Showing posts with label palaeontology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label palaeontology. Show all posts

Friday 1 April 2016

Hollywood's natural history hobbit hoax: did Peter Jackson create Homo floresiensis for publicity purposes?

Judging by the limited ingredients of contemporary blockbusters, cinema audiences are fairly easy to please. Or are they? Peter Jackson's magnum opus The Lord of the Rings trilogy made an absolute mint at the box office and garnered seventeen Oscar wins besides critical acclaim. In contrast, The Hobbit trilogy received but a single Oscar accompanying some rather lukewarm reviews.

The reason for the critical indifference and lack of awards has been put down to franchise fatigue, although to be fair stretching a children's book over three long movies whilst partly improvising the script at a late stage couldn't have helped. So if you are a world-renowned film maker well aware that you are judged by many of your fans and much of your peer group on the success - and possibly the quality - of your latest film, it wouldn't be surprising if you go to great lengths to maximise that success. Just how far Peter Jackson went for The Hobbit trilogy is astounding...so read on...

It's been some years since I visited Weta Cave in Wellington, where close-up views of various costumes and props from movies including the LOTR trilogy leaves you in no doubt about the superb workmanship the effects house is capable of. Some of the exhibits and merchandise included non-human characters from Middle Earth and District 9, the quality of which got me thinking. Peter Jackson is known to have visited the Natural History Museum when in London recording the soundtrack for The Lord of the Rings. This in itself is not suspect, except that the museum was at the time hosting an exhibition about the infamous Piltdown Man.

For anyone who knows anything about science scandals, Piltdown Man has to be among the most notorious. The 1908 discovery in southern England of a hominin skull of unknown species was rapidly followed by numerous associated finds, all touted as genuine by professional scientists. In fact, by 1913 some palaeontologists had already suggested what was finally confirmed forty years later: the entire assemblage was a fraud, the skull itself including an orang utan jawbone with filed-down teeth! The fact that so many specialists authenticated the remains is bizarre, although it may be that patriotic wishful thinking (to confirm prehistoric hominins had lived in Britain) overrode any semblance of impartiality.

Back to Peter Jackson and his hobbit conundrum. Although LOTR trilogy did the bums-on-seats business (that's an industry term, in case you were wondering), Jackson's next film was the 2005 King Kong remake. Included in the record-breaking US$207 million production costs was a $32 million overspend which the director himself was personally responsible for. Having already been put into turnaround (that's cold feet in Hollywoodese) in the previous decade, Jackson was determined to complete the film to his own exacting standards, thus resulting in the financial woes surrounding the production.

So just how do you get the massive budget to make a prequel trilogy that's got a less involved storyline (sound vaguely familiar, Star Wars fans?) directly after you've made the most expensive film in history, which is not even a remake but a second remake? How about generating tie-in publicity to transfer from the real world to Middle Earth?

Around the time that Peter Jackson's production company Three Foot Six was being renamed (or if you prefer, upgraded) to Three Foot Seven, worldwide headlines announced the discovery of a small stature hominin of just this height. The first of the initial nine specimens found on the island of Flores, labelled LB1, would have been a mere 1.06 metres tall when alive, which is three feet six inches give or take a few millimetres.

Coincidence? When in doubt, adherents of scientific methods should follow the principle of parsimony, A.K.A. Occam's razor. Which in this case has led to me putting my conspiracy hat on.

Consider this: the new species rapidly became far better known by its nickname the 'hobbit people' than as Homo floresiensis. Which was handy for anyone about to spend US$225 million on three films involving hobbits. In addition, it was discovered at the perfect time for Jackson to get maximum publicity (admittedly not the release of the first hobbit film, but for purposes of convincing his American backers of the audience anticipation).

The smoking gun evidence for me is the almost comical resemblance the remains bear to Tolkien's creations. For example, the feet are said to be far longer and flatter than any other known hominin species. Remind you of anything you've seen at the movies? It's just a shame that hair doesn't survive as long as the alleged age of the specimens - which based on the stratigraphy has been estimated from 94,000 to 13,000 years ago.

In addition, how could such creatures have built the bamboo rafts or dug-out boats necessary to reach the island in the first place? When sea levels dropped during glaciation periods Flores was still convincingly isolated from the mainland. Braincase analysis shows that Homo floresiensis had an orange-sized brain. Since the tools found with the semi-petrified organic remains were simple stone implements, the idea of real-life hobbits sailing the high seas appears absurd in the extreme.

Several teams have attempted to extract DNA from the water-logged and delicate material but after a decade's effort none have been successful. This seems surprising, considering the quality of contemporary genetic replication techniques, but perhaps not if the material consists of skilfully crafted fakes courtesy of Weta Workshop. Some of the fragments appear similar to chimpanzee anatomy, but then Peter Jackson has always tried to make his creatures as realistic as possible. Indeed, he even hired a zoologist to ensure that his King Kong was anatomically correct (I recall hearing that some of his over-sized gorilla's behind needed reworking to gain accuracy. Now that's dedication!)

There has also been some rather unscientific behaviour concerning the Homo floresiensis remains which appears counter to the great care usually associated with such precious relics. At one point, the majority of material was hidden for three months by one of the Indonesian paleoanthropologists, only for what was returned to include damaged material missing several pieces. All in all, there is much about the finds to fuel speculation as to their origin.

In summary, if you wanted to promote worldwide interest in anything hobbit-wise what could be better yet not too obvious? Just how the much the joint Australian-Indonesian archaeology and palaeontology team were in the know is perhaps the largest mystery still remaining. I've little doubt that one day the entire venture will be exposed, perhaps in a documentary made by Peter Jackson himself. Now that would definitely be worth watching!

Thursday 26 March 2015

A roaring success? The Walking with Dinosaurs Arena Spectacular

Surely these days everyone loves dinosaurs? After all, the original Jurassic Park movie made over a billion US dollars worldwide, enough to generate a plethora of merchandise and three sequels. In a less fictional vein, the BBC's television series' Walking with Dinosaurs broke viewing records - perhaps just as well, considering its equally record-breaking budget - and led to several TV spin-offs, including a 3D feature film aimed at very young children.

But it's rare for a television documentary (or should that be docudrama?) series to spawn a live show, which is exactly what happened in 2007. Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular has to date has been seen by a worldwide audience of over eight million. Again, this probably all to the good, considering the enormous expense involved in the production. So having seen the television series on DVD, my daughters were desperate to go to the live show here in Auckland. Due to the expense of the tickets I hummed and hawed but eventually bowed under pressure. This was nothing to do with my own interest in seeing the event, of course!

So was it worth it? The ninety minute show followed the chronological order of the series, from late Triassic to the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary. My first impression wasn't particularly good, as the narrator Huxley (incidentally I'm not sure what Thomas Henry Huxley would make of the enterprise, considering he was even against opening the Natural History Museum to the general public) explained about dinosaur footprints whilst lights projected some very oversized examples of the same. I assume the scale was to allow visibility from the furthest rows, but even so it seemed a bit clumsy. In my book, there's a fine line between artistic licence and poor science communication.

However, things improved with the arrival of the first beasts. Although it looked as if it was immediately heading in a Disneyesque direction when several cute herbivorous Plateosaurus hatched from a nest of eggs, this was quickly quelled when one hatchling was gobbled up by a Liliensternus. It was excellent to see Nature in warts and all mode - or should that be a literal 'red in tooth and claw' - considering that the audience largely consisted of pre-teen children and their parents? Talking of which, in some cases the roaring monsters and dramatic lighting proved too much, with a girl sitting near me spending more time cradled under her father's armpit rather than looking at the show. I was in general surprised by the lack of anthropomorphising elements that the 3D movie was criticised for, a brave move considering the target audience. Perhaps the major concession to the junior spectators was the young T. rex, whose weak attempts at imitating its far more powerful parent induced laughter from the audience.

In addition to describing the behaviour of the dinosaurs – and one pterosaur (a decent-enough marionette hung in front of poorly projected background footage, although my younger daughter initially thought it was a giant bat) Huxley also covered plate tectonics and the development of vegetation. At one point he even stuck his hand into a steaming pile of fresh herbivore poop to retrieve a dung beetle, leading to an explanation of food chains past and present. Both the inflatable growing ferns and a forest fire were particularly well done, as well as some simple yet charming butterflies made of what looked like coloured paper blown around by hidden fans. My children agreed that the only thing they didn't like were the skate platforms required to move the larger dinosaurs, although I found these less distracting than the marginally camouflaged operator legs in the smaller species. Interestingly, neither of my daughters asked how the larger species were controlled. I guess they've grown up in an age of electronic wonders and this was seen to be just another example of impressive technology.

Walking with Dinosaurs: The Arena Spectacular

So what about the educational element of the show? Edutainment can be a difficult balance as well as an appalling word. In addition to the lavish praise that it deserved, the original television series was criticised for presenting speculation as fact. In particular, the large size of some of the species has been questioned. However, the arena event did acknowledge some of the developments since the series was first broadcast fifteen years ago, such as by adding feathers (or proto-feathers) to the mother Tyrannosaurus and even more so to her juvenile.

Judging by the appreciative audience, many of the younger crowd members were already familiar with a wide range of dinolore. For example, as each animal starting entering the arena I could hear children as young as four or five shouting some of the names - and correctly. This created a pleasing contrast to many of the adult visitors to London's Natural History Museum, whom I recall not only failed to differentiate a sauropod from a T. rex but assumed that every large skeleton they saw must be a dinosaur (for example, the giant sloth Megatherium in the Fossil Marine Reptiles gallery).

But just how much of an interest in the giant beasts of the Mesozoic is likely to lead to a more detailed understanding of the wider world of palaeontology as the audience members grow older? Unfortunately, at times it was difficult to hear the narrator's details due to a combination of the sound effects and intense music, which whilst emotive and dramatic, had a tendency to drown out Huxley's description of the antediluvian scenes. Combined with the palpable excitement that most of the younger audience members were clearly experiencing, it's dubious just how much anyone learned during the show. The associated website does contain some educational material, although it makes such basic mistakes as listing the pterosaur Ornithocheirus in the list of dinosaurs.

You could suggest that dinosaurs have become just another part of the great consumerist machine, with any associated science a lucky by-product of flogging stuff. After all, dinosaur-related merchandise features highly in the range at many museum gift shops, even those with a marginal connection to the fauna, as discussed unfavourably several decades ago by evolutionary palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould. It could be argued that any attempt to introduce science-based knowledge to the general public is a good idea, but with the quality of special effects in this live-action show as well as in film and television it may be difficult for children brought up on this material to separate fact from fiction. It is undoubtedly an exciting time for dinosaur discoveries, but science is more than just a series of facts: without the rigour and understanding, the material is subject to the same whims of fashion as the rest of popular culture. If science is to be promoted as the most objective methodology our species has for understanding such fascinating subjects as ancient mega fauna, we need to ensure that audiences are given enough of the reasoning besides all the roaring.

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Digging apart: why is archaeology a humanity and palaeontology a science?

Although my Twitter account only follows scientists and scientific organisations, every day sees the arrival of a fair few archaeology tweets, even by science-orientated sites such as Science News. As someone who has been an amateur practitioner of both archaeology and palaeontology I thought I'd like to get to grips with why they are categorised so differently. After all, the names themselves don't really help: the word 'archaeology' means "the study of everything ancient." whilst the common definition of 'palaeontology' is pretty much "the study of ancient life". I've even known people with close friends or relatives in one or the other discipline to confuse them: whilst viewing my fossil cabinet, a visitor once told me that her cousin was an archaeologist studying Maori village sites!

Even historically, both fields share many common factors. Not only were they founded by enthusiasts and amateurs, but to this day non-professionals continue to make fundamental contributions. In converse, amateurs can cause serious deficiencies in the data record by lack of rigour or deliberately putting financial gain ahead of the preservation of new information. This can be caused by a variety of methods, from crude or overly hasty preparation of fossils, to metal detectorists and site robbers who sell their finds to private collectors without recording the context, or even the material itself.

It is not immediately obvious where the dividing line between the two disciplines lies when it comes to prehistoric human remains. In the 1990s, archaeologist Mark Roberts led a team that excavated the half a million year old Boxgrove site in southern England. Finds included fragmentary remains of Homo heidelbergensis, thus crossing over to what might traditionally be deemed the territory of palaeontologists. In 2001 the multi-phase Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project started, with deliberate collaboration between both sectors, proof that their skills could overlap and reinforce each other.

By and large, neither palaeontology nor archaeology utilises repeatable laboratory experiments and therefore neither can be classified as a ‘hard’ science. Even palaeontology relies to a large extent on historical contingency, both for remains to be fossilised in the first place and then for them to be discovered and recorded using the relevant methodology. As British palaeontologist Richard Fortey has said "Physics has laboratories; systematic biology has collections." Talking of which, re-examination of old evidence in both disciplines can lead to new discoveries: how often do we see headlines pointing to a fundamental discovery...made in a museum archive?

Although archaeologist were not previously known for conducting experiments,  the New Archaeology/Processual archaeology that arose in the 1960s included an emphasis on testing hypotheses, one result of which is that archaeology now uses experiments to interpret site data. This includes attempts to recreate artefacts, structures, boats, or even food recipes, based on finds from one or more sites. It may not be laboratory conditions, but it is still a method of analysis that can reinforce or disprove an idea in a close equivalent of the scientific hypothesis.

Attempts to improve the quality of data gleaned from the archaeological record have led to the utilisation of an enormous variety of scientific techniques collectively labelled archaeometry. These include microwear analysis, artefact conservation, numerous physical and chemical dating methods such as the well-known radio carbon dating and dendrochronology; geophysical remote sensing techniques involving radar, magnetometry and resistivity; and DNA analysis, pathology and osteo-archaeology.

Teeth of a sand tiger shark
(possibly Odontaspis winkleri)
I found in a wood in Surrey, UK

But there are some major differences between archaeology and palaeontology as well. Although both appear to involve excavation, this is only somewhat true. Not only does archaeology include standing structures such as buildings or ancient monuments, but a project can be restricted to non-invasive techniques such as the geophysical methods mentioned above; excavating a site is the last resort to glean information unobtainable by any other way, especially important if the site is due to be destroyed by development. In contrast, fossils are no use to science by remaining buried. Having said that, I often fossils by sifting through pebbles rather than concerted digging. I have occasionally split rocks or dug through soft sand, but a lot of the time fossils can be found scattered on the surface or prised out of exposed chalk via finger nails. The best way to spot even large finds is to have them already partially exposed through weathering, whilst some archaeology cannot be directly seen from the site but only identified via aerial photography or geophysics.

Archaeological sites can prove extremely complex due to what is known as context: for example, digging a hole is a context, back filling it is another, and any finds contained therein are yet more. Repeated occupation of a site is likely to cause great difficulty in unravelling the sequence, especially if building material has been robbed out. This is substantially different to palaeontology, where even folded stratigraphy caused by geophysical phenomena can be relatively easily understood.

Perhaps the most fundamental difference between the disciplines is that of data analysis. As anyone who has spent time on a site excavation knows, there are often as many theories as there are archaeologists. There are obviously far less fixed data points than that provided by Linnaean taxonomy and so there is a reliance on subjectivity, the keyword being 'interpretation'. Even the prior experience of the excavator with sites of a similar period/location/culture can prove crucial in gaining a correct (as far as we can ever be correct) assessment. In lieu of similarity to previously excavated sites, an archaeologist may turn to anthropology, extrapolating elements of a contemporary culture to a vanished one, such as British prehistorian Mike Parker-Pearson's comparison between the symbolic use of materials in contemporary Madagascar and Bronze Age Britain. In stark contrast, once a fossil has been identified it is unlikely for its taxonomy to be substantially revised - not that this doesn’t still occur from time to time.

As can be seen, not all science proceeds from the hypothesis-mathematical framework-laboratory experiment axis. After all, most of the accounts of string theory that I have read discuss how unlikely it can ever be subject to experiment. The British Quality Assurance Agency Benchmark Statement for Archaeology perhaps comes closest to the true status of the discipline when it lists 'scientific' as one of the four key contexts for higher level archaeological training. In addition, every edition since 2000 has stated "Where possible, thinking scientifically should be part of the armoury of every archaeologist."

So part historical science, part humanity, archaeology is an interesting combination of methodologies and practice, with more resemblances than differences to palaeontology. As the Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project shows, sometimes the practitioners can even work in (hopefully) perfect harmony. Another nail in the coffin for C.P. Snow's 'Two Cultures', perhaps?

Thursday 1 April 2010

Blown away: some weird and wonderful animal defence mechanisms

At a time when environmentalists are calling for farmers to swap cattle for non-ruminant species such as kangaroos in an effort to stem bovine methane emission, a recent report by a leading Argentinean palaeontologist reminds me of Karl Marx's popular axiom "History repeats itself first as tragedy, second as farce".

The report's theme concerns animal defensive mechanisms, a classic example of truth being infinitely stranger than fiction. Consider for instance the bombardier beetle, an innocuous enough looking insect that when endangered can squirt a boiling liquid from its rear abdomen. Okay, that's only mildly weird. Well what about the several species of frogs and newts that when threatened extrude internal claws or spines by puncturing their own skin? Or the Asian carpenter ants whose soldiers literally self-destruct in the defence of their colony, in the process spraying a sticky poison over their attackers? Surely if anyone needed a good argument against Creationism then this panoply of the bizarre would suit admirably, since it postulates an equally bizarre, not to say warped, sense of humour on behalf of a Creator.

But the news from Argentina may well outshine (if that is the right word) all of the above, not least from the sheer scale of the animals involved. The main players are those undisputed giants of the dinosaur world, the South American titanosauria sauropods of the mid- to late-Cretaceous. Partial remains found over the past twenty years imply species such as Argentinosaurus may have reached lengths of 40 metres, thereby exceeding their better-known Jurassic relatives such as Diplodocus by around 20 per cent.

In 2002 Fernando Calvo, Professor of Natural Sciences at La Salta University in Argentina, became intrigued by sauropod growth patterns and nutrition. Although coprolites (fossilised poo) have not been found for any species of Argentinean titanosaur, the study of microscopic phytoliths, silicified plant fragments, suggest these animals enjoyed a broad plant diet. The notion that Mesozoic vegetation consisted primarily of conifers, cycads, horsetails and ferns has been overturned by recent discoveries of palms and even tall, primitive grasses. Since modern grazers such as cattle can survive solely on such unpromising material, how about titanosaurs?

Calvo and his team began a study to go where no scientists had gone before and assess the potential digestive systems of Argentinosaurus and its relatives. One of the luxuries of an enormous bulk is being able to subsist on nutritionally-poor foodstuffs, a case of sheer quantity over quality. The La Salta group hypothesised that their native sauropods were amongst the most efficient of digesters just because of their size: by the time plant material had worked its way through such a large digestive tract most of the nutrients would be absorbed, no doubt aided by gastroliths, literally stomach stones deliberately swallowed to help churn the material.

The preliminary report was published in March last year and quickly became notorious in palaeontological circles. For there was no delicate way of describing the findings: the titanosaurs would easily top the Guinness Book of Records' list of “World's Greatest Farters”. Whilst sauropods did not have the multiple stomach arrangements of modern ruminants the hypothesis was clear: titanosaur herds would have been surrounded by an omnipresent cloud of methane.

For Calvo, the next step came several months later when a tip-off from a farmer in Chubut led to an astonishing series of finds. The site, whose exact location remains secret, revealed the semi-articulated fragments from a tight-knit group of three predatory Giganotosaurus and approximately 15 per cent of the skeleton of a single, adult Argentinosaurus. Team member Jose Chiappe led the extraction work on the latter colossus and postulated that it had died slowly, perhaps due to blood loss following an attack.

What were far more intriguing were the positions of the attackers: all three had a slumped, head-down attitude, implying sudden collapse and virtually instantaneous death. Calvo found himself asking the obvious: how could they have died? Whereas a Diplodocus tail was well-formed for use as a whip, it was a much more gracile animal than its Cretaceous counterparts. The larger bulk of Argentinosaurus didn't bode well for a fast reaction: by the time a titanosaur had noticed the approach of a Giganotosaurus it would have had precious few seconds to position its tail for a whiplash response. Then Chiappe remembered an Early Cretaceous site in Liaoning Province, China, where animals had died of suffocation due to volcanic gases.

The resemblance in the post-mortem postures of the Giganotosaurus led to an incredible but as yet unpublished hypothesis: if correctly positioned, a frightened titanosaur could have defended itself by the simple expedient of raising its tail and expelling gaseous waste directly into the conveniently-placed head of an oncoming predator. An initial calculation based on scaling up from modern animals suggested an adult titanosaur could have produced about one tonne of methane per week. Computer simulations suggest a sustained five-second burst at close range would have K-O'd an eight-ton Giganotosaurus, and with a brain barely half that of Tyrannosaurus, it's unlikely the predators had the wherewithal to avoid their fate. If only the late Michael Crichton had known this, perhaps he would have written a scene involving an ignominious demise at the rear end of a sauropod for some of the characters in Jurassic Park (Jurassic Fart, anyone?) Or since this occurred in the Cretaceous, in the name of scientific accuracy perhaps that should that be Gone with the Wind?

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