Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls
This piece reflects on the importance of and focus on heads – especially the collecting of skulls and its impacts – in alpha taxonomy, biological anthropology, and Western science more broadly. We consider how the announcement and overall discovery story of the Taung Child revolutionised our unders...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Academy of Science of South Africa
2025-02-01
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| Series: | South African Journal of Science |
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| Online Access: | https://sajs.co.za/article/view/18481 |
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| author | Lauren Schroeder Paige Madison Rebecca R. Ackermann |
| author_facet | Lauren Schroeder Paige Madison Rebecca R. Ackermann |
| author_sort | Lauren Schroeder |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This piece reflects on the importance of and focus on heads – especially the collecting of skulls and its impacts – in alpha taxonomy, biological anthropology, and Western science more broadly. We consider how the announcement and overall discovery story of the Taung Child revolutionised our understanding of hominin cranial evolution, but also fit within these skull-collecting objectives and contributed to the palaeoanthropological fixation on the skull. We contextualise this within the history of ‘physical’ anthropology in light of its initial goals in scientific racism, and consider how this process of skull collecting has become normalised in the discipline as a result of this history. As evidence for this, we quantify the possible effects of skull-collecting by collating available data on the number of skulls versus post-crania curated in a representative South African collection and compare the number of skulls versus post-cranial hominin fossils that form part of species hypodigms. We also explore how the ownership of skulls and ownership of narrative in the discipline have been intertwined throughout its history. Finally, we focus on how this early overemphasis on skulls, and especially brain size/intelligence, may have skewed our understanding of human evolution and contributed to ideas of human exceptionalism.
Significance:
• The discipline of palaeoanthropology has a history of skull-focused research rooted in skull collecting and racist research.
• Historial skeletal collections and holotypes of fossil hominins are skull-biased.
• The Taung Child fossil postcranial remains were not included in the original study, which reflects this skull-centrism.
• Palaeoanthropologists need to recognise biases in research choices and the context from which our field developed.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-147c7da8e24e467389221511be639ac7 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1996-7489 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Academy of Science of South Africa |
| record_format | Article |
| series | South African Journal of Science |
| spelling | doaj-art-147c7da8e24e467389221511be639ac72025-02-07T08:28:55ZengAcademy of Science of South AfricaSouth African Journal of Science1996-74892025-02-011211/210.17159/sajs.2025/18481Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skullsLauren Schroeder0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6406-8096Paige Madison1https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2361-2961Rebecca R. Ackermann2https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8757-68781.Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada; 2.Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South AfricaDepartment of Applied Ecology, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA1.Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa; 2.Department of Archaeology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa This piece reflects on the importance of and focus on heads – especially the collecting of skulls and its impacts – in alpha taxonomy, biological anthropology, and Western science more broadly. We consider how the announcement and overall discovery story of the Taung Child revolutionised our understanding of hominin cranial evolution, but also fit within these skull-collecting objectives and contributed to the palaeoanthropological fixation on the skull. We contextualise this within the history of ‘physical’ anthropology in light of its initial goals in scientific racism, and consider how this process of skull collecting has become normalised in the discipline as a result of this history. As evidence for this, we quantify the possible effects of skull-collecting by collating available data on the number of skulls versus post-crania curated in a representative South African collection and compare the number of skulls versus post-cranial hominin fossils that form part of species hypodigms. We also explore how the ownership of skulls and ownership of narrative in the discipline have been intertwined throughout its history. Finally, we focus on how this early overemphasis on skulls, and especially brain size/intelligence, may have skewed our understanding of human evolution and contributed to ideas of human exceptionalism. Significance: • The discipline of palaeoanthropology has a history of skull-focused research rooted in skull collecting and racist research. • Historial skeletal collections and holotypes of fossil hominins are skull-biased. • The Taung Child fossil postcranial remains were not included in the original study, which reflects this skull-centrism. • Palaeoanthropologists need to recognise biases in research choices and the context from which our field developed. https://sajs.co.za/article/view/18481Taung Childcraniaphysical anthropologypostcraniascientific racism |
| spellingShingle | Lauren Schroeder Paige Madison Rebecca R. Ackermann Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls South African Journal of Science Taung Child crania physical anthropology postcrania scientific racism |
| title | Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| title_full | Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| title_fullStr | Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| title_full_unstemmed | Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| title_short | Why heads matter in palaeoanthropology: The impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| title_sort | why heads matter in palaeoanthropology the impacts and consequences of collecting skulls |
| topic | Taung Child crania physical anthropology postcrania scientific racism |
| url | https://sajs.co.za/article/view/18481 |
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