Goodbye Swaziland!

How can it be that our six week project is over with already? Yesterday was HOT, so Twana, Kusa and I jumped into the pool at the Ezulwini Sun. The four of us have had a good time together, singing Bee Gees tunes at the top of our lungs, eating Chinese, walking in Mantegna looking for monkeys...James even cooked us Old El Paso Mexican during his last night here. Tonight is my last night here. Goodbye, crazy, sweet Swaziland!

Visit to Chimp Eden

Last Saturday, we had the opportunity to travel to South Arica to visit a chimpanzee sanctuary called Chimp Eden.

This facility has three enclosures in which several different chimpanzee social groups live. Visitors are able to view chimpanzees up close and personal. Of course the chimpanzees are behind a fence as they can be quite dangerous. Although chimpanzees are not naturally vicious animals, males will aggressive defend their territory, even against humans. Therefore, Chimp Eden is a “hands-off” facility, in which there is minimal interaction between the chimps and humans. The chimpanzees do respond to their names and come to the fence several times a day to be given fruit, but even staff members do not generally enter the enclosures. This type of system allows the chimpanzees to live in a setting which mimics as closely as possible their natural environment. It is also less stressful for the animals, as chimpanzees are quite smart (as intelligent as a six year old human child) and thus recognize they are being watched.

This facility was started because many chimpanzees need to be rescued and rehabilitated. Chimpanzees, which only live in the forests of equatorial Africa, are being displaced because much of their natural habitat is being destroyed at an alarming rate. Their forests are being cut down for several reasons, including the need for more farm land for the ever increasing human population, as well as logging for the production of firewood and wood products. In addition, many chimpanzees are captured and sold in the exotic pet trade, or to entertainment companies to perform in circuses and for television.

Chimpanzees and bonobos (also sometimes called pygmy chimps) are the closest living relatives of humans. Our two evolutionary lineages split from a common ancestor as recently as six million years ago. We are so close in fact, that chimpanzees and humans share over 96% of our DNA. Because of this close evolutionary relationship we, as humans, can learn much about ourselves from studying the biology and behavior of our animal “cousins”.

Putting the Pieces Together

I have spent the last several weeks cleaning the bones and reassembling the numerous fragments. In total there were four boxes of unidentified bones. As mentioned, these boxes contained many human and animal bones, as well as some cultural material, such as pottery fragments, a couple of beads (one made from glass and one from ostrich egg shell), and a piece of metal.

Over the last few days I have been putting together a couple of human skulls from the last box of bones. This can be a painstaking process which can require a good deal of patience (which my mother would say I have little of). The first photo accompanying this blog posting shows the more fragmented of the two skulls after I had assembled the pieces. There are more than 45 individual bone fragments (some of them numbered) included in the reconstruction, some quite large but others rather small.

It is also of interest to note how many individuals are represented by the human remains. This can be accomplished by counted the number of similar bones, for example the number of mandibles (or lower jaw bones). As can be seen in the second photo, there are mandibles (or partial mandibles) from 4 different individuals, just from the last box. The photo also illustrates several interesting features of two of the mandibles. For the partial mandible in the upper right of the photo, the black arrow points to the rounded bone in front of the single tooth. The bone is rounded, and does not have small holes for tooth roots, because this individual lost several teeth during his/her lifetime. In addition, the red arrow points to the black hole in the side of the tooth, which represents tooth decay (or a cavity). Therefore, this individual most likely was older and/or had poor dental heath. The partial mandible in the lower right of the photo is from a subadult, most likely younger than three years of age. The black arrow points to the permanent incisor which is still developing in the jaw and had not emerged into the mouth, which happens later during childhood.

Animals & Insects & a charging elephant

Some more Swazi dancing for CSM

Documenting Human Remains

Before any anthropological study of the human remains can be undertaken, the bones need to be properly cleaned, identified, and catalogued. The cleaning process is fairly straightforward: the bones are washed with water and a soft brush is used to remove any dirt and small roots still adhering to them. The bones are then laid out on newspaper for a couple of days to air dry (not a problem here in Swaziland with the intense heat).

Once the remains are completely dry, the human bones are separated from the non-human (or animal) bones. In many cases this is a relatively easy task because many parts of the human skeleton are very distinctive. However, when the bones are fragmentary (or broken into a number of smaller pieces) it may be quite difficult to determine if the remains are those of a human or another animal. This is due to in part to the fact that humans share the same types of bones (such as arm and leg bones, ribs, and vertebrae) with many animals, particularly other mammals.

The next step in the documentation process is to refit bone fragments together. Again, this can be relatively easy to accomplish when bones have only been broken into two or three large pieces. However, when bones are highly fragmentary and consist of numerous pieces, sometimes smaller than a dime, this can be quite challenging. It is often like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle, but with some of the pieces missing. Once the bones are reassembled, each human bone or bone fragment is identified, if possible, as to the type of bone (femur, humerus, mandible) and to which side of the body (left or right).

"House on Fire" and Maladela's are a complex of adobe buildings, handshaped according to the artistic whims of the owners. An English pub (complete with red faced, loud Euro-Africans), an Internet cafe, a gallery and an outdoor ampitheater are some of the sites here, as well as Gone Rural (the shop where a highly successful women's weaving business is located) and an indoor stage. One-of-a-kind place that attracts residents and visitors.