the Northwest, since a relatively large percentage of the land is publicly held wilderness (Leonhardy, 1988). However there are potential locations in the Salmon National Forest adjacent to Challis, ID that present favorable geomorphology for exploration, providing that governmental restrictions or private interests do not obstruct the process.

Can targeted excavations of existing limestone caves in remote western regions of North America reveal archaic hominid radiation other than Homo sapiens into that continent, and possibly inter-species cohabitation that has been previously undiscovered? The question presents many problems to surmount such as remote location access, general lack of species habitation data, and the tendency of modern academia to push this type of study into the fringes of science.

On the other hand, the potentially incorrect scientific notion of Homo sapiens as the sole remaining bipedal primate has historically been biased by western religious cultural implications of humankind's superiority as a species on Earth (Bayanov & Bourtsev, 1976). The appearance of a new hominid species in North America has the potential to shake the foundations of anthropology's status quo, and may present a new paradigm in primate research the world over.

References

Argue, D., Morwood, M., Sutikna, T., Jatmiko, & Saptomo, W. (2009). Homo floresiensis: A cladistic analysis. Journal of Human Evolution , doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2009.05.002.

Baab, K. L., & McNulty, K. P. (2008). Size, shape, and asymmetry in fossil hominins: The status of the LB1 cranium based on 3D morphometric analyses. Journal of Human Evolution , doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.08.011 .

Bartholomew, R., & Bartholomew, P. (1991). Evaluating bigfoot videos as an anthropology teaching aid. Anthropology of Consciousness , 2 (1), 34-35.

Bayanov, D., & Bourtsev, I. (1976). On neanderthal vs. paranthropus. Current Anthropology , 17 (2), 312-318.

Blaszczyk, M. B., & Vaughan, C. L. (2007). Re-interpreting the evidence for bipedality in homo floresiensis. South African Journal of Science , 103 (9/10), 409-414.

Forth, G. (2007). Images of the wildman inside and outside europe. Folklore , 118, 261-281.

Frost, T. P., Raines, G. L., Almquist, C. L., & Johnson, B. R. (1996). Digital map of possible bat habitats for the Pacific Northwest: a contribution to the interior Columbia River basin ecosystem management project. Spokane: US Geological Survey.

Green, T. J., Cochran, B., Fenton, T. W., Woods, J. C., Titmus, G. L., Tieczen, L., et al. (1998). The Buhl burial: a paleoindian woman from Southern Idaho. American Antiquity , 63 (3), 437-456.

Jacob, T., Indriati, E., Soejono, R. P., Hsu, K., Frayer, D. W., Eckhardt, R. B., et al. (2006). Pygmoid australomelanesian homo sapiens skeletal remains from liang bua, flores: population affinities and pathological abnormalities. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 103 (36), 13421-13426.

Kay, R. F., Johnson, D., & Meldrum, D. J. (1998). A new pitheciin primate from the middle miocene of argentina. American Journal of Primatology , 45 (4), 317-336.

Krantz, G. (1999). Bigfoot Sasquatch Evidence. Blaine, WA: Hancock House.

Leggett, M. (2009, October 4). Primatologist: if bigfoot exists, it's not an ape. Austin American-Statesman , p. C05.

Leonhardy, F. C. (1988). Current Research. (T. Lynch, Ed.) American Antiquity , 53 (2), 412-424.

McBrearty, S. (1990). The origin of modern humans. Man , 25 (1), 129-143.

Meldrum, D. J. (2007). Ichnotaxonomy of giant hominoid tracks in North America. (S. a. Lucas, Ed.) New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin , 42 (1), 225-231.

Meldrum, D. J. (2006). Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science. New York: Tom Doherty Associates.

Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Roberts, R. G., Sutikna, T., Turney, C. S., Westaway, W. J., et al. (2004). Archaeology and age of a new hominin from Flores in eastern Indonesia. Nature , 431, 1087-1091.

Murad, T. A. (1988). Teaching anthropology and critical thinking with the question "is there something big afoot?". Current Anthropology , 29 (5), 787-789.

Richards, M. P., Pettitt, P. B., Trinkaus, E., Smith, F. H., Paunovic, M., & Karavanic, I. (2000). Neanderthal diet at vindija and neanderthal predation: the evidence from stable isotopes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America , 97 (13), 7663-7666.

Shea, J. (2001). The middle paleolithic: early modern humans and neandertals in the levant. Near Eastern Archaeology , 64 (1/2), 38-64.

Abortion and the Transition of Morality in Modern Society

Abortion is defined by Merriam Webster dictionary as: "the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus." Statistically, the incidence of abortion is a sobering reality in the United States, yet the trend is declining.

Almost half of pregnancies among American women are unintended, and 40 percent of these are ended in abortion. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies except miscarriages are terminated by abortion. Each year, two percent of women aged 15-44 have an abortion, and for 47 percent of those women, it will not be their first. Fifty percent of women who will have abortions in the United States are under the age of 25. About 60 percent of all abortions are obtained by women who have one or more children.The occurrence of abortion with women age 15-44 is declining, at about two percent every four years since 1997. From 1973 until 2005, 45 million legal abortions occurred.The reason most women give for having an abortion has to do with their concern over responsibility to other people. Three fourths say that they cannot afford a child; three-fourths say that having a baby would interfere with work or school; and half say that they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner. (guttmacher.org)

Most women who get abortions report using a contraceptive the month that they became pregnant. Over three-fourths of them report inconsistent use of contraceptive method as the reason for pregnancy. Lack of contraception as the reason for pregnancy is highest among poor, black, Hispanic, or less educated. (Jones Henshaw)

Up until 1973, States had enacted their own laws, outlawing abortion. Starting after the Civil War, states began to render abortion a criminal act punishable with severe penalties. This evolution of abortion criminality could be explained for several reasons, certainly not the least of which was the fact that medical technology had advanced due to the staggering casualty rates of the war. Doctors became more plentiful, having organized the American Medical Association in 1847, and the profession began to grow as an industry post-war, alongside the manufacture of drugs.

Historically midwives had performed most birth and obstetric procedures before the Civil War, and doctors began to overshadow the midwife's role in women's lives. This wave of legality coincided (possibly not by accident) with the "first wave" of modern feminism in America. Suffrage was the heart of the first wave, and the opportunity to vote empowered women to change the status quo.

As the feminist movement continued to evolve into the first decade of the twentieth century, abortion law became even more prevalent across the nation, almost as if the trend were a government response to American women's increasing desire for individual freedom.

The Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified on August 18, 1920, allowing women to vote in the November 1920 election. However, abortion criminal statutes continued to evolve. In order to fully understand the legal precedent for abortion, it is necessary to explore the evolution of abortion law in the United States, because it is this history that much of the effort to legalize abortion has been based. Had there not been case law to support a legal appeal, it is doubtful that the effort would have been successful.

The laws of the United States were based on English common law where the concept of fetal "quickening," the point at which there is detectable movement of the fetus established the existence of a person. Aborting a "quickened" fetus, i.e. a person, was tantamount to murder, thereby creating a crime. Unborn embryos that had not "quickened" were not as closely scrutinized.

Common law governed issues like abortion until legislative action at the state level established code. The tide was turning though. By 1849, eighteen of the thirty states had enacted statutes restricting abortion, and by the end of the Civil War, twenty-seven of the thirty-six states had law on the books criminalizing abortion for the attending physician. By 1868, twenty-seven of thirty-seven states considered abortion at any stage of pregnancy a crime.

It is interesting to note that in every state women were considered "victims," and not perpetrators of abortion, regardless of intent or circumstance, largely because their testimony against the doctor would be difficult, if not impossible to procure if they were considered accomplices. (Linton) Women in early abortion criminal cases were not the culprits, in essence because they had no real recognition as citizens. A woman in the nineteenth century lingered legally somewhere between being property (a slave) and an extension of her husband's or father's persona.

In 1866, the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution established a broad definition of citizenship. After the Civil War, it was important to enable former slaves and their progeny to pursue opportunities granted to ordinary people. With this legislation a clearer picture of civil rights began to take shape in the nation. It was from this picture that the feminist movement gained new strength.

The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution; "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" spelled out the existence of non-enumerated rights that existed tacitly by virtue of the formation of rights enumerated in the previous eight amendments. It has been interpreted, especially in combination with the Fourteenth Amendment, to infer basic human rights, such as the right to privacy, are guaranteed by the Constitution regardless if they are not literally included in the text.

It is the evolution of constitutional law in the United States that illuminates the nature of the issue of abortion and its governance. From the standpoint of a consequentialist argument, abortion can be valued from three different approaches; that of the notion that personhood begins at conception, or; human existence begins at "quickening;" or via birth. If any law applies to the unborn fetus as a human being upon conception then abortion is murder. Conversely, if the law considers only an individual who is born as a citizen, then the outcome of the abortion is the affair of the mother, and not within jurisdiction of any law. As stated by the prominent pro-life attorney Paul Benjamin Linton, "the issue is not whether the unborn are human beings, but whether the unborn are constitutional persons."(LeaderU.com)

On January 22, 1973, the Roe vs. Wade opinion written by Chief Justice Harry Blackmun, was handed down by the United States Supreme Court. This action launched a firestorm of political controversy and invalidated a Texas statute that made procuring an abortion a crime absent a threat to the life of the mother, as well as nullifying any statute in the country that criminalized abortion. Part of Blackmun's opinion was based on the tenets of the 14th and 9th amendments to the United States Constitution that guaranteed the right to privacy. Once again women in the United States were able to obtain safe, legal, and professional abortion services through the qualified caregiver of their choice.

While legal abortions and associated services began to occur, two powerful separate movements sprang up out of the controversy. "Pro-life" proponents maintained that the Supreme Court ruling was unlawful and not a true representation of the majority of Americans. "Pro-choice" advocates insisted that abortion was an issue that was best left for discussion between a woman and her doctor, and that it was imperative that abortion remain legal.

After the decision, the Pro-life movement almost immediately began to assault the judicial with myriad cases and appeals. A key aspect of the Pro-life position is that personhood begins at conception, and that any other interpretation is morally wrong. One major organization associated with the Pro-life movement is the national Right to Life Committee. "Formed in 1973, in response to a United States Supreme Court decision released on January 22 of that year, legalizing the practice of human abortion in all 50 states, throughout the entire nine months of pregnancy," the organization claims to support a "non-sectarian" and "non-partisan" effort to overturn the Roe vs. Wade ruling. The NRLC considers that the decision made by the Supreme Court in 1973 was erroneous, in the words of dissenting Justice William Rehnquist, in essence declares a "constitutional right to an abortion,"

The Pro-choice movement is interested in keeping abortion safe and legal. Pro-choice has many feminist roots, and is based in the philosophy of abortion being a private matter between a woman and her caregiver, a philosophy that is at least as old as the practice of midwifery. Many feminists believe that the transformation or "medicalization" of birth was a tactic to circumvent one of the few woman-controlled services a female in the nineteenth century could experience. Historically, midwives have been around longer than doctors, and in many cases up until the nineteenth century, midwives were the only healthcare women had. (Toler, Bramall) In addition to shifting the responsibility of childbirth to doctors, eliminating midwives meant all but eliminating abortion and birth control care giving. However, in modern time, the Pro-choice movement does enlist the assistance of the American Medical Association who by policy "recognizes and supports physician autonomy and discretion in medical situations concerning abortion." (AMA.org) Organizations like Planned Parenthood also favor the Pro-choice movement.

Cases were brought before courts to challenge the decision and in many instances the statutory relief provided by Roe vs. Wade was eroded by federal and state law. Among the issues brought forth by the challenges, federal funding for abortion services has all but vanished leaving poor or indigent women with little or no alternative to unwanted pregnancies. A recent proposed federal law sponsored by Republican Senator Sam Brownback from Kansas, the Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act of 2005 provided for a mandated script supplied during an abortion procedure that required doctors to advise women of the potential for "fetal pain" that could be experienced by the unborn child beyond 20 weeks of gestation. The AMA adamantly opposed this legislation because of the violation of the doctor-patient privilege, the intrusion of government into the doctor-patient relationship, as well as the questionable validity of the "research" performed at the behest of the sponsors of the bill. The law did not pass, but many in Congress seek to derail Roe vs. Wade through similar draconian measures.

If the United States Constitution is a collection of principles and thought based in consequentialist philosophy, that is, acts are judged by the outcome and effect on other people and property, then the notion that abortion should be illegal is not valid. If and when the United States considers the unborn as citizens, it is at that moment that abortion can be legally outlawed. However, this presents the nation with an important unavoidable dilemma; who or what has the authority, based on the United States Constitution, to deem when human existence begins? If the country is to continue to adhere to the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights, then assigning a biblical or religious source to answer this question would violate the ethical framework on which the entire system of government rests. Justice Harry Blackmun addressed the question with unmistakable humility: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer."