by Richard Edde
***
High atop a glass skyscraper overlooking Lower Manhattan and the East River, Rutherford Eastwood reclined in a tufted leather chair, while leisurely enjoying a ten-dollar cigar. From his towering perch, he had a grand view of the Brooklyn Bridge leading into Brooklyn Heights and the Brooklyn Navy Yard, now used commercially by two hundred businesses. He was finished scanning the stock reports in the Wall Street Journal and the paper lay on his ornate desk amidst numerous photographs of himself and others in various poses. At sixty, his graying hair belied the person in many of the pictures, for now glasses sat upon a ruddy nose. After a few puffs, he absentmindedly flicked a large ash off his Italian silk suit. This was the part of the day he enjoyed the most--watching the sun fade over the river after his secretary and assistant had left. He reached into the lower desk drawer, retrieved his favorite single-malt scotch, and poured himself a drink.
BioGen International was his brainchild, formed out of nothing but an interesting idea. Rutherford put legs on the company through diligent hard work and now reaped the rewards of heading an organization with a worldwide reputation. It was the result of equal parts of Herculean effort and luck.
BioGen had long arms, reaching into each of the world’s seven continents. On its board of directors sat some of the nation’s shakers and movers, men and women who saw the value in Eastwood’s global vision. His mission was to scour the earth searching and uncovering the world’s rare and exotic relics. Primarily interested in human and animal fossils, Eastwood also dabbled in other treasures, including rare art, gems, and documents. He collected things such as Australian banknotes of the King George V period, which were hard to find in good condition and commanded high prices. He once found an exceptional Maya Bowl--an extremely rare, 1,400-year-old vessel that told the story of a young prince and his bloodletting sacrifice--and pottery figurines from around 738 BC found during excavations at the archaeological site of Tel Motza on the western outskirts of Jerusalem. BioGen financed excursions all over the world, in search of these ancient specimens, then charged enormous fees to private collectors and museums. Over the years, this activity had made Eastwood an extremely wealthy man. As CEO of BioGen, he had exclusive use of its Hawker 800 corporate jet that cruised at over five hundred miles an hour and could take him anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice. He owned a home in St. Moritz and another in Tobago. His chauffeur drove him around in a Bentley Mulsanne. Life had been good to Eastwood.
BioGen International had just concluded negotiations with the National Museum of Saudi Arabia for a complete fossilized skeleton of Lycaenops, a mammal-like reptile with a large wolf-like skull and big canine teeth. The creature lived around 250 million years ago in South Africa before becoming extinct. The Saudis were willing to pay sixty-eight million dollars for the skeleton, more than enough to pay the bills and finance BioGen’s next venture. No one outside the company knew how he had managed to obtain the artifact.
Of course, this wealth had not come easily or without human cost. Some of the countries they had scoured had been hostile to Americans. Either the governments were not particularly interested in a group of foreigners removing their national treasures, or his men had been caught in the middle of hostile tribal factions. On more than one occasion his team had had to shoot their way out of trouble, a fact that left a few corpses in their wake. Sometimes, violence was unable to solve logistical problems, and those instances called for lots of accessible cash. The road to success had been difficult, and it necessitated a cadre of security and bodyguards watching over him night and day. Eastwood had made many enemies.
As he gazed out over the East River Eastwood mentally debated his company’s future options. There was the possibility of looking for a Siberian mammoth fossil but there weren’t many clues as to where to search. Possibly hunt for human remains in Indochina. Both ventures sounded somewhat promising, although nothing was a sure bet in the relic business.
He leaned back in his chair and savored the remaining puffs of the cigar.
***
It was late afternoon in the Altai Basin, and dark clouds were pushing their way over the snow-capped peaks, obscuring any view of them. A front from Russian Siberia had moved past the region, leaving in its wake a north wind that blew lightly over the steppe, rippling the grasses like waves on the ocean. Harry and Dixie were in the command tent, waiting for the evening meal. The basin was quiet, the workers having quit for the day. Dixie typed on a laptop while Harry strummed his fingers on the table. The longer he strummed, the more exasperated she became.
Finally, she closed the laptop. “Okay, Harry, what’s eating you?”
“Nothing, really. I was just thinking about the bones we found earlier today. They are just too large to be Australopithecus or even Ardipithecus. Of course, they could belong to a human antecedent hominid.”
Dixie was puzzled. “You mean like the Miocene primates? The apes and gorillas? I know that, during the Miocene Period, these hominoids reached their greatest abundance and diversity. But I thought the crashed plane didn’t interest you at all. Those bones stimulated an interest, did they?”
“Yeah, they have. The Miocene primates lived around twelve to fourteen million years ago. But they aren’t considered human by any stretch of the imagination. They aren’t hominids. That’s why we call them hominoids, like hominids but earlier.”
“I thought most every scientist believes that human origins lie somewhere within this group. Am I right, Harry?”
“Possibly. But it’s a very confusing field now. The genetic difference between modern humans and chimpanzees is only a little greater than one percent, the difference with gorillas is more than that. No matter how the calculation is done, the big point still holds--humans and chimpanzees are more closely related to one another than either one is to gorillas or any other primate. From the perspective of this powerful test of biological kinship, humans are not only related to the great apes--we are one. The DNA evidence leaves us with one of the greatest surprises in biology--the wall between human, on the one hand, and ape or animal, on the other, has been breached. The human evolutionary tree is embedded within the great apes.
“Some of the tools found around the Caspian Sea have been associated with Neanderthal fossils, the Mousterian tools. As you know, they are tools with long tapered points. The Caspian Sea fossils could represent a stop of the hominid’s journey on their way to Mongolia and the land bridge. That would be relatively recent, around three hundred thousand years ago.”
Dixie frowned. “Our initial assessment is the bones in the plane don’t match any previously identified hominid, do they?”
She opened her laptop and recalled the file with photographs of the bones and teeth. Together, they reviewed the pictures in silence before Harry continued.
“No. See? The teeth are too large and too thickly enameled. The bones are obviously from a lower limb but the articular surfaces are too extensive to be hominid. Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like them before.”
They continued to look through the pictures Dixie had taken of the bones and teeth. The computer screen blinked as she scrolled through them.
“How old do you think they are?” she asked.
“I dunno, but my feeling is that they are pretty old. However, maybe more recent than the early hominid we know, possibly the age of the Neanderthals, but that would be just a wild guess. I think later this evening we need to shoot the pictures to Professor Kesler. Can you connect the satellite antenna to the laptop? We haven’t tried a satellite transmission yet and now is as good a time as any.”
“Okay, Harry. Can do after dinner.”
“Did you manage to get pictures of the crash site, earlier?”
“Did that as well. But I don’t understand the photogrammetry process yet,” Dixie said, frowning.
“Not all that complicated,” Harry said. “Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs. The output of photogrammetry is typically a map, drawi
ng, measurement, or a 3D model of some real-world object. With these georectified images, we can produce photographic plans of sites and their stratigraphy, take accurate measurements directly from the photo, and import photographic data into other computerized technologies for mapping and visualizing archaeological features. We can rotate the image, zoom into a specific location, and measure distances between objects. We take the pictures, the computer software does all the heavy lifting.”
Dixie smiled. “It’s all over my head. Maybe one day I’ll understand how it works. The computerized models are sure neat to play with. It will be interesting to see a 3D model of the crash site.”
Harry rose, and his assistant followed suit.
“I think dinner’s about ready,” he said.
Chapter 5
Dixie pointed the satellite dish into the southwestern sky, locked onto the Russian Express AM1X satellite, and punched up the VSAT Private Network. When the site appeared on the screen, she typed in Professor Kesler’s university number, followed by her PIN number, and waited with Harry for the connection to link up. She adjusted the camera atop the laptop and primped her hair. The screen blinked and the professor’s bearded face appeared on the screen.
“Good evening, Professor,” Harry said. “I guess it’s morning there. Good morning.”
“Good morning, Harry and Dixie.” The professor’s voice boomed over the computer’s small speakers. “My, you look wonderful, Dixie, I must say, for someone digging around on the edge of the earth.”
“How nice, Professor,” Dixie replied and moved her face in front of the laptop. She waved. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel special. Too bad you can’t teach Harry some of those manners.”
“I’m sorry, Dixie. Should I replace him with someone more suitable?” The professor’s face lit up with a broad smile and he laughed heartily.
“If so, I’ll let you know.”
“Enough of this idle chatter,” Harry interjected as he pushed Dixie away from the computer’s camera. “I called for a very important reason. We have found something interesting. At least interesting enough to discuss it with it you, Professor.”
“Yes, yes.” Kesler’s voice was at a higher pitch, betraying his sudden interest.
“Tell him, Harry. Don’t keep him waiting,” Dixie said.
“Professor,” Harry began, his voice modulating at an even tone, “we uncovered some teeth and a few bones in Section H9. However, they weren’t in the ground like you might think. These artifacts were found in the wreckage of a crashed Soviet plane. We found a pilot’s cap and confirmed it’s from before the Soviet breakup, but the exact date is unknown. It’s hard to say what these bones and teeth are right now. They could be from a hominid precursor, like Proconsul, but again, I can’t be sure. They might belong to some hominid that we have never seen before, something unknown to date. We’ve gotten a few pictures of the items and Dixie can call them up. Right, Dixie?”
Harry waited while Dixie recalled the file with the photographs of the items in question and the images appeared on the screen. The group continued to talk while examining the photos.
“You can see, Professor, the teeth are quite strange for a hominid but even stranger for anything earlier. Too much enamel for a hominid and not sharp enough for any earlier primates. The bones are seemingly an upper thigh and lower leg bone, a femur and tibia. However, the distribution of the desiccated cartilage on the femoral head shows this species had a preponderance of joint surface on the anterior surface of the femoral head. When we placed these two bones together they resulted in a carrying angle greater than that found in apes and other hominoid primates.”
“Yes, the angle created by the femur and tibia. In other words, the weight-bearing axis.” Kesler seemed to be thinking out loud. “In hominids and humans, walking generates a torque that pulls the trunk toward the body’s center so, as a counter, the buttock muscles contract, pulling the pelvis in the opposite direction. It results in a carrying angle, or the angle the femur makes with the tibia--we call it the valgus angle--greater in humans, placing the legs directly under the body. The chimpanzee, for example, which is a quadruped, has a femur that comes straight out of the hip socket. Hence, the cartilage differences between the species.”
“Hominid bipedalism?” Dixie asked.
“Yes,” Kesler confirmed. “Anatomical evidence for bipedalism includes modifications of the hip joint and limb muscles that balance the thigh in an upright stance and keep the trunk erect. For example, the ilium supports enlarged gluteal muscles that are important for standing and running. Specialized knee and ankle joints place the foot underneath the hip joint. These features provide the ability to balance the body on one foot during upright standing and locomotion. The relatively straight leg minimizes the amount of active muscle needed to balance the body, acting much like a stiff column. The forelimb of bipeds also lost some specializations for climbing, but gained manipulatory capabilities--”
Dixie interrupted. “Yes, I know, Professor, I learned that last year in my advanced paleontology course. Harry is saying that the leg bones seem to be from some sort of hominid and not lower primates. And the teeth, well, we don’t know.”
“I must admit, after studying these photographs, I’m unable to shed any light on your confusion,” Kesler told them. “I don’t remember ever seeing teeth such as these. Hominid dentition is a confusing area of study at present. There are two basic directions in the evolution of hominid teeth and jaw anatomy. The first is for larger back teeth and is associated with Australopithecus who specialized their diet toward vegetation. Coupled with the large molars, massive muscular structures to aid chewing developed in these early hominids. These hominids shared the ability for bipedal walking. The reasons for the development of bipedalism in these early hominids would have been the same as for later hominids. They shared the freedom of the hands from locomotion, as well as the ability of the trunk to be controlled on the hind limbs during bipedal postures. Therefore, their hands could be used in many other activities besides walking.
“The other direction in the evolution of the dentition of hominids was for smaller teeth and a parabolic shape to the palate. The trend for smaller teeth was one that began with early Homo and continued through to modern Homo sapiens. The decrease in the size of the teeth is thought to be related to a diet that included a wide variety of foods where there was less emphasis on plant foods that required heavy chewing.”
“Right,” Harry said. “But that still doesn’t give me any answers.”
“Have you dated them yet?” Kesler asked. “Did the mass spec make it there in one piece?”
“It did.” Dixie smiled as Kesler’s face reappeared on the computer screen. “We haven’t unpacked it yet or checked it out but it seems to have survived unscathed.”
Harry was getting impatient, he was ready for bed and wasn’t used to late night scientific discussions. “We’ll get the beast calibrated tomorrow and do the analysis. One of the bones and two of the teeth have a shell of rock around them so we will shoot you the potassium-argon data and you can do the math to determine the age of these specimens.”
“If I had the actual specimens, we could perform AAR on the bones themselves and compare the dates from both methods,” Kesler said.
“Amino acid racemization?” Dixie asked, wanting to be sure she understood.
“Yes. If we can extract the amino acids found in the organic bone, we can calculate and compare the racemization rate for aspartic acid and isoleucine and get a date with which to compare the date we get with the argon method on rock.”
Dixie frowned. “But that destroys part of the specimen, doesn’t it?”
“Only a small amount,” Harry said. “We’re lucky to have a layer of rock around part of a bone and a few teeth. That fact makes the dating of a specimen much easier. Radiometric methods are more accurate.”
“The circumstances surrounding the find are certainly intriguing, if not downright puzzling. It
seems to be a mystery, for sure. If you just had a skull it would answer a lot of questions.” Kesler didn’t seem to want the conversation to end.
Harry sighed. “Yeah, but we don’t. And you are right--the fact that these specimens were found on an airplane insures that there is no telling where they came from. May not even be in Mongolia.”
***
The sun was just casting its first golden rays down the Altai Basin when Dixie entered the small tent dedicated to laboratory procedures and analysis. The kitchen crew was already up and had the coffee ready when she’d strolled through the mess tent, so she brought a cup with her. She took a sip of the hot liquid and opened the crate that housed the Duke 860, the miniaturized mass spectrometer they would use for dating the specimens. The whole instrument was the size of a small suitcase.
Like most mass spectrometers, the Duke worked in combination with a gas chromatograph where, after preparation, samples were placed in a combustion tube and heated to 800 degrees Celsius. The resultant vapor then passed through the gas chromatograph and subsequently analyzed by isotope ratio mass spectrometry. The resultant data was displayed on their computer screens using GRAMS/IT software. The mass spec data would then be beamed to Kesler who would calculate the dates of the specimens. Dixie never was able to understand the science behind the machine, she just knew that it worked.
Preparation of the specimens was the most complex and labor intensive of the procedures and required the utmost precision. Dixie took one of the teeth and dropped it into a beaker of mild acid to clean it of grime and organic matter. When it was clean and dry, she placed it into a ceramic mortar, chipped off a fleck of rock, and ground it to a fine powder with a pestle. Then the powder was passed through a Pyrex filter, using mild hydrochloric acid as the carrier. The residue was then freeze dried in a Guidon FP-5 freeze drier. After thirty minutes of preparation, the small residual sample was then ready for the mass spectrometer. Dixie placed the sample in a Vycor glass mass spec tube and laid it aside as Harry sauntered into the lab tent.