Over the last week I have had the chance to attend three very interesting and diverse lectures. Last Thursday I attended a lecture entitled, “Archaeologists as Spies,” yesterday I attended a lecture called, “Cave Bears and Neanderthals,” and today I heard the chief editor of Nature reveal why he rejects or accepts manuscripts in a lecture called, “What I think about, when I think about manuscripts.” This post will give a summary of those lectures.
The lecture entitled, “Archaeologists as Spies,” looked specifically at British archaeologists before, during, and after World War I. The lecture focused on various individuals including the famous T.E. Lawrence (“of Arabia”) but mostly on people I had not heard of. The British School at Athens had as much as 15% of their postgraduate British students asked at one time or other to spy for the British Royal Navy. Most of those students came from Oxford and Cambridge. They were asked to supply basic information that archaeologists could readily get such as: revealing possible landing zones in Anatolia, locations of military bases, and water supplies. One of the most active was a certain David Horgarth. It was also revealed that Woolley and other archaeologists had their survey equipment (which happened to be the best, top-of-the-line, in the world) supplied by the British Royal Navy for their work at Carchemish because with it they could “keep an eye on” the construction of a nearby railway. Harry Pirie-Gordon (who supplied all of the maps for T.E. Lawrence of crusader castles) was commissioned to blow up a Turkish train and at one point set up a military blockade at the Long Island of Smyrna. In the process, a Navy ship was sunk and he would have been court-marshaled except that he had taken some Turkish stamps and converted them into “British” stamps by typing GRI on them in honor of King George. He had sent some to the King just in case something went wrong with the mission. Sure enough, when he was arrested for “overstepping his bounds” the King stepped in and he was set free without charge. (He later made more stamps from the HMS Exmouth for Mt Athos – and one must wonder what they were meant to bail him out of – these were never used, as far as can be told.)
There were many more stories in that lecture and had time permitted we would have been treated to some during World War II. It does make you wonder what was going on among archaeologists from other nations during the same time.
Mary Stiner gave her second lecture of the fall yesterday. This time she was looking at the concept that Neanderthals had direct physical contact with Cave Bears. It appeared that by the end of the lecture she was proposing that this contact was actually limited. I didn’t agree with her based on her own presentation.
Cave Bears and Neanderthals both inhabited the same region and appeared to be migrating from Northern Syria/Eastern Turkey region into Europe and north Asia during the same time period. She called Neanderthals “bear-like” because when one compares Neanderthals to modern man the Neanderthals are considerably stronger in a similar way that the Cave Bears were considerably stronger than the modern bears. Since both used caves for shelter, she felt that they were “bear-like”. (One has to wonder why the bears couldn’t be “Neanderthal-like” but that is another blog.) Cave Bears were very large; growing to over 10 feet in height and were much more robust than the Kodiak Brown bears of Alaska. They were very intelligent, resourceful, good parents, had heavy heads and strong shoulders, hibernated, were able to recycle their own urea during hibernation and use it as protein, didn’t lose bone density during hibernation, had short strong claws (suitable when young to climbing trees), and ate plant food with very strong jaws (yes, they were vegetarian, but later learned to eat meat when necessary).
It is clear that there was some contact between Neanderthals and Cave Bears from cave art, the remains of Cave Bear bones that show that Neanderthals ate them, and the unique flute made out of a bear bone (although she claims that it probably wasn’t a flute but just the marks of a bear bite – even though later in her presentation she showed what bones look like when bear teeth penetrate and the marks are considerably different – she doesn’t like that Neanderthals were cleaver enough to make a flute out of a bear bone).
The rest of the lecture was a case study on Yarimburgaz cave in which there is evidence of both Neanderthal and Cave Bear presence. Skipping the details (which were very interesting) she concluded that since there is little sedimentation in a cave over long periods and since modern bears are known to radically rearrange their nest prior to hibernation each year, and since there is no evidence of fire in the cave that most probably the Cave Bears and Neanderthals didn’t have contact with each other here even though stone tools from the Neanderthals were found mixed with Cave Bear bones (as well as herbivore bones and other carnivore bones) on the same stratigraphic level.
I disagree with her conclusion. The parts of the herbivores that were found in the cave (antlers, head, and legs) are precisely the parts that humanoids brought back to other caves (as in her previous lecture about the Lower Paleolithic period in Israel). She said that in this case she felt that they were brought here by wolves. (The cut marks on the bones that are made from human knives when cutting the meat away must have happened at a different site and the wolves just scavenged them – was basically the theory. And naturally she didn’t connect the activity of “humanoids” in the Paleolithic with these Neanderthals as the two groups are supposed to be separated by many thousands of years – just another example of the concept of “evolutionary time” getting in the way of the obvious.)
Then tonight I attended a lecture by Dr. Henry Gee, the chief editor of Nature. He was a funny fellow but his talk was very revealing in regards to getting a manuscript published. He said that he receives over 200 manuscripts each week of which about 10 are kept for publication. That is only 5%. Obviously he has to make quick decisions (which, he admits, are not always right in hindsight). 80% of all manuscripts are rejected immediately. He (and other editors) read the cover letter (which he said was like a handshake), the first paragraph, the bibliography, and examine the figures. By that he knows if he wants to pursue it. The remaining 20% are sent to “referees” (scientists who can evaluate various aspects of the scientific study to determine if it is viable and responsibly conducted). Sometimes manuscripts are returned for reworking but often they are just rejected.
So what catches the eye of the editor? He said that he wants to read something that catches his attention; something that is exciting and makes you want to read more; something that will “change the way I look at the world,” he said. (And this all in the first paragraph!) As for the cover letter – he said to “relax”. “Remember,” he said, “you have been researching for 2-3 years and are very familiar with your study, but this is the first I have ever heard of it or you.” He told us that the cover letter should introduce you and your research in a “short and sweet” way. You should suggest referees and also those who you don’t want to referee (if you have anyone in mind that you know is antagonistic about your study).
These were all informative lectures by very knowledgeable, responsible professionals. I enjoyed each for its own reason and I look forward to more in the next few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment