by Lydia Pyne
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I had the opportunity to meet the Sediba fossils in person one summer at the University of the Witwatersrand. From the university’s archives building, I hiked across campus to the Evolutionary Studies Institute located in the Palaeosciences Centre. Dr. Lee Berger cheerfully spent a morning chatting about the Malapa project, the history of paleoanthropology research in the Cradle of Humankind, and the nature of celebrity fossils. The laboratory space itself is arranged to study all sorts of fossils—not just Sediba. Long benches offer space for researchers to examine fossils, both casts and the real ones; screen savers jogged across monitors attached to computers crunching data; students and postdocs chatted about their various research projects. That June morning, the hum of conversation and activity filled the sunny lab room. It was impossible to see the Malapa fossils and not conclude that they were enjoying their well-won status in the paleoanthropological world.
A giant vault for fossils stood at one end of the lab. As Berger deftly entered the combination, he talked about what he saw as the amazing, still unexplored potential for South Africa to contribute to big questions in paleoanthropology. (His insistence on this point was justified. In October 2013, he and a team of researchers began excavating the Rising Star Cave, which produced over 1,200 hominin bone fragments; subsequent excavations in April 2014 yielded 1,724 hominin fragments. The initial publication, in September 2015, described the hominins as a new species, Homo naledi.)15 During my visit to the Witwatersrand lab, Berger pulled out the cases that held the Malapa fossils and set them on one of the laboratory tables. A colleague of his, Dr. Steven Churchill, wandered over to join us. Berger opened the crates and we peered down at the famous Sediba specimens. Big bones, smaller bones, even some miniscule bone fragments. Each fossil was carefully nestled into its own foam insert, and every insert was labeled with the specimen’s catalog number.
A large scanner stood off in the corner, and Berger pointed out how the team had used the machine to scan parts of the roughly excavated fossil matrix from Malapa. Since large chunks of calcite breccia rock, infused with fossils, had been excavated from Malapa, the finer grain extraction of the fossils from the rocks happens at the lab. With the help of the scanner, scientists are able to get an idea about what is inside the breccia chunk before cutting into it, helping to better preserve the fossils.
Berger talked through each of the skeletal elements, highlighting different anatomical features and comparing them to other hominins, with Churchill occasionally interjecting or offering an observation. (Jokingly, Berger asked whether I, as a historian, was able to predict whether fossils could or would become famous.) From his discussion, it was beyond clear that he was completely committed to making the fossils available for study, whether through the originals or through casts. The passion for the new fossils—especially since they represented the discovery of a new species—was palpable. But even more profound was the sense that the project was different because the science going on around them was somehow different. Or at least, the science around the fossils was being done differently.
For a good chunk of its history, paleoanthropology has been a field dominated by precious few fossils and an implied hierarchy of knowledge based on access to those few fossils. Controlling who can look at what fossils and when has been a means of controlling what scientific and social narratives dominate the field. On a very broad scale, knowledge about human evolution is created by studies about the fossils—measurements, comparisons, statistical analyses; ipso facto, whoever controls fossils controls the production of the field’s knowledge. This can mean either gatekeeping (keeping out the cranks) or guarding (preventing dissenting voices). Access cuts both ways.
Berger and his team, tired and even disgusted by the problem of access to fossils, have vowed to not let that happen with the Sediba specimens. “The way Berger and his collaborators are studying the finds and disseminating what they learn represents a real departure from the cloak-and-dagger manner in which paleoanthropological investigations often proceed,” Kate Wong argued. “Berger has assembled a huge team of specialists to work on the remains and has made the project open access, with a policy of granting permission to any paleoanthropologist who asks to see the original fossils. He has also sent out scores of replicas to institutions around the world, and routinely brings casts of the bones—even ones that his team has yet to formally describe—to professional meetings to share with other researchers. This can only improve the quality of the science that comes out of the project and may well inspire other teams to be more forthcoming with their own data.”16
There is palpable excitement over this “change” and what it means for the field. But this eagerness about the Sediba fossils raises the question of what change in a scientific field like paleoanthropology looks like, how to make sense of it, and what kind of results are reasonable to expect from changes to the way scientific knowledge is produced. Because that’s what’s really at stake here with fossils like Sediba—a challenge to the paradigm that knowledge must be produced from the top down, once access to fossils has been granted.
The question of change in science is certainly well explored and well studied in the history and philosophy of science. When looking at change in science on a grand scale, we see that the big idea-based changes happen as part of what historian of science Thomas Kuhn called scientific revolutions and paradigm shifts. Other philosophers and historians of science, particularly in the decades after Kuhn, argue that changes happen additively, slowly and over time—where new ideas and methods propagate almost evolutionarily, where research can be understood as a series of research problems, and where each problem is solved in order of its significance or importance to the field.
Here, in the first part of the twenty-first century, paleoanthropology has all the markers for huge changes within its discipline, and these changes are reflected in how newly discovered hominins are studied. Just as Taung illustrated historical shifts in paleoanthropological theory, fossils recovered from the Malapa site—and the subsequent Rising Star Expedition—can help us to consider new intellectual trends in methodology of the discipline, like publishing the fossils in a way that is accessible to a broader audience or even posting 3-D scans of the fossils themselves, inviting others, including nonexperts, to participate in the science-making process.
The Sediba fossils, in fact, represent a very clear change in how paleoanthropology opts to create knowledge but not necessarily engage with new research questions. They represent change in science thanks to tools for studying fossils, rather than big ideas. Where some, like Kuhn, assumed that new big ideas were the primary drivers of scientific change, others suggest that new tools and new methodologies are more apt drivers for change at the turn of the twenty-first century. This is definitely the kind of scientific change that Sediba represents: namely, paleoknowledge being generated from new methodologies (like new casting technologies or 3-D scanning and printing), and new approaches to fossil access, such as publishing in a timely manner and with easy, open access to fossils. These differences underscore the differences between Sediba and Kadanuumuu.
Excavation projects at Malapa and elsewhere in the Cradle seem to be modeling the process of creating knowledge after other “big sciences.” In other sciences, such as biochemistry and physics, discoveries cannot be undertaken by a single person or research institute, as data sets are too large and experiments too complex. In paleoanthropology, recent changes include: increased access to fossils, accessibility of data, a transparency of methods, technology of casting and 3-D printing and dissemination, timely publications, and a public engagement. These new characteristics would seem to be a broad call for the discipline to reconsider how it “does science.” The Rising Star Expedition, for example, was a direct outgrowth of the paleo fame and fortune imbued by the successes of Malapa and Sediba; we see people looking to create knowledge from a broader cohort of scientists, providing access to fossils, drawing on a variety of expertise, and offering tra
nsparency and accessibility to nonexperts (via blogs and Twitter) in how the processes of science work. The hope is to involve more people in the process of scientific knowledge making and to have that process be more transparent.
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Sediba is a curious celebrity fossil, in part because its story is so recent and is thus still unfolding. If we build the Sediba fossil through comparison and contrast—particularly compared with Kadanuumuu—it’s easy to see the impact that the initial conditions of the fossil’s public and scientific life play a significant role. But one of the most interesting aspects of the fossil—perhaps part of the draw of it—is that almost every element of what makes a fossil famous can be found in Sediba, even with its relatively short postdiscovery life.
In an interesting twist, both lead authors—Yohannes Haile-Selassie and Lee Berger—have leveraged their fossil discoveries published in 2010 into additional discoveries. Haile-Selassie was the lead author on an article that described a completely new australopith species, Australopithecus deyiremeda, in May 2015, while Berger was the lead on the 2013 Rising Star Expedition, which began excavations at another cave not far from Malapa.17 It’s as if 2010 repeated itself in 2015: one discovery was famous—Homo naledi’s press releases and the tour of its fossils have saturated science media—and the other not so much. The contrasts sharpen the question of how much different types of discoveries are made famous by their stories and surrounding contexts. Are Berger and his team simply successfully using social media—live-Tweeting excavations and carefully maintaining comprehensive Wikipedia pages—where other discoveries are not? Or is one more famous through happy accidents of its context?
Within scientific circles, Sediba has been interpreted as a potential ancestor for the Homo genus; the species’ morphology represents some apelike and some humanlike characteristics, which harkens back to many historical phylogenetic debates—Taung, Lucy, even the Old Man of La Chapelle. Sediba is also able to invoke these other narratives and other aspects of celebrity fossils. It’s as if one were to take the best parts of the lives of Taung Child, the Old Man of La Chapelle, Peking Man, and Lucy and distill them into a single set of specimens. (The only famous fossil story that Sediba doesn’t tie into is Piltdown and, it goes without saying, that’s just as well.) With so many types of famous fossil discoveries in paleoanthropology’s history, it becomes very easy to talk about new discovery in terms of how it compares with older ones. “What [Berger] has shown in South Africa is that when you work with the government to open access to things, that has huge benefits for the country,” paleoanthropologist Dr. John Hawks suggests. “The amount of attention South Africa has gotten for Sediba is more than any other country got since Lucy. Such positive attention is hard to come by.”18
A fossil like Sediba has all the “right” elements to continue on its trajectory to paleocelebrity. On one hand, Sediba’s contribution to paleoanthropology is obvious—as a new fossil species in a complex evolutionary time in the hominin family tree, the fossils are well positioned to be studied for decades by countless researchers. On the other hand—on a more subtle level—Sediba is also well positioned to challenge the social worldview, the mechanical “doing” of science that serves as the basis of paleoanthropology as a scientific discipline. Kate Wong notes, “The strategy has paid off. Researchers have flocked to South Africa in droves to check out the remains, Berger’s research team has grown to include more than 80 members, and within just a few years of getting the bones out of the ground the team has already published a raft of high-profile scientific papers, with more in the pipeline.”19
Sediba’s story continues to unfold, much like Flo’s and other very recent discoveries. But Sediba’s story also asks a lot of questions about the process of creating scientific knowledge that other fossils do not. It’s apparent that Sediba has cultural cachet in spades. The next hundred years will determine just what kind of celebrity Sediba has to offer—it’s still To Be Determined—but for the Malapa fossils, their celebrity feels imminent.
AFTERWORD
O FORTUNA!: A BIT OF LUCK, A BIT OF SKILL
In 1929, writer-philosopher Ayn Rand worked as an office grunt for RKO Pictures’ wardrobe department, three years after emigrating from Russia. It would be fourteen years before she published The Fountainhead and twenty-eight years before Atlas Shrugged. In 1929, she was simply an aspiring novelist, writing short stories and clocking in hours at the studio to pay the rent. Although Rand loathed her time with RKO’s wardrobe department, the hype and hyperbole of Hollywood would provide the fodder for her short story “Her Second Career,” about a fictional movie star, Claire Nash.
To the outward observer, Claire Nash has all the trappings of a successful Hollywood movie career: a palace in Beverly Hills, two Rolls-Royces, and the unending admiration of her thousands of fans for her “sweet maidenhood” screen persona. (“For her, five gentlemen had committed suicide—one of them fatally—and she had had a breakfast cereal named in her honor.”)1 Nash was considered the most brilliant actress in Hollywood, a career that was the goal and envy of every aspiring starlet.
Winston Ayers, Ayn Rand’s fictional playwright in the story, argues with Nash over the notion that her success—her celebrity—is somehow earned. “You see [screen actresses] are not one in a thousand, they are just one out of a thousand, chosen by chance. Thousands and thousands of girls struggle for a place in the movies. Some are as beautiful as you are, and some are more beautiful. All can act as you act. Have they a right to fame and stardom? Just as much or just as little as you have.” Ayers then challenges Nash: “You have made your career. I do not ask how you made it. You are famous, great, admired. You are considered one of the world’s geniuses. But you could not make a second career.”2 Ayers goads her to try again—to try to become famous a second time. Nash agrees to try to make another career, to show that what she had achieved she could achieve again, easily, by the force of her genius and personality alone.
But of course, she can’t. Nash finds out the hard way that she cannot start over in Hollywood and make a second career that in any way achieves the levels of fame and fortune she had the first time around.
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The stories of famous fossils rising to celebrity status are a bit like Rand’s character Claire Nash. The stories of these seven fossils speak, in no small way, to the fragility of fame and the contingency of celebrity. Throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, the discovery of fossil hominins has depended on a bit of luck and a bit of skill, especially concerning their cultural provenience. The fossils’ narratives—their paths to celebrity—are one big argument for the power of historical contingency.
Stephen Jay Gould explored the power of contingency in explaining evolution writ large when he proposed rewinding the tape of evolution backward and replaying it. The question—would life evolve in the same way or in some very different manner?—is like asking if replaying the tape of evolution would make every species’ evolutionary history as a “second career.” Gould’s metaphor, replaying a species’ phylogeny, tells us that a species’ evolutionary history is an unrepeatable series of events.
Gould delved further into the concept of contingency in his 1985 book The Flamingo’s Smile. The flamingo, Gould informed readers, is an organism with an odd juxtaposition of beak shape and feeding behavior. Most birds feed by moving the bottom part of their beaks up and down. However, when flamingos dip their heads into water to feed, the relative positions of the beak halves change, meaning that the flamingo can’t feed “normally” because its head is upside down. But flamingo beaks exhibit a particularly curious evolutionary characteristic: the beak as a mobile ball-and-socket joint, which allows the bird to change which part of the beak moves depending on what it is doing. Thus, if the bird is preening, the bottom beak moves because the bird is normal side up—but if the bird is feeding, then the top beak moves because the bird’s head is upside down. According to Gould, the flamingo is a brilliant example of successfu
lly inverting nature to live life upside down. The topsy-turvy, crisscrossing evolutionary history of flamingos means that they show successful beak adaptations, but, as Gould emphasized, the path to the flamingo’s beak would have been completely unrepeatable. “Nature harbors a large suite of oddities so special that we scarce know how to predict,” Gould concludes.3
For these seven fossils, their cultural histories—just like their evolutionary ones—are made up of twists and turns. These celebrities of the fossil record live as props, mascots, symbols, and avatars in stories of paleoanthropology’s science, but they are also objects with their own cultural trajectories that are just as unique and unrepeatable as the evolution of the species they represent. After their discoveries, these fossils go this way and then that way—pushed by one scientist to explain a particular model of evolution and pulled by another to explain something else, held up as an exemplar of good science or derided as what happens when science goes wrong. Most important, though, the fossils are the sum of these stories—their celebrity is an artifact of accidents, happenstances of history, small but purposeful decisions by people that add up to bigger things.
These historical happenstances are set into motion only when the fossils are discovered, putting their discoverers squarely in the limelight. For these seven fossils in particular, their discoverers serve as advocates and interpreters over their professional careers, making them, for better or worse, those with the final say about the fossils. This status—a fossil’s social keeper—offers a certain celebrity all its own, making the discoverers famous in their own right. In The New Celebrity Scientists: Out of the Lab and into the Limelight, sociologist Declan Fahy suggests that celebrity can have a positive power. “Celebrities personify and act as figureheads… . Celebrities with enduring popularity and prominence have a way of portraying the deep questions, tensions, and conflicts of their eras. Celebrities come to personify the culture and society of their particular time and place,” he argues. “They help people make sense of the world.”4