...
Post A Reply
my profile
|
directory
login
|
register
|
search
|
faq
|
forum home
»
EgyptSearch Forums
»
Egyptology
»
My email to Dr. Sustan Anton on Tut-ankh-amun
» Post A Reply
Post A Reply
Login Name:
Password:
Message Icon:
Message:
HTML is not enabled.
UBB Code™ is enabled.
[QUOTE]Originally posted by ausar: [QB] From: "Susan C Anton" <susan.anton@nyu.edu> [Add to Address Book] Add to Address Book To: email withheld Date: Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:26:22 -0400 Subject: Re: North African ''caucasoid'' and European nose opening Tut-ankh-amu Dear name withheld,, Thanks for your email. I actually didn't choose the term "North African Caucasoid" that is the term used by another team (there were three that worked on separate reconstructions). The French team was responsible for the reconstruction that was on the cover of National Geographic Magazine and they also used that term. Our team, myself and Michael Anderson of Yale, were the ones that did the plaster reconstruction without knowledge of whose skull we were working on. I did the biological profile (assessment of age at death, sex and ancestry), Michael made the actual reconstruction. Based on the physical characters of the skull, I concluded that this was the skull of a male older than 15 but less than 21, and likely in the 18-20 year range and of African ancestry, possibly north african. The possibly north african came mostly from the shape of the face including the narrow nose opening, that is not entirely consistent with an 'African' designation. A narrow nose is more typical of more northerly located populations because nose breadth is thought to be at least in part related to the climate in which ancestral populations lived. A narrow and tall nose is seen most frequently in Europeans. Tut's head was a bit of a conundrum, but, as you note, there is a huge range of variation in modern humans from any area, so for me the skull overall, including aspects of the face, spoke fairly strongly of his African origins - the nose was a bit unusual. Because their is latitudinal variation in several aspects of the skull (including nose size/shape), the narrowness of the nose suggested that he might be from a northerly group. This is also, I presume, what the French focussed on. I have not been in direct contact with the French group, but my understanding is that by their definition of 'caucasoid' they include Peoples from North Africa, Peoples from Western Asia (and the Caucasus, from where the term derives), and Eureopean peoples. So I don't think that they were referring to a specific set of those peoples. I personally don't find that term all that useful and so I don't use it. That it was attributed to me by the media is an incorrect attribution on their part. I also never said he had a European nose, although I am sure I did say that the narrow nose was what led me to suggest North Africa as a possibility and that a narrow nose is more typically seen in Europe. Not a great sound-bit that, so I guess it gets shortened to European nose. As you also note, skin color today in North Africa can range from much lighter than what they chose to much darker. And we don't know how well today's range matches that of the past, although I suspect there was also a range of variation in the past, as is normal for any biological population. Michael's reconstruction did not include an inference of skin color (or eye color), the French team's did and their inference was, I understand, based on a 'average' skin tone for Egypt today. I don't know the specifics of how they did that. I think, however, it would have been as accurate to have had the same facial reconstruction with either a lighter tone or a darker tone to the skin. That said, skin and eye color will always be an inference. I hope that helps explain. Susan Susan C. Antón Joint Editor, Journal of Human Evolution Director, MA Program in Human Skeletal Biology Associate Professor, Center for the Study of Human Origins Department of Anthropology NYU 25 Waverly Place, New York, NY 10003 (212)992-9786 MA program website [URL=http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/anthro/programs/biology/index.html]http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/anthro/programs/biology/index.html[/URL] [/QB][/QUOTE]
Instant Graemlins
Instant UBB Code™
What is UBB Code™?
Options
Disable Graemlins in this post.
*** Click here to review this topic. ***
Contact Us
|
EgyptSearch!
(c) 2015 EgyptSearch.com
Powered by UBB.classic™ 6.7.3