444 AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST • VOL. 101, No. 2 • JUNE 1999

Physical Anthropology

Mummies, Disease and Ancient Cultures. Aidan Cockburn,Eve Cockburn, and Theodore A. Reyman, eds. 2nd edition.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. 402 pp.

SAM D. STOUT

University of Missouri-Columbia

This is the second edition of a book, first published in 1980,that evolved from a series of autopsies of Egyptian mummiesand expanded to include discoveries of mummies throughoutthe world, including a review of techniques and methods used tostudy mummified human remains. Similar to the first edition,the second edition is organized into four parts: Mummies ofEgypt, Mummies of the Americas, Mummies of the World, andMummies and Technology.

Part 1, "Mummies of Egypt," includes 6 chapters that focuson the evidence for mummified human remains from that geo-graphical region. Chapter 1 provides a historical perspective ofdie art of mummification in ancient Egypt and includes a de-scription of the basic techniques of mummification practiced inancient Egypt. It is essentially unchanged from the first edition.

Chapter 2, "Disease in Ancient Egypt," presents the paleo-pathology of ancient Egyptian mummies. The discussion in-cludes infectious diseases, bone disorders, vascular diseases, tu-mors, kidney disease, disease of the alimentary tract, respiratorydisorders, endocrine conditions, and gynecological conditions,noting that there must have been "a remarkable resistance to in-fection" (p. 46) in ancient Egyptians. The work of George Ar-melagos and colleagues that suggests that these populationsmay have been ingesting a natural tetracycline-like antibiotic,which is not cited, is interesting in this regard. Although a newcoauthor is added, it remains essentially unchanged from thefirst edition.

In chapter 3, "Dental Health in Ancient Egypt," dental healthand the practice of dentistry in ancient Egypt are discussed. Thischapter, although covering the same material as in the first edi-tion, has undergone more rewriting and updating than the pre-ceding two chapters.

The next three chapters discuss the results of autopsies ofEgyptian mummies. The autopsy findings for PUMII, a "classicmummy," are described in chapter 4. In contrast, chapters 5 and6 contain descriptions of the autopsies of the mummies believedto be representative of the common people: Nakht (ROM I),who is thought to have been a more lower-class individual; andtwo examples (PUM III and IV) of a common alternativemethod of mummification practiced on poorer individuals, viv-idly referred to as "mummification with evisceration per ano."Millet et al. (ch. 5, p. 104) provide an interesting explanation forthe pork taboo as a religious practice. These three chapters aresomewhat condensed versions of their counterparts in the firstedition.

Part 2 includes four chapters dealing with the subject of mum-mies in the Americas. The burial practices and the locations ofmummies in the Southwest and southern United States are dis-cussed in chapter 7. It is pointed out that, although mummifica-tion was not intentional for most North American prehistoriccultures, mummified human remains have been recovered for

many years from these regions. Paleopathological research hasbeen limited, however, a situation that has been exaggerated bythe repatriation efforts under NAGPRA.

Chaptef 8 concerns mummified remains from Alaska and theAleutian Islands, where cold temperatures and cultural practiceshave resulted in artificial mummies. The few studies of these re-mains have enabled researchers to determine cause of death(e.g., trauma, disease), document the biological impact of lifeinthese extreme environments (e.g., starvation and chronic ill-ness), and expand our understanding of several disease proc-esses (e.g., coronary atherosclerosis, alpha-I antitrypsin defi-ciency).

Current thinking is that mummification in Peru representingartificial enhancement of natural soft tissue preservation oc-curred in response to "religious, cult, and magical motives,some clearly derived from political and economic contexts" (p.177). The origins and practices of mummification in Peru arediscussed in chapter 9.

Chapter 10, "South American Mummies: Culture and Dis-ease," is new to the second edition. Each of the coauthors pre-sents adifferent aspect of the topic. Bernardo T. Arriaza summa-rizes the findings for the Chinchorro mummies of Peru andChile. The mummies from Colombia and other South Americanareas are discussed by Felipe Cardenas-Arroyo. EkkehardKleiss discusses the origins and practice of head hunting. A con-cluding section by John W. Verano summarizes evidence fordisease in South American mummies, including ancient surgery(trephination), and includes a brief discussion of the broaderpopulation approach to disease in paleopathology.

Part 3 concerns evidence for mummified human remainsfrom other areas of the world. The bog bodies of Denmark andnorthwestern Europe are discussed in chapter 11. It is updatedfrom the first edition to include the Netherlands, Great Britain,Ireland, and Germany. An earlier figure of 1,400 for the numberof bodies that have been discovered is now revised to 122.

Chapter 12 contains a discussion of artificial and naturalmummies from Italy, North Africa, and the Canary Islands. ForItaly, the mummified remains of members of the Italian aristoc-racy (religious figures, rather) are emphasized. This chapter alsoincludes information on mummies discovered in North Africaand the Canary Islands that was presented in a chapter on miscel-laneous mummies in the first edition.

Chapter 13, dealing with mummification in Australia andMelanesia, remains essentially unchanged from the first edition.The legal andethical pressures supporting repatriation of humanremains have also had their impact in this region. This is illus-trated by the fact that permission to reproduce the figures of abo-riginal bodies in this edition of the book was refused.

Chapter 14, which previously covered only Japan, has beenexpanded to include mummies from China and has been up-dated with recent developments in Japan.

Chapter 15, "Bodies from Cold Regions," expands upon ma-terial previously embedded in the chapter on miscellaneousmummies. It includes descriptions of relatively rare findings ofmummified remains from the Arctic and high altitude moun-tainous regions, e.g., Greenland, Siberia, Canada, and the Alps

BOOK REVIEWS / Physical Anthropology 445

and Andes. A discussion of the "Ice Man" from the Otztal Alpscan be found in this chapter.

The final section (Part 4) focuses on newer techniques used inthe analysis of mummies, including paleogenetics (DNA analy-sis), paleoimaging (CT and MRI), paleonutrition (intestinalcontents, chemical analysis), archaeoparasitology, and en-doscopy. The chapter and book concludes with a brief discus-sion of population studies that outlines some of the methodsused to measure the frequency of diseases in ancient populationsand some of the pitfalls encountered in paleoepidemiology. Dis-cussion of more standard methods of osteological, chemical,histological, radiographic, and serologic analyses employed inthe analysis of ancient human remains, which was included inthe first edition of the book, is omitted in the second edition.

For reviews of the first edition of this book, the reader canconsult P. Morrison (Scientific American, vol. 245, November1981),M.H. Miller (American Antiquity, vol.47[l], 1982),andD. Van Gerven (Archeology, September/October 1981). Manyof the individual chapters remain essentially unchanged fromthe first edition, except for the addition of coauthors and updatedreferences. The entire book, however, has undergone editingthat makes it read more smoothly and maintain consistency ofwriting style among chapters. Also changed from the first edi-tion is the addition of Theodore A. Reyman as a coeditor, andthere is a short biographical sketch in honor of the late AidanCockburn. Although many of the chapters have undergone onlyminor changes from the first edition, the editing, reorganization,and expanded coverage of the broader issue of how paleo-pathological research relates to our understanding of thehistoryand nature of human health and disease is an improvement.

For anyone with more than a passing interest in the subject ofmummies and what we have learned from them, this book willbe a worthwhile reading experience. Those less interested in thesubject may find themselves in the former group after readingthis book. •>

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence.Richard W. Wrangham and Dale Peterson. Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 1996. 350 pp.

PHYLLIS DOLHINOWUniversity of California-Berkeley

Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence is asaga of male primates behaving badly. It is a tale of violence,murder, rape, and war—male behaviors Wrangham and Peter-son avow are written in our genetic code and in that of our homi-nid predecessors going back 6-8 million years to a common an-cestor with the chimpanzee. The story is colorful, stimulating,and imaginative; but, contrary to the book cover's optimisticsuggestion, it is not "meticulous science." Building on informa-tion from recent studies of African apes and of modern humans,the authors equate our violence and killer instincts with those ofthe common chimpanzee. The latter is characterized as a violentspecies with intense male competition, maiming and killingstrange males ("a gang committed to the ethnic purity of theirown set," p. 14), and rape and female battery. From this accountof mayhem a reader might think this is normal behavior for male

chimpanzees, but often the basis of the characterization is an an-ecdote, selected data taken from many locations, or a singleevent unobserved but imaginatively re-created in full color.

Having equated chimpanzee and human violence, not sur-prisingly, the authors propose a common origin from an ances-tor remarkably like their construction of modern chimpanzeelife. "Chimpanzee-like violence preceded and paved the way forhuman war, making modern humans the dazed survivors of acontinuous, five million year habit of lethal aggression" (p. 63).Never mind that the gorilla, chimpanzee, and human split is aclose and disputed call, and that chimpanzees have been evolv-ing as long as humans. We do not know how the ancestral chim-panzee behaved. A rather larger "never mind" concerns the na-ture of evidence. Modern primate studies report on entiredistributions of patterns of behavior over time. Examples in sup-port of the contentions in this book are selective and anecdotal,with no evaluation of how representative they are for the spe-cies.

Chimpanzees in the Gombe and elsewhere lived relativelypeaceful lives for more than two decades of study from the '50suntil the 1974-77 Gombe events resulted in some dead males.Human interference may have played an important role in thischange of events. Evidence of violence from other study loca-tions is much less convincing than asserted. The fact is, there arefew examples of violence from almost 4 decades of research oncommon chimpanzees. It is no wonder that the authors write it is"true for the most part chimpanzees lead peaceful lives" (p. 11).This acknowledgment does not slow the development of the plotline based on their vision of our evolution from an ancestral de-monic ape misbehaving much as they see modern male commonchimpanzees.

Modern human male behavior is described in a similarly un-charitable manner. Why are we cursed with demonic males?The answer offered is because of two supposedly species-spe-cific behavior conditions: the existence of party gangs, and ofbonded males (p. 168). After lurid description of male chimpan-zee behavior, we are told "it looks the same with men" (p. 199).If this is not convincing, in case your take on human males dif-fers from theirs, the authors opine that human males are demonicat unconscious and irrational levels! They note in passing thathumans are, indeed, unique because of language and aspects ofculture, but, then, every species is unique in something. Triviali-zation is their response to lack of evidence and logic.

The authors write that chimpanzee-like violence paved theway for human war, but then we are told "Chimpanzee raidingand human warfare are not the same" (p. 62). Indeed, they arenot. However, in spite of all the differences, we are asked, "is theelaborate, nervous and proud, superstitious and self-deceivingedifice of cerebral material that makes up our humanity stilldeeply infused with the essence of that ancient forest brain?" (p.62). Because of our past, human murder and hunting may bemore closely linked than we are used to thinking (p. 219). At ahigher level of organization, we learn that stripped to its ape es-sence, patriotism is male defense of community, "patriotismbreeds aggression," and that "unfortunately there appears some-thing special about foreign policy in the hand of males" (p. 233)."Patriarchy comes from biology in the sense that it emergesfrom men's temperaments . . . out of their evolutionarily de-rived effort to control women" (p. 125). No wonder the authorsconsider The Seville Statement on Violence, pronouncing war-