When French palaeoanthropology suffered from parachute science

Palaeontology is getting woke. Palaeontology is being politicised. Palaeontology is becoming a battlefield for nationalist and ideological turf wars that prevent research from doing their job and producing cool and important science. These claims are part of a sentiment that has emerged in recent years as the discipline has begun to reflect issues of social justice in its past, present, and future. Reflecting the increasing overall polarisation of society, many palaeontologists (i.e., those who acknowledge the ongoing debates) tend to gravitate towards on pole or the other. Some challenge the traces that racism and colonialism have left on the discipline, our understanding of biodiversity, and the distribution of scientific materials, and confront the persistence of colonial practices in modern-day palaeontology.¹ Others, on the contrary, decry such initiatives, seek to banish these issues from the realm of science, dismiss fossil repatriation claims as driven by nationalism, populism, and envy, and openly advocate for breaking the law.

This is not the space to refute these claims; others have done an amazing job at that, and I’ve tried it here and there as well. Rather, I would like to focus on the widespread criticism that this purported ‘wokeness’ and ‘social justice militancy’ are signs of a general zeitgeist that is bound to change again once the fad passes. During my research for a paper about the legal classification of hominin remains,² I’ve come across a fascinating article that led me to a historical source which, in turn, illustrates a point that I would like to make. That point is: European palaeontologists have long recognised that parachute science is wrong—when it affects them.

The source which I would like to bring to your attention is Marcellin Boule’s 1921 treatise Les hommes fossiles : éléments de paléontologie humaine [Fossil men: elements of human palaeontology].³ Boule was the professor of palaeontology at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris between 1902 and 1936 and founded the Institut de Paléontologie humaine. His treatise describes the discovery of a Neanderthal skull from the Dordogne region in Southern France, the Le Moustier skull. His account is worth quoting in full:

• French
• English

• “En janvier 1909, un marchand d’antiquités, de nationalité suisse, qui a trop longtemps exploité, pour le compte des Allemands, les gisements de la Dordogne, c’est-à-dire les plus vieilles et les plus précieuses archives de notre pays, fit connaître les circonstances dans lesquelles il avait trouvé et exhumé un squelette humain au Moustier.

  Le dégagement eut lieu le 10 août 1908, devant un aréopage de savants d’outre-Rhin: Klaatsch, H. Virchow, von den Steinen, Hahne, Wüst, etc. et, naturellement, en l’absence de tout homme de science français. La valeur scientifique de ce document est encore singulièrement diminuée par la pénurie de données strati- graphiques ou paléontologiques sérieuses et surtout par la façon déplorable dont il a été extrait et restauré. La reconstitution du crâne, faite par le professeur d’anatomie Klaatsch, est une véritable caricature (fig. 115). Une deuxième restauration, à laquelle plusieurs éminents col lègues de Klaatsch ont été appelés à collaborer, a du moins le mérite d’être plus sincère. La valeur matérielle du squelette du Moustier fut, par contre, jugée hors de pair par le « Museum für Völkerkunde » de Berlin qui l’a payé à son pourvoyeur Hauser un prix fabuleux: 125 000 francs! D’après Klaastch [sic] le squelette du Moustier est celui d’un jeune homme de seize ans environ. Il ne paraît pas douteux qu’il appartienne au type de Néanderthal.”

  Boule, M. (1921). Les hommes fossiles: Éléments de paléontologie humaine. Paris: Masson, pp. 188-189 (emphases added).

• “In January 1909, a dealer in antiquities, of Swiss nationality, who had only too long exploited, for German profit, the deposits in the Dordogne district, that is to say, the most ancient and the most valuable archives in France, revealed the circumstances under which he had discovered and exhumed a human skeleton at Le Moustier.

  The exhumation took place on the 10th August 1908, in the presence of a tribunal of scientists from beyond the Rhine—Klaatsch, H. Virchow, von den Steinen, Hahne, Wüst, and others (and, of course, in the absence of any French scientist). Even so the scientific value of this relic is markedly diminished by the poverty of significant stratigraphical or palaeontological data, and especially by the deplorable manner in which it was extricated and restored. The reconstruction of the skull by Klaatsch, a professor of anatomy, is a positive caricature (Fig. 115). A second reconstruction, in which several of Klaatsch’s distinguished colleagues were called upon to assist, has at least the merit of being more faithful. The monetary value of the skeleton from Le Moustier was, on the other hand, considered beyond compare by the ‘Museum für Volkerkunde’ in Berlin, which paid Hauser, the dealer, the fabulous price of 125,000 francs! According to Klaatsch, the skeleton from Le Moustier is that of a young man of about sixteen years. There seems to be no doubt that it may belong to the Neanderthal type.”

  Boule, M. (1923). Fossil men : elements of human palaeontology. Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd (translated by Jessie Elliot Ritchie), pp. 189-90.

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There are several things to unpack here. First, the acknowledgement that the fossil deposits of the Dordogne are of particular national value. Boule stresses that they are the most ancient and most valuable in all of France, and hardly hides his bitterness about a Swiss antiquities dealer exploiting this national treasure for German profit.⁴ The link between archaeology and nation-building/nationalism is well documented, and it seems anything but far-fetched that the ancient past would be appropriated in a similar fashion.

Boule did, however, not only take offence with the removal of the skull. He laments, second, that the provenance of the skull was discussed “in the absence of any French scientist”. By prefacing this criticism with “of course”, he leaves no doubt that he expected nothing less of his German ‘colleagues’ that a total exclusion of learned men from the country of the skull’s origin from its study. This seems to suggest, e contrario, that according to Boule, researchers from the country of origin should be involved in the study of its hominin fossils.

Third, Boule calls the circumstances under which the Le Moustier skull was obtained “deplorable” because it came with a “poverty of significant stratigraphical or palaeontological data” that severely diminished the scientific value of the specimen. This is, effectively, a recognition that obtaining fossils through commercial channels runs the risk of losing crucial information about the context of discovery that impact the scientific value of the specimen.

All these concerns echo through time; we find the same concerns articulated in contemporary debates about ethics in palaeontology. In tacit (and perhaps unconscious) agreement with Boule, repatriation campaigns such as the one which led to the return of “Ubirajara jubatus” to Brazil have framed it, in part, as a matter of national identity. Akin to Boule, Latin American palaeontologists criticise studies on fossils from Mexico or Brazil that do not involve local experts as co-authors—a legal requirement in certain countries. And concerns about the scientific ramifications of retrieving fossils from unsupervised commercial excavations continue to be verbalised, most recently in the case of a dubious new genus and species of mosasaur from Morocco.

This is, of course, not to say that Boule was an activist for social justice ahead of its time. Rather, it shows a curious double standard in the perception of what is morally and legally acceptable. When Boule published his treatise in 1921, the collection of his museum in Paris already contained huge quantities of scientific and ethnological materials that had often been acquired under circumstances that were far more violent, unjust, one-sided that those under which the Le Moustrier skull made its way to Berlin. And yet, recognising these practices as unjust and harmful to science required for him, his institution, his country to be on the dispossessed side of the extractive relationship. To make a slight caricature of it, it follows a rationale of ‘It’s only bad if it affects us.’

This attitude finds a fascinating parallel in the international legal framework relating to the pillage of cultural property. Many discussionw about the restitution of colonial loot seem to depart from the assumption that under public international law, there was no norm prohibiting the removal of cultural property at the time of colonial looting. However, according to Evelien Campfens, a customary norm against the pillage of cultural property during armed conflict and an obligation for post-war restitution had already crystallised in the European context—this norm just was not applied to the colonies.

Be that as it may, the concerns and critiques that some are now branding as ‘woke’ have been around for a while—and those who rally behind them now are not to blame for demanding a consistent application of the principles that transpire already from a treatise published over 100 years ago.

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