Introduction:

Dental defects have long been studied as indicators for socioeconomic stress and physical stress from the surrounding environment (Goodman and Rose 1980; Sarnat and Schour 1941). This great amount of research, done in various parts of the world, helps to demonstrate how dental defects are indicators of environmental trends. One example of a stress indicator is linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH), where the thickness of the enamel is affected during development (Sarnat and Schour, 1941). They can appear as bands that surround almost the entire tooth or as lines or grooves occurring on the tooth itself (Goodman and Rose, 1991: 281). Occasionally, linear enamel hypoplasias are an effect of the nutritional status , but they  can also be caused by hereditary or local traumas, thought these are rare amongst most study findings. (Goodman and Rose, 1991:279-281).

Nutritional status could easily be defined as a function of which nutrients are consumed, but Goodman (1991) explains how other outside sources affect the enamel development, such as disease and lifestyle. Hypoplasias are useful  because they indicate stress that occurred during a child’s developmental stages, when tooth crown formation is affected (Lanphear, 1990: 35). Stress is most common in childhood due to the weaning process, which is defined as the introduction of more substantial food with the termination of  breast-feeding (Sillen and Smith, 1984).

My responsibilities on the Dilmun Bioarchaeological Project (DBP) include recording the presence and absence of teeth, antemortem tooth loss, and dental defects such as caries, calculus, and linear enamel hypoplasias (LEH). For the purpose of this poster, I will focus on the linear enamel hypoplasias that present within the skeletal material, excavated by Peter Cornwall in the 1940s from the island of Bahrain (ancient Dilmun) in the Persian Gulf. The collection is currently housed at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, at the University of California, Berkeley, with material dating as far back as the Dilmun and Tylos periods, which range from ca. 3500 – 1500 BCE to ca. 300 BCE – 300 CE (Farahani 2007).  During these time periods, consumption of dates was very common, due to the fact that they grew in abundance along the peninsula (Hojgaard 1980). This has lead to assumptions of nutrition and lifestyle that may have caused dental defects within the population (Hojgaard 1980; Littleton and Frohlich 1989; Nelson 1999).

Methods:

Linear enamel hypoplasias were measured using Mitutoyo Absolute Digimatic digital calipers (150 mm). Measurements were taken of the height of the entire tooth crown, along with the distance from the cementoenamel junction to the defect. The numbers were then worked into the equation established by Goodman and Rose (1991), which is shown here:

Age at formation = age at crown completion – [(years of formation/crown height) x defect height (from CEJ)]

The preceding equation can be used to determine the age at which the stress event occurred.  Half year intervals are used to determine the age range for the stress event: this takes better account of their eruption rate and provides an age range of the hypoplasia-affected tooth type (Goodman and Aremelagos 1985ab, Goodman and Rose 1991). Finally, all measurements were taken more the once to assess intra-observer error, which was used to supply an average age for the teeth.

Results:

Out of the nine individuals in the collection with teeth, all together 112 teeth were either missing or present. 30% of those teeth were fully resorbed, which indicates tooth loss antemortem. The other 70% were present, either still attached to the mandible or maxilla, or present but not attached to the alveolar bone. LEH were observed on 4 individuals out of the 9, with 12/112 (10%) of the teeth recorded. 

Figure 1 demonstrates the frequency of hypoplasias on the incisors, canines and molars. The peak frequency for the defects on the canines was between 4-4.5 years of age, while the peak frequency for the incisors was between 1-1.5 years of age and the peak frequency for the molars was between the ages of 3-3.5 years of age.

Interpretations:

 Research done by Karen Hojgaard (1980) on the prehistoric population of Bahrainshows that childrenwere exhibiting a great amount of stress between the ages of 2-3 years. Like in the DBP collection, the teeth that she studied were limited in number and had sustained lots of damage, making observation of the hypoplasias difficult. From my survey of the literature on LEH studied in Bahrain, Hojgaard’s article was the only one mentioning the defect, and only in a small paragraph. Most research on dentition done for this population  focused mainly on caries, calculus and antemortem tooth loss, thus making ours one of the few sets of LEH recorded for Bahrain.

Thus, we can infer from these data that children were experiencing high developmental or nutritional stress between the ages of 1-4.5 years of age. Also, by looking at Fig 1 we can also see that they were experiencing stress at other times of their developmental growth as well. This can help demonstrate around which time the child was possibly being weaned off of breastfeeding and onto more substantial foods. In other words, it is possible that the children were being introduced to more fish, meats, dates and various other vegetables (Littleton and Frohlich 1989;1993). Another possibility is that it could also mean that food may have been hard to come by while their mother was trying to wean them off of breastfeeding. To conclude, dental defects can help paint a clear picture of any given population. Hopefully with more studies of LEH in the ancient populations of Bahrain, better conclusions can be drawn about their diet and lifestyle.

Literature Cited

Goodman A.H., Armelagos, GJ and Rose CJ 1980 Enamel hypoplasias as indicators of stress in three prehistoric populations from Illinois. Human biology. 52:515-528.

Goodman, Alan H., Rose, Jerome C. 1991. Dental Enamel Hypoplasias as Indicators of Nutritional Status. In: Wiley-Liss, Inc. p. 279-293.

Farahani A. 2007. A Preliminary Analysis of Ceramic Artifacts from the Hearst Cornwall Bahrain Collection. Unpublished, project use.

Hojgaard K. 1980. Dentition on Bahrain, 2000 B.C. Scandinavian Journal of Dental Research 88:467-475

Littleton J, and Frohlich B. 1989. An Analysis of Dental Pathology and Diet on Historic Bahrain. Paleorient 15:59-75

Littleton J, and Frohlich B. 1993. Fish-Easters and Farmers: Dental Pathology in the Arabian Gulf. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 92:427-477

Nelson GC, Lukacs JR, and Yule P. 1999. Dates, Caries, and Early Tooth Loss During the Iron Age of Oman. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 108:333-343

Sarnat B.G., Schour I. (1941) Enamel hypoplasias in relation to systemic disease: A chronological, morphological and etiological classification. Journal of American Dental Association 28:1989-2000

Acknowledgements:

The research presented here would not have been accomplished without the help of Professor Alexis Boutin (Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Sonoma State University) and Benjamin Porter (Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley). I would also like to thank the Phoebe Hearst Museum for all their help and support with the Dilmun Bioarchaeological Project. Lastly, I would like to thank the McNair Program at Sonoma State University for pushing me to gain experience in my field and to learn from the stress and happiness this journey endures.

Bianca Brenes (B.A. Anthropology, 2010)

It has been an exciting year being a part of the DBP team, located at the Phoebe Hearst Museum at University of California, Berkeley. As part of my research for the McNair Scholars Program, I focused on linear enamel hypoplasias present in the collection. My duties within the project included but were not limited to: inventory of all dental material present in the collection, scoring and coding of wear on the teeth, measurements of linear enamel hypoplasias, as well as taking inventory of select skeletal material. For the purposes of my research, I focused entirely on the dental material present and worked on measuring and re-measuring the enamel hypoplasias to determine at what age the people experienced nutritional defects.

This project helped me to focus on my research and learn more about the society we were studying. I previously had no knowledge of Bahrain or the Arabian peninsula and what it entailed. Through studying the teeth and researching on them, I was able to gather more information about the period I was focusing on and what type of nutritional conditions they were dealing with. Also, with the frequency of visits to the museum, I believe I was able to stay on top of my paperwork and materials as it stayed fresh in mind. This project helped me to focus on my responsibilities and duties. Due to time constraints for my research paper, I was able to work within a tight time frame and accomplish my goals. I later presented my research at the McNair Symposium, at Sonoma State University, and will soon be publishing the article in the McNair Scholars Journal. If it were not for this project I would not have been able to expand my knowledge of bioarchaeology, forensics, and the Arabian Peninsula. Also, I would not have been able to expand my curriculum vitae and gain experience to put forth towards grad school. Thanks to this program I have been able to mature intellectually and learn how to prioritize and focus on my work.

Mary Beth Glisson (Anthropology major)

I began navigating my way through a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology with the thought that my education was about the journey and not about a career change because, as an adult student approaching retirement, it seemed unlikely I would ever be able to work in the fields that have captured my interest and imagination – that of bioarchaeology and paleontology. However, as my education has progressed, I began to see that maybe a new career isn’t totally out of the question. This hopeful and exciting feeling was due largely to Dr. Alexis Boutin when she gave me the opportunity to participate in the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP).

I worked with Dr. Boutin and two other students in the basement of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum in Berkeley, California examining human remains that were excavated from Bahrain in the early 1940s. Although each student was limited to only five visits to the museum, the experience was invaluable academically and professionally as it helped me gain focus on my new career path.

As part of the research team, my responsibilities were to identify and catalog the human remains by recording the individual bones being examined, and then indicate which side of the body the bone came from, condition, quantity of each bone, and in the case of multiples of the same bone, the minimum number of human individuals included. I also watched for bone pathologies, performed some dentition analysis, and was always on the lookout for pieces of bone that could be fit with other pieces but had been broken in burial, excavation, or shipping. Although museum rules don’t allow for gluing these pieces together, being able to see the fit helped a great deal in identification. Sometimes I took measurements of the bone to help determine stature, age, and sex of the individuals contained in the collection, and at other times I reanalyzed previously cataloged remains in order to check for inter-observer error.

Perhaps the most interesting and fulfilling of the tasks I performed was the cataloging of the remains and watching for possible fits between bones. In doing so I was able to put into practice what I had spent so many lab hours doing in class, and I enjoyed feeling like I was part of a larger team – together we were determining who these people were who had been transported from graves in Bahrain to a museum basement in California. Even errors made during my analysis of the bones made for a richer learning opportunity.

The greatest impact working on this project had on me was that it confirmed what I already suspected – that bones are where my interests lie. Ultimately my goal is to work in Africa doing exactly what I was doing with the DBP – analyzing human remains – except in Africa I would be working with remains that are millions of years old! The DBP has helped me see that I’ve made the right choice in education and career, and has given me valuable experience to include on my resume when I’m finally ready to work, or even volunteer for another project.

Natalie Sadler (Anthropology major)

My journey at Sonoma State has been a rough one until Fall semester of 2009 when everything seemed to come together for me. I joined the Anthropology Club and made a lot of new friends and I took an osteology class with Dr. Alexis Boutin. I have always liked bones and forensics but I hadn’t realized until that class that I have a natural affinity for it and that showed in my exam scores and classroom lab work. I applied for this internship even though I believed I would not be accepted. Well, I was chosen and it means the world to me that Dr. B has recognized this potential in me and wants to help me develop it further. Working with the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project has certainly given me the first opportunity to do so for which I am very grateful.

Some of my responsibilities at the Hearst were creating inventories of the skeletal remains, measuring bones with sliding calipers, recording and analyzing dentition, and forensic analysis of some pelvises. Much of my time was spent creating inventories of the bones present, checking mine against a 1^st inventory, looking for discrepancies, and then working together to correct them. The best part of my day was when I had mixed piles of metacarpals and metatarsals and had to determine which they were, what number in the sequence they are and which side they came from.

I also got to spend some time taking measurements of the bones like the maximum diameter of the femur head, humeral head and the calcaneus. I also measured the metacarpals and read a supplementary article by Jantz and Meadows about calculating stature from metacarpal lengths. Something I found surprising and that challenged some preconceptions I had were that the measurements of the Dilmun people are to be computed with the regression formulas for American Black populations which makes sense considering the close proximity of Bahrain to Africa. Because of the lighter skin tone of Middle Eastern people, I had just assumed that they would fall into the statistical category for the White population. It was enlightening to have those preconceived notions of race and skin color challenged.

It was important to get some hands on experience with dentition. Sonoma State doesn’t have a collection of real loose teeth so this experience augmented what I learned in my osteology class. Teeth are a great source of data about a population. Caries can reveal information about diet quality, patterns of wear can tell something of the life activities, and the presence of hypoplasias can indicate periods of stress and malnutrition.

Another task was obtaining age estimates from pubic symphyses using the Suchey-Brooks scoring system. As a person ages the billowy ridges on the symphyseal face wear down.I also looked for evidence of trauma and pathology on any of the remains and some of the things present were a Schmorl’s node and osteoarthritic lipping on the vertebrae.

One of the highlights of my time in Berkeley was meeting the visiting researcher from Tennessee who was taking cranial measurements of an Inca collection using this cool laser technology. What was most fascinating for me was to see the trepanation in most of the crania and Dr. Boutin pointed out some that showed definite signs of healing and another that likely caused the individual’s death. It just amazes me that people survived those surgeries without modern technology and sterile medical practices.

Being chosen to help on the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project gave me a boost of confidence in my professional abilities working with human remains. It gave me the drive to seek out other opportunities using the connections I have made since starting in anthropology and now I’m analyzing some human remains in Sacramento that are thousands of years old. I have started by creating a basic inventory of what bones are present. I have been invited back to continue over the summer and some things I would like to accomplish are taking measurements, documenting dentition to firm up the age estimation, and document any pathologies or injuries and possible causes of death.

…As part of a wider research project researching human remains and associated artifacts excavated in 1940s Bahrain and currently curated in our Anthropology museum, we have been developing an ethics statement regarding in part the visual documentation and dissemination of materials related to the project.  As many list members may know, the visual display of human remains has become a contentious issue in archaeology and this has become even more complicated by our wish to share research with our colleagues and the public on the internet.

Most ethics statements I have seen primarily deal with people who are still living or with museum display standards–I would appreciate any insights regarding the ethics of display of past peoples and artifacts on the internet. As background we are basing most of our practices on the World Archaeological Congress’ various ethics accords, but could probably stand to shore up our arguments from other literature.

Again, any comments or insights would be appreciated!

In the coming weeks we will review the IVSA statement to see how well it meshes with our existing statement. The ethics of depiction of past people and artifacts remains a topic of deep interest for our research group, so watch this space for more updates!

by Amy Brandon, B.A. Sonoma State University 2009

            Although my time with the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project was relatively short, I feel that I learned a great deal, and that the work I was able to conduct during my time will serve me well throughout my career, both professionally and academically. The project, above all else, allowed me to really get a feel for what it is to be an anthropologist/archaeologist.

            As I primarily worked with Dr. Boutin in the Hearst collections, my main responsibilities pertained to the human remains that are stored in the collection. I would typically create an inventory of an individual set of remains before checking that inventory against a second inventory list to help cancel out inter-observer error. I was also given the opportunity to conduct some forensic work on the remains, in which I examined the remains for any pathological signs of injury or illness, found the sex of the individual, approximate age, and stature of the remains, if possible. Although I had previously practiced these skills in a classroom setting, the opportunity for real world experience cannot be beaten. Even something as seemingly small as the opportunity to work with an osteometric board and sliding calipers measuring bone length or diameter was very exciting for me.

            The few times that I was able to work with Dr. Porter, I focused on either object work, identifying and inventorying pot sherds and the like, or washing bones that would be sent off for faunal analysis, in order to give the team an idea of the dietary and daily habits of the people of the area and time. The object work, while different, was also a great learning experience. Finding the type and color of the material used for the pottery was surprisingly complex. The washing of bones was also a great learning experience, even if it wasn’t particularly difficult. Any experience that could help me in the field and my any future work is knowledge I welcome.

            Of all the tasks performed, I would have to say that I particularly enjoyed the forensic aspect of the project, and the ability to gain some experience in aging, sexing, and determining the stature of the remains. This project has given me a leg up on many of my peers who will be entering graduate school at the same time as myself. The ability to work directly with human remains, performing the same tasks I will be asked to do in a professional capacity, has allowed me to decide if this is truly the road I want to journey down, academically. Luckily, I found that I loved the experience and my time spent in the collections was the highlight of my semester. This experience was probably the most directly relevant work I could have done to prepare myself for a future in forensic anthropology, and I’m happy that I’ll be able to continue utilizing the knowledge that was gained during the course of the project.

Because of the unique qualities of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project, we have decided to reveal our team Ethics Statement.  It’s a working document, but it outlines our intentions in a way that we hope is quite clear, and will provide a model for future practice with collections of these kinds.  This is our second draft, based on feedback received and new research conducted during the Fall 2009 semester. Additional feedback is always appreciated!

Regarding the display and remediation of artifacts and human remains

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project is working with human remains excavated in the 1940s by Peter Bruce Cornwall. Although Cornwall obtained permissions both from local governing authorities and Standard Oil, who had oil exploration rights to some of these territories , we feel that we must be explicit in our methodology and goals in depicting the excavated materials curated in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum.  In this digital age it is easy for members of western academic institutions to share both visual and textual information regarding our research and while it is often desirable to keep an open dialogue with fellow colleagues and an interested public, this same openness can be seen as disrespectful when the display of human remains and associated artifacts runs contrary to the desires and beliefs of stakeholders associated with the site.  We believe that it is important to clarify this relationship and our stance regarding the data we are gathering as part of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP).

Data Collection
During the course of our interpretation of the artifacts and human remains excavated by Peter Bruce Cornwall, we find it necessary to fully document the collection with digital photographs and digital video.  The digital photography has been performed in accordance with the wishes of the Phoebe A. Hearst museum, on a photography stand, in raw format, with neutral colored backgrounds and scales.  During this photography the artifacts were handled as little as possible, by team members wearing gloves in order to preserve their structural integrity.  In the case of skeletal photography, only the dedicated osteologist, Alexis Boutin, Ph.D., handled the remains.  These photographs and videos were then downloaded to the laptop of Colleen Morgan, the team’s digital documentarian.  The photographs were then entered into a spreadsheet and given a UUID, a universally-unique ID commonly used by digital archivists, and a selection of these photographs were then cropped, photoshopped, and shared with the team in protected online folders.  These photographs are also backed up to an external harddrive to protect against data loss.  After the collection has been completely photographed we will make the photographs available to the Phoebe A. Hearst museum in a format of their choosing. The video will be cut into short videos to share online and will also be given to the Phoebe A. Hearst museum in the format of their choosing.

Dissemination
While all depictions of the artifacts and the human remains have been shared in protected folders online to team members, a selection of the photographs and videos also will be made available to the broader online public.  Most of the artifacts in the Peter Bruce Cornwall collection were excavated from tumuli, specifically from human burials of the protohistoric inhabitants of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia (i.e., the Dilmun culture).  Images of these artifacts are in broad circulation and are printed in many volumes, and our contributions in this respect will not be unusual.  We intend to contact the archaeological authorities in Bahrain to reaffirm this process.  In this case it is difficult to identify interested indigenous parties, as the excavations were performed 60 years ago and the landscape of Bahrain has changed radically since that time.  It is not our intention to reify the assumption that primarily Islamic populations only care about Islamic artifacts and remains.  Instead we hope that digital dissemination of our data will heighten awareness of the tumuli in Bahrain.  However, if our discussions with community leaders and other interested parties indicate dissatisfaction with these depictions, then we will remove offending materials from public access.  In addition to presenting traditional representations of these artifacts, we also intend to remediate the data for better understanding and interest of the online public.  Remediation, defined by Bolter and Grusin (1999) as “the formal logic by which new media refashion prior media forms” can be used to resituate artifacts in new, meaningful, and interesting ways.  Given this, we intend that our remediations will be respectful of the past and present cultural context of the artifacts.

This above set of standards does not apply for depictions of the human remains.  We recognize, in accordance with the 1989 Vermillion Accord on Human Remains and the 2005 Tamaki Makau-rau Accord on the Display of Human Remains and Sacred Objects promoted by the World Archaeological Congress that “respect for the mortal remains of the dead shall be accorded to all irrespective of origin, race, religion, nationality, custom and tradition” and recognize that the depiction of these remains is a sensitive subject.  Until the permission of the potentially affected community is obtained, we will not display human remains unless it is absolutely necessary for explanation, and even so, we do so with extreme forbearance.

Human Remains In answering the question, “Why study human remains?,” Patricia M. Landau and D. Gentry Steele point to human remains as a unique source of direct information about ancient peoples’ biology and behavior: that is, what they looked like, how they acted as members of a society, and how they responded to their environments. Issues such as these form part of the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project’s research agenda, although we are also particularly interested in understanding these human remains within their mortuary contexts. How were these peoples’ identities related to the ways they were treated in death? Under what circumstances were people buried together, and with what types of objects? Who was “allowed” to be buried in a tumulus?   But this research agenda aside, the DBP is studying this particular set of human remains because they had never been studied before. Since Cornwall collected the skeletons in Bahrain in the early 1940s and shipped them to the U.S., they have been stored in the collections of the Hearst museum, curated carefully but never subjected to osteological analysis due to lack of funding. Cornwall doubtless had the best of scholarly intentions when he unearthed the skeletons and their funerary accoutrements: his writings reflect an interest in mortuary practices as an indicator of cultural affiliation. Nevertheless, the removal of human remains from what had been intended as their final resting place might be interpreted by some as culturally insensitive and disrespectful. The fact that these remains were never analyzed by an osteologist- presumably the purpose of their excavation – gives that interpretation more credence. Thus, the BBP aims to carry out Cornwall’s presumed research goals with the human remains from the Bahraini tumuli and, in the process, redress any oversights – however unintentional they may have been – committed against these ancient peoples and their descendants.

The following ethical guidelines are based on chapters in Cassman et al. (2007). All contact with the human remains is undertaken by the person of, or under the direct supervision of, Alexis Boutin, Ph.D., a qualified osteologist. Gloves are always worn to avoid contaminating the human remains or violating their personal integrity. The skeletal remains were marked in permanent ink with a museum “object” number at some point prior to our research; we do not employ any permanent systems of reconstruction or stabilization. Those temporary systems that we have employed (in limited instances, water-soluble glue) will be removed at the request of affected descendant populations. So far, our analyses have been non-destructive (i.e., strictly morphological and metric). Should we decide that invasive or destructive analyses (e.g., DNA or biochemical sampling) are essential to our research goals, we will request permission from the appropriate Bahraini authorities and, if possible, descendant communities.   We approach our tasks with a sense of reverence and of the privilege we have been granted to interact with, and learn from, these earthly remains. Above all, we recognize that these skeletal remains are not “objects of study,” but persons who deserve the same dignity and respect, and have the same rights as, the persons who walk the earth today.

Landau, P. M. and D. G. Steele

2000    Why Anthropologists Study Human Remains. Pp. 74-94 in Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? Ed. Devon A. Mihesuah. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

V. Cassman, N. Odegaard, and J. Powell, eds.

2007    Human Remains: Guide for Museums and Academic Institutions. Lanham, Md.: Altamira Press.

Introduction – The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project (DBP hereafter) is a joint team of scholars drawn from UC Berkeley and Sonoma State University.  The team currently consists of seven people.  Benjamin Porter is an assistant professor of Near Eastern archaeology in UC Berkeley’s Near Eastern Studies Department and a curator of Near Eastern archaeology in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology.  Alexis Boutin is an assistant professor of anthropology at Sonoma State University.  Colleen Morgan, Alan Farahani, and Amber Zambelli are graduate students in UC Berkeley’s Anthropology department, Ancient History and Mediterranean Archaeology program, and Near Eastern Studies Department, respectively.  Sheel Jagani is the team’s undergraduate research apprentice and is earning two majors in Anthropology and Integrative Biology.  Kathryn Killackey serves as project illustrator and Athna May Porter serves as the project family historian.  Despite the obvious differences in academic rank, the team organizes itself as an
egalitarian research group who encourages and appreciates each member’s unique contributions to our collective goals. This team will certainly grow in the coming years as we identify new needs beyond our current talents.

During the research assessment stage, this team divided itself into four research groups: 1) Collections history (Porter, Porter, Jagani), 2) skeletal analysis (Boutin, Jagani), 3) object analysis (Porter, Farahani, Morgan, Jagani, Killackey), and 4) dissemination (Morgan, Farahani, Killackey).  The results of each research group are presented here.

Collections history

How the Cornwall collection came to reside in the Hearst’s collection was one primary question the collections history group set out to answer.  The museum’s accession file as well as published academic literature were key resources in this regard.  Through archived
correspondence, we learned that beginning in 1940, Peter B. Cornwall, a graduate student at Harvard University, sought institutional affiliation and field research funding from the Hearst Museum to conduct excavations and surveys in what was broadly called ‘Arabia’ at that time. Although Alfred Kroeber, Theodore McCown, and Edward Gifford granted Cornwall institutional affiliation and professional mentorship, they did not offer him funding beyond the cost of shipping materials to California.  Despite some delays due to World War II-related events, Cornwall conducted his field research in late 1940 and early 1941.  Upon returning to the
United States, Cornwall studied many of these materials, publishing portions of the data in his 1944 Ph.D. dissertation, The history of Bahrein Island before Cyrus and other scholarly and public journal articles.  The entire collection was later deposited in the Hearst in 1945.  Some correspondence between Gifford and Cornwall suggest that Cornwall was to help unpack and
organize the materials, but this did not happen despite repeated requests.  Correspondence with Cornwall about the collection ends in 1952.  No subsequent record of research on the collection has been found.

The group’s second charge was to study available documentation to define the collection’s spatial and geographic parameters.  According to his notes and correspondence, Cornwall excavated and surveyed in regions that once comprised the ancient polity of Dilmun, but are today the modern kingdoms of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. He obtained permissions both from local governing authorities and Standard Oil, who had oil exploration rights to some of these territories.  According to his descriptions, Cornwall excavated multiple prehistoric settlements throughout central and eastern Saudi Arabia, recovering a number of stone tools dating to the Paleolithic and Neolithic Eras.  Cornwall also worked in Bahrain, excavating a Roman bath and thirty-five tumuli around the island.  From the latter, he recovered a number of skeletons and associated objects.  Cornwall also mentions that he recorded geological and environmental data during his travels.  He also took physical measurements on local populations
as he held an interest in anthropometry, the measurement of individuals for the study of human physical variation.

The group’s third question was biographical in nature:  Who was Peter B. Cornwall?  The
accession file as well as public documents have helped piece together Cornwall’s biography.
Cornwall was a Bay Area native born in 1913 to a family with long-standing privilege and
connections in northern California.  At some point in his life, Cornwall lost his hearing and could
only communicate through writing.  Peter’s grandfather, Pierre Cornwall, was involved in
nineteenth century California industry and development; he later served as a Regent of the
University of California.  Peter’s father, Bruce Cornwall, was a Cal law school alumni and a
successful real estate salesman.  Peter Cornwall attended Phillips Academy in Andover, MA and
went on to study at Stanford University, the University of Toronto, and Oxford University,
finally earning his bachelor of arts in 1939.  According to his cv, he showed an interest in Near
Eastern and Mediterranean archaeology and history throughout his education.  During the 1930s,
Cornwall participated on excavation projects in Greece, Egypt, and Malta.  After completing his
doctoral studies at Harvard University in 1944, Cornwall appears to have been based in the Bay
Area, traveling abroad frequently.  At the moment, nothing is known of Cornwall’s activities in
the last two decades of his life.  In 1952, he reports that he is moving to his residence in Rome.
According to cemetery records, Cornwall died in Rome in 1972 at age of fifty-nine.  His body
was shipped back to the family cemetery near Palo Alto, CA.  Records suggest he never had
children.  Our attempts to identify Cornwall’s living relatives have been unsuccessful so far.

Skeletal Analysis

During the Spring 2009 semester, the skeletal analysis team focused on creating a preliminary
inventory of skeletal remains, with the aim of evaluating the collection’s research potential. So
far, we have been able to estimate the minimum number of individuals (MNI) represented in the
Cornwall collection, obtain a sense of the sample’s demography, health, and behavior, and track
burial patterns (e.g., single vs. multiple interments, burial taphonomy).

Approximately 24 burial features are represented: one jar burial, two features in a “small
cemetery locality,” and 21 tumuli. Only one tumulus has individuals represented from multiple
cists. The remains of at least 32 individuals are present in the Cornwall collection (MNI=32).
The vast majority of burial features appear to have been single interments (n=20), with three
double burials, and two multiple burials. At least 13 of the burial features included faunal
remains.

Inventory data have been used to estimate the completeness of the 32 skeletons, which conveys
the possibilities and limitations of the Cornwall sample, based on preservation issues. Overall,
34.4% of the skeletons were mostly complete, 12.5% were fairly complete, and 53.1% were
fragmentary.  Although the proportion of mostly complete skeletons may seem low, we observed
further that the majority of these were very well preserved, i.e., major bones and diagnostic
features were extant and intact. Preliminary estimates of sex revealed ten possible or probable
males and six possible or probable females.  An age assessment of twenty-eight individuals
revealed a majority of adults (n=20; 71.4%) with some older adolescents (n=3; 10.7%), children
(n=2; 7.1%), and infants (n=3; 10.7%). Several pathologies are exhibited at high frequencies,
including antemortem tooth loss, degenerative joint disease, and Schmorl’s nodes. A handful of
seemingly isolated pathological conditions also require further study and research, as well as
confirmation of diagnosis. These include a healed depressed fracture of the cranium, a traumatic
injury to the medial epicondyle of the humerus, and a congenital growth defect.

Object Analysis

The goal of the object analysis team was to create a preliminary inventory of artifacts.  Some of
these artifacts are associated with the skeletal evidence from Bahrain described above.  Other
objects are from surface collections in what is today Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province (Mintaqah
ash-Sharqiyah).  Overall, the collection is well preserved.  Cornwall appears to have conducted
object restoration when possible.  Other specimens are fragmentary, as is common for excavated
materials.  The DBP has collected descriptive data (dimensions, color, condition) from
approximately 50% of the collection, with concentration on complete ceramic objects and all
non-ceramic and non-stone objects.  Many of these objects were photographed and several are
now being drawn.
The survey revealed that the collection contains objects made from several different types
of materials, including metal, bone, ivory, pearl, shell, and alabaster, although stone and ceramic
are the dominant material types.  Representative forms include vessels, jewelry, and tools.
Comparing these objects to examples already published in the secondary literature helps provide
relative dates for the collection.  So far, the team has determined that the overall collection
represents several different time periods from the region, the oldest being prehistoric Paleolithic
or Neolithic, with the youngest material dating to the tenth century CE.  A preliminary analysis
of objects found in context with skeletal materials provides relative dates from the late third
millennium BCE to the end of the first millennium CE.

Documentation and Dissemination

One of the DBP’s main goals is to increase the transparency of the archaeological process.  To be
successful, therefore, the project has organized a documentation and dissemination team that
uses different technologies to record our work.  Documentation, takes on several forms, from
written to digital, from notebooks to databases and video.  During the research assessment, the
documentation and dissemination team piloted several projects using inexpensive or free
resources.  Digital photographs of all analyzed objects and some skeletal materials were taken
and archived. Free, online digital software including Google Docs and Picasa allowed team
members to share their work and facilitated communication between the research groups.  Video
documentation was taken of the objects group ‘at work’ and was edited into a short video
‘webisode’ for a public audience.  Permission to photograph and use these images was granted
by the Hearst Museum. Also, a project website with a blog was established at
http://bbproject.wordpress.com/.  So far, posts to the blog have included profiles of team
members, progress reports on skeletal analysis, and abstracts submitted to scholarly conferences.
We have also shared the DBP’s ethics statement on the blog, in hopes of soliciting feedback
from interested readers. Although it is a working document, it outlines our intentions and
hopefully will provide a model for future practice with collections of this type.

Research Assessment Outcome and Upcoming Plans

The DBP is pleased with the outcome of the research assessment and are optimistic about the
collection’s research potential.  In a recent meeting, DBP team members outlined several
additional steps for future research, which will commence during the Fall 2009 semester.

Collections history

In order to better understand Peter B. Cornwall’s personal and professional motivations in
collecting this material from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, the DBP plans to continue gathering
biographical information. Prospective sources include yearbooks from Cornwall’s undergraduate
education at Stanford, photographs of his Bay Area homes, published obituaries, and his
gravestone.  We will also plan to contact a number of institutions in Italy for any record of his
residency and eventual death there.  We also plan to consult with Harvard’s Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology for additional documentation on Cornwall’s graduate studies.

We aim to re-situate Cornwall’s excavations within local geographic and archaeological contexts
by establishing their provenience. Although he did not systematically document their locations,
his field notes and the information that he did publish should prove sufficient to reconstruct his
general areas of excavation. We hope to refine these areas by consulting archival material from
Standard Oil’s operations in the region, as well as any aerial photographs of Bahrain and Saudi
Arabia from the 1930s and 1940s. Using this available documentation, we will then integrate the
location of Cornwall’s various excavations into a Global Information Systems environment.
This work will allow us to make typological comparisons between the Hearst’s Cornwall
collection to sites whose evidence has already been published (e.g., the “type sites” of Qa’alat
Bahrain and Saar). As described further below, this will likely involve consulting and
collaborating with representatives from Bahrain’s and Saudi Arabia’s antiquities authorities.

Skeletal Analysis

The next task for the DBP’s skeletal analysis team is to confirm and finalize the inventory of
human remains in the Cornwall collection. Once this is completed, the collection of detailed
morphological and metric data from the skeletal and dental material will commence. These data
will allow us to assess personal and population demographic attributes such as age, sex, health
and nutritional status, and activity patterns. This work is projected to take no more than four
semesters.

Additional researchers will join the skeletal analysis team during the DBP’s duration. The small
assemblage of animal remains will require us to add a faunal specialist. We are currently
consulting with colleagues and graduate students at Sonoma State and UC Berkeley to fill this
position. New undergraduate researchers also are scheduled to join the team starting in the fall.
Amy Brandon and Bianca Brenes are incoming senior Anthropology majors at Sonoma State
who plan to pursue graduate studies in physical anthropology. Their relevant coursework and
field experience make them valuable additions to the project.

Three skulls from the Cornwall collection are prime candidates for facial reconstruction, based
on their overall excellent preservation, especially of the cranium (with nasals) and mandible.
These include a possibly female adult, a possibly male adult, and a child/young adolescent.
Facial reconstruction of selected well-preserved skulls from the Bahraini tumuli will “flesh out”
our explorations of these embodied persons. Each reconstructed face’s final appearance will be
informed reflexively by historical and iconographic data from its contemporary society (e.g.,
hairstyle, costume) and lifestyle information from the individual himself (e.g., age at death,
pathologies, markers of occupational stress). Facial reconstruction is a particularly effective tool
for outreach to public audiences. By “putting a face” on the ancient people of Dilmun in a way
that is much more vivid and tangible to the island’s modern residents than a skull or stylized
drawings, such facial reconstructions can facilitate indigenous peoples’ pride in their physical
identity and cultural heritage.

The completeness and excellent preservation of many skeletons in the Cornwall collection make
them well-suited for interpretation via the osteobiography method. This method pursues the
meaningful interpretation of skeletal material in its archaeological contexts, with the aim of
reconstructing the life histories of individuals. Although osteobiographies are traditionally
framed as exhaustive skeleton-by-skeleton descriptions, Boutin has found through her research
that fictive narrative is the most effective writing format. Fictive osteobiographical narratives
permit humanistic, even experiential, interpretations of skeletal data that are necessarily
interlinked with all available archaeological, textual, and iconographic contextual information.
Consistent with the DBP’s aim to disseminate our research findings widely and in an accessible
fashion, fictive narratives are more comprehensible and interesting to the public than traditional
anthropological reports. They are also written in a way that makes transparent the contingency,
dialogue, ambiguity, and collaboration that are inherent to the production of archaeological
knowledge.

Object analysis

Building on our work this past spring, the object analysis team will commence its final inventory
of artifacts in the Cornwall collection.  This work will include collecting descriptive data on the
remaining 50% of the collection, as well as illustrating and photographing individual objects.
These data will then be compared with other published materials. We also seek to add a
researcher for the description and detailed analysis of the collection’s metal and stone artifacts.
This work is projected to take two semesters.

Should we prove successful in securing external funding, the DBP would like to conduct non-
destructive materials scientific testing on some objects with the Hearst’s permission. This
includes sampling bitumen residue on the inside of some intact vessels for the purposes of
sourcing, and obtaining radiocarbon samples from soil associated with a fragmentary infant
cranium (Reg. No. 9-4622).

Documentation and dissemination

The DBP plans to continue photographing, filming, and/or drawing all diagnostic artifacts and
skeletal materials in the Cornwall collection.  These illustrations will be used for publication,
presentations, and digital distribution.  The DBP will seek further permission from the Hearst
Museum for use of these images as warranted.  Also, a copy of all images will be deposited in
the museum’s records.

We are in the process of forming a council of specialists in Gulf archaeology and/or the analysis
of human skeletal remains who will advise the DBP on research, grant writing, and publications.
Candidates for this advisory committee include Daniel Potts (U of Sydney), Peter Magee (Bryn
Mawr), Flemming Højlund (Moesgard Museum), Gregory Possehl (U of Pennsylvania), Susan
Sheridan (U of Notre Dame), Bruno Frohlich (Smithsonian), and Judith Littleton (U of
Auckland).  We are also looking for individuals from Bahrain and Saudi Arabia who can serve
on this board.

We plan to disseminate our findings to various interested publics through several channels.  We
will start updating our blog regularly with status updates on object and skeletal analysis, as well
as photographs and webisodes of the teams at work. At later stages of the project, we envision
incorporating the osteobiographies described above, as well as a database of objects and skeletal
remains. Translation of parts of the blog into Arabic, so that it is accessible to Bahraini and Saudi
residents, is another goal of the project. We also hope to give presentations in brownbag lectures
series hosted by Cal’s Archaeological Research Facility and at Sonoma State’s School of Social
Sciences, respectively.

In addition to the efforts just described, we plan to disseminate our findings to Middle Eastern
audiences, particularly those in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The first step in this regard, which is
one of the project’s highest priorities, is to make contact with local antiquities authorities and
national museums in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, to notify them of the existence of their cultural
patrimony in the Cornwall collection. We also would like to collaborate with them to ensure that
our findings are made available and relevant to Gulf audiences, whose interests in archaeological
research continue to grow. Should we secure sufficient external funding, the team would like to
make a personal visit to the region, both to build ties with local antiquities authorities and to
experience the landscape explored by Cornwall. Bahrain hosts several newspapers (e.g. Akhbar
al-Khaleej and Gulf Daily News) where our study can be presented to Arabic- and English-
language readers in an accessible, public voice. We envision a possible culmination of our
project as a conference of interested scholars at Berkeley and/or Bahrain, perhaps in conjunction
with a museum exhibit of select materials from the Cornwall collection and the facial
reconstructions proposed above.

One of the primary means of dissemination to academic audiences will be through presentations
at scholarly conferences. Several members of the team (led by Morgan) will present a paper at
UMAC’s 9th International Conference, “Putting University Collections to Work in Research and
Teaching” in September 2009. An abstract also has been submitted to the 7th International
Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, to be held in London during April 2010.
We also plan to present the results of our research at professional meetings such as the American
Schools of Oriental Research (ASOR) and the Society for American Archaeology.

Aspects of the DBP’s research findings will be published in peer-reviewed journals like the
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy,
and the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. They will be published in final form in a
synthetic monograph: possibilities for publishers include ASOR’s Archaeological Research
Series, UCLA’s Cotsen Institute, and the Bahrain National Museum.

Conclusion

The project would like to thank several individuals for their assistance conducting this research
assessment: Jud King, Sandra Harris, Dr. Tim White, Leslie Freund, Joan Knudsen, Terry
Strathman and UC Berkeley’s Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, Joan Knudsen,
Victoria Bradshaw, and Paolo Pellegatti.

Approximately 24 burial features are represented: one jar burial, two features in a “small cemetery locality,” and 21 tumuli. Only one tumulus has individuals represented from multiple cists (Tumulus B2). The remains of at least 32 individuals are present in the Cornwall collection (MNI=32). The vast majority of burial features appear to have been single interments (n=20), with three double burials, and two multiple burials. At least 13 of the burial features included faunal remains.

Inventory data have been used to estimate the completeness of the 32 skeletons, which conveys the possibilities and limitations of the Cornwall sample, based on preservation issues. Overall, 34.4% of the skeletons were mostly complete, 12.5% were fairly complete, and 53.1% were fragmentary.  Although the proportion of mostly complete skeletons may seem low, we observed further that the majority of these were very well preserved, i.e., major bones and diagnostic features were extant and intact. Preliminary estimates of sex revealed ten possible or probable males and six possible or probable females.  An age assessment of twenty-eight individuals revealed a majority of adults (n=20; 71.4%) with some older adolescents (n=3; 10.7%), children (n=2; 7.1%), and infants (n=3; 10.7%). Several pathologies are exhibited at high frequencies, including antemortem tooth loss, degenerative joint disease, and Schmorl’s nodes. A handful of seemingly isolated pathological conditions also require further study and research, as well as confirmation of diagnosis. These include a healed depressed fracture of the cranium, a traumatic injury to the medial epicondyle of the humerus, and a congenital growth defect.

A joint team of archaeologists from the University of California, Berkeley and Sonoma State University are examining a collection of artifacts and skeletal material excavated in Bahrain and Eastern Saudi Arabia in the 1940s and curated in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum. This collection has hereto remained un-investigated since the time of Cornwall’s Harvard dissertation. Motivated by modern innovations in the examination of skeletal materials and a greater awareness of broader Near Eastern history, we are considering this collection from a contemporary bioarchaeological perspective as well as in terms of the personal history of Peter B. Cornwall and his team. During this process we have attempted to raise public interest in the project, while remaining sensitive to the issues regarding the depiction and documentation of the remains of past peoples. In making our research methodology more transparent through this digital documentation and presentation, we hope to distribute awareness of the Cornwall collection across a number of online platforms in a non-traditional format. In this paper we critically examine the tensions between access to museum collections and respectful digital remediation of assemblages involving human remains.

We hope to keep this blog updated with our latest finds and news while we investigate the Cornwall collection at the Hearst museum at the University of California, Berkeley.