Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1996 - 133

No, all New World DNA studies focus on the colonization of the Americas. Many investigations deal with
individual sites and the development of cultures in particular regions. Here the questions are about such matters as social status, diet, and gender roles.
Sloan Williams of the University of Illinois-Chicago
is using DNA analysis of human bone in her investigations of social classes at the Chiribaya Alta site in southern coastal Peru, which dates between A.D. 1000 and
1200. Two of .the site's nine cemeteries contain elite
burials marked by large, well-built tombs. Grave goods
are generally more plentiful, and ceramics are more
elaborate and of better quality in these burials than in
the other cemeteries. Exotic items, such as precious
metals and trade goods, including Amazon parrots and
parrot feathers, are also found in them. After studying
Spanish colonial documents describing the Chimú people to the north, Maria Rostworowski of Universidad de
Santiago concluded that north coast societies were
developing a market economy and a class system whose
elite intermarried. Williams hopes to determine whether
or not the people buried in the two elite cemeteries at
Chiribaya Alta were genetically distinct from the rest of
the population. This information will help decide
whether a similar ruling class was also forming in the
Chiribaya culture on the south coast during this earlier
period.
Using a technique that identifies part of the DNA
from the cell's nucleus that differs in males and females,
Anne Stone of Pennsylvania State University can distinguish between remains of males and females. This is
particularly helpful when standard osteological criteria,
such as the shape of the pelvis, do not work because
skeletons are fragmentary or belong to children. Stone
is applying this method in her study of social organization and genetics at the Norris Farms #36 cemetery, an
Oneota site dating to about A.D. 1300 in west-central
Illinois. About one third of all adults in the Norris
Farms population died as the result of violence, reflected in broken bones and marks left by scalping, and
arrow and celt wounds. Usually people were buried in
an extended position, some with grave goods, but those
who died violently were dumped into multiple burials,
generally without grave goods. The people found
together in a given multiple grave usually belong to the
same sex. Their bodies were in the same state of
decomposition when they were interred, suggesting the
burials occurred at the same time, and did not constitute reuse of the same grave for several single burials.
This implies small-scale or ambush warfare in which
single-sex groups such as work parties were attacked
while away from the protection of the village. Only
after the danger had passed were the remains collected
and buried. In addition to the multiple graves containing victims of violence, a few graves contained an adult
and a small child. Stone wants to determine whether
these are relatives buried together. In some cases the

Fingerprinting
the

Dead

By Brenda

Smiley

a modest two-story brick building along Research
Boulevard in the Washington, D.C., suburb of
Rockville, Maryland, forensic specialists engage in
In detective work virtually unthinkable a decade ago.
Here, in a series of laboratories, scientists of the Armed
Forces DNA Identification Laboratory (AFDIL) attempt
to identify human remains based on the DNA of bone
and tissue sent from around the world. Since its founding
five years ago, the lab has established that the remains
from a grave near Yekaterinburg, Russia* are those of
Czar Nicholas II, murdered 78 years ago by a Bolshevik
firing squad; disproved Anna Anderson's claim to be
Anastasia, the czar's "missing" daughter; and identified
the remains of 40 Waco, Texas, Branch Davidians, and
a victim of Washington State's notorious Green River serial killer. It has also helped foreign anthropologists identify victims of mass murders in Bosnia, Chile, Costa
Rica, and Kuwait.
One of the world's top forensic laboratories, AFDIL
has gone far beyond its original mission, the identification
of the remains of Américain service personnel. Since 1991
it has processed more than 300 such cases dating to
World War II and the conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and
the Gulf. It also identified victims of this year's bombing
of an American military compound in Saudi Arabia.
"The goal of this laboratory," says Lieutenant Colonel
Victor Weedn, program manager and lab cofounder, "is
that no more Americans will be buried in an unknown
soldier's tomb."
Since 1976 recovered skeletal remains, mostly from
Southeast Asia, have been sent to the Army's Central
Identification Laboratory in Hawaii (CILHI) for analysis
and possible identification using standard forensic methods: X-ray analysis, dental records, and fingerprints (see
Archaeology,
1996). In 1988 the
January/February
of
Defense
authorized
the
Federal Medical
Department
Examiner's office to determine the identity and cause
and manner of death in cases involving active duty personnel. Weedn, a pathologist who had joined the Medical Examiner's office that year (and who is still a chief
deputy medical examiner for the armed forces), and
deputy program manager James Canik âeveloped the
idea of a DNA laboratory as well as a repository of DNA
specimens from living military personnel to be used to
identify remains in the event of an active-duty death.
Asked frequently to take nonmilitary cases, the lab now
handles one for every ten military cases per month.

Archaeology

Archaeology Magazine - November/December 1996

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