Finding revelation in anthropology: Alexander Winchell, William Robertson Smith and the heretical imperative

Anthropological inquiry has often been considered an agent of intellectual secularization. Not least is this so in the sphere of religion, where anthropological accounts have often been taken to represent the triumph of naturalism. This metanarrative however fails to recognise that naturalistic explanations could sometimes be espoused for religious purposes and in defence of confessional creeds. This essay examines two late nineteenth-century figures – Alexander Winchell in the United States, and William Robertson Smith in Britain – who found in anthropological analysis resources to bolster rather than undermine faith. In both cases these individuals found themselves on the receiving end of ecclesiastical censure and were dismissed from their positions at church-governed institutions. But their motivation was to vindicate divine revelation, in Winchell’s case from the physical anthropology of human origins and in Smith’s from the cultural anthropology of Semitic ritual.

Scurvy in the Great Irish Famine: Evidence of Vitamin C Deficiency From a Mid-19th Century Skeletal Population

Scurvy has increasingly been recognized in archaeological populations since the 1980s but this study represents the first examination of the paleopathological findings of scurvy in a known famine population. The Great Famine (1845–1852) was a watershed in Irish history and resulted in the death of one million people and the mass emigration of just as many. It was initiated by a blight which completely wiped out the potato—virtually the only source of food for the poor of Ireland. This led to mass starvation and a widespread occurrence of infectious and metabolic diseases. A recent discovery of 970 human skeletons from mass burials dating to the height of the famine in Kilkenny City (1847–1851) provided an opportunity to study the skeletal manifestations of scurvy—a disease that became widespread at this time due to the sudden lack of Vitamin C which had previously almost exclusively been provided by the potato. A three-scale diagnostic reliance approach has been employed as a statistical aid for diagnosing the disease in the population. A biocultural approach was adopted to enable the findings to be contextualized and the etiology and impact of the disease explored. The results indicate that scurvy indirectly influenced famine-induced mortality. A sex and stature bias is evident among adults in which males and taller individuals displayed statistically significantly higher levels of scorbutic lesions. The findings have also suggested that new bone formation at the foramen rotundum is a diagnostic criterion for the paleopathological identification of scurvy, particularly among juveniles. Am J Phys Anthropol, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Development of the Contextual Analysis of Human Remains in Ireland

The colonial experience has been a dominant factor in the production of culture in Ireland, including narratives of the past. In the context of nineteenth century British imperialism, physical anthropology and archaeology were just two of a number of scientific discourses recruited to rationalise and justify colonialist policies. Legitimation was in part provided by racialised and sectarian conceptualisations of local populations in both past and present. After the partition of the island in the early twentieth century, racialised notions of the Irish population were embraced by both nationalist movements (green and orange) on the island. Changes came with the impact of processual archaeology and the appearance of bioarchaeology in the early 1980s, the latter directly influenced by the North American tradition. The last two decades have seen considerable achievements in bioarchaeology in Ireland. The profile of the discipline has been raised, and despite the impact of the recent economic downturn, the number of archaeologists gaining the necessary specialist skills has finally reached critical mass. The focus in Irish bioarchaeology is now on synthetic and thematic projects, and a number of initiatives are currently underway which will go some way towards furthering understanding of the past populations of Ireland.