On Sharpness & Scholarship in the Debate on “Shamanism”

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On Sharpness and Scholarship in the Debate on Shamanism

Author(s): J. David LewisWilliams/Cecelia F. Klein and Maya StanfieldMazziSource: Current Anthropology, Vol. 45, No. 3 (June 2004), pp. 404-406Published by: The University of Chicago Presson behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for AnthropologicalResearch

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Discussion

On Toothpicking in EarlyHominids

w i l l i a m a . a g g e r , t i m o t h y l . m c a n d r e w s ,

a n d j o h n a . h l a u d y

Department of Internal Medicine, GundersenLutheran Medical Foundation (Agger)/Department ofSocial Biology/Archaeology, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (McAndrews)/Department of MaxillofacialSurgery, Gundersen Lutheran Medical Foundation(Hlaudy), La Crosse, WI54601, U.S.A. 19 xii 03

The data on toothpicking presented by Hlusko (CA 44:73841) represent the earliest currently known non-lithic tool use by hominids. From an evolutionary per-spective, the main question that follows from herinteresting article is why the various species of earlyHomo were compelled to pick their teeth in the firstplace. We suggest that toothpicking behavior may rep-resent indirect evidence for the evolution of the biolog-ical capacity for language.

There has been considerable debate surrounding theissue of when the capacity for modern human languageevolved. Some argue that the origins of modern humanlanguage are associated with the emergence of the ca-

pacity for complex symbolic thought during the UpperPaleolithic era, approximately 32,000 years ago (Nobleand Davidson 1991). Others believe that earlier homi-nids, in particular Neanderthals, who have been shownto possess a hyoid bone similar to that of Homo sapiens,engaged in language communication by at least 60,000years ago (Arensburg et al.1989). Wolpoff (1999) presentsdata that suggest that the major elements of neural or-ganization associated with language were present asearly as 2 million years ago. We believe that Hluskosresults support the hypothesis that the biological capac-ity for human language had evolved in the earliest spe-cies of Homo, as early as 2.5million years ago.

Universally in modern Homo sapiens, the develop-

ment of speech quickens between the ages of five toten months of life during the babbling phase with ababys first syllables (Holowka and Petitto 2002). Thisdevelopmental phase appears to be related to a biofeed-back between proprioception afferent information car-ried by cranial nerve V and the auditory nerve (cranialnerve VIII) to the superior temporal gyrus. There, afterprocessing usually in the left dominant hemisphere, averbal response is sent through the Brocas motor areavia cranial nerves VII, IX, X, and XII. Cranial nerve V

Permission to reprint items in this section may be obtained onlyfrom their authors.

is the largest cranial nerve and consists of threebranches. This nerve is the main sensing nerve of themaxillofacial region and conveys pain, light touch, tem-perature, proprioception, and deep pressure. The seconddivision is purely sensory, supplying the upper lip, softpalate, tonsil, and roof of the mouth and the upper gumsand teeth. The third division, which emerges from thecranium via the foramen ovale, is the largest divisionof the trigeminal nerve and consists of a large sensoryroot and a small motor root. The sensory distributionis wide and includes the lower lip, mandible, and tem-poromandibular joint and all the mandibular teeth. Alarge branch of the third division, the lingual nerve, isthe general afferent nerve for the tongue. A small motordivision provides the efferent information to the mus-cles of mastication for jaw movement and to a muscle(tensor veli palatini) in the soft palate important in ve-lopharyngeal competence.

Those afflicted with traumatic loss of the lingualbranch of cranial nerve V report trouble with phonation(Lam et al. 2003). Furthermore, those who undergo sur-gical repair of lingual nerve injuries express some dis-appointment that, while chewing, feeling, and taste im-prove, their speech does not (Zuniga, Chen, and Phillips1997). Analysis of the main acoustic features of vowelsounds when normal cranial nerve V function is dis-torted by local dental anesthesia reveals various effects

on the phonetic quality of speech (Niemi et al. 2002).Alteration in normal proprioceptive feedback has beenthe suggested mechanism.

As anyone who has had small pieces of food caughtbetween his or her teeth or has developed a tooth chipis aware, such occurrences cause a sensation out of pro-portion to the size of the food matter or tooth defect.This exquisitely sensitive neural pathway for conveyingproprioceptive information to higher brain centers canonly be routed via a developed and functioning cranialnerve V. As a result, oral dental sensations promote theobligatory postprandial toothpick, at least in moderntimes and plausibly in early hominids. The propriocep-

tive information is not only protective but critical feed-back for the tongue posturing necessary for speech.

Thus it appears that both a highly developed afferentcranial nerve V (trigeminal nerve) and VIII (auditorynerve) are needed for input to the Broadmans area alongthe perisylvian fissure of the human brain, the region ofthe brain that is critical for the formulation of speech.We hypothesize that the ability to sense and remove foodparticles between teeth occurred approximately 2 mil-lion years ago as a result of selective pressures drivingthe evolution of complex vocalization of the hominidfrontal-parietal lobe.

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404F c u r r e n t a n t h r o p o l o g y

References Cited

a r e n sb u r g , b . , a . m . t i l l ie r , b . v a n d e rm e e r s ch ,

h . d u d a y , l . a . s c h e p a r t z , a n d y . r a k . 1989. Mid-dle Paleolithic human hyoid bone. Nature 338:75860.

h l u s k o , l . j . 2003. The oldest hominid habit? Experimentalevidence for toothpicking with grass stalks. current anthro-

pology 44:73841.h o l o w k a , s . , a n d l . a . p e t i t t o . 2002. Left hemisphere

cerebral specialization for babies while babbling. Science 297:1515.

l a m , n . p . , r . b . d o n o f f, l . b . k a b an , a n d t . b .

d o d s o n . 2 0 0 3. Patient satisfaction after trigeminal nerve re-pair.Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology, Oral Radi-ology, & Endodontics 95:53843.

n i e m i, m . , j . p . l a a k e ns o n , k . v a h a t a l o, j . t u o -

m a i n e n , o . a a l t o n e n , a n d r . p . h a p p o n e n . 2002.Effects of transitory lingual nerve impairment on speech: Anacoustic study of vowel sounds. Journal of Oral and Maxillofa-cial Surgery60 :64752.

n o b l e , w . , a n d i . d a v i d s o n . 1991. The evolutionaryemergence of modern human behavior: Language and its ar-chaeology.Man 26:22354.

w o l p o f f , m . h . 1999. 2d edition. Paleoanthropology. New

York: McGraw-Hill.z u n i g a , j . r . , n . c h e n , a n d c . l . p h i l l i p s . 1997.

Chemosensory and somatosensory regeneration after lingualnerve repair in humans. Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery55 :213.

On Sharpness and Scholarship inthe Debate on Shamanism1

j . d a v i d l e w i s - w i l l i a m sRock Art Research Institute, University of theWitwatersrand, Johannesburg2050, South Africa.3 x 03

Criticism has been directed at the proposition that cer-tain archaeologically known ritual practices and artsmay be termed shamanistic. Cecelia Klein and coau-thors (CA43:383419) have attacked the Mayan researchof, amongst others, Peter Furst, Kent Reilly, LindaSchele, Joy Parker, and David Freidel. Declaring the useof the words shaman and shamanistic symptom-atic of some very serious problems in Mesoamerican art

studies, they impute to other researchers a deliberate[my emphasis] avoidance of the demands of rigorousscholarship. Their desire to achieve a sharp tone hastaken its toll on their own scholarship. That Schele andothers ignored the political aspects of shamanism is sim-ply untrue, as their use of the (disputed) term shaman-king shows (e.g., Schele and Freidel 1990, Freidel,Schele, and Parker 1993). Indeed, Schele and her asso-ciates argue for the political power of Mayan leaders;

1 .The Rock Art Research Institute is funded by the University ofthe Witwatersrand, the National Research Foundation (grant num-bers 2053470and 2053693), and Anglo American.

whether they may be termed shaman-kings is a sec-ondary issue. Reilly points out another lapse in Klein etal.s scholarship, their selective use of publications thatcite his work. He insists that their claim that researcherswho suggest a form of shamanism among the Maya ig-nore the function of economics in state formation (CA43:410) is simply wrong.

It is also incorrect to claim that writers of the calibreof Freidel, Schele, and Reilly apply the word shamancavalierly and uncritically and then leave it at that. Theydo not use shaman as a self-explanatory label. Todayno one believes that shamanism is a ritual and reli-gious monolith identical in all its expressions through-out the world (on shamanisms see Atkinson 1992). AsGreek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, medi-aeval monastic, African Zionist, and charismatic groupsmay all be usefully referred to as Christian despitetheir considerable differences, so, too, diverse expres-sions of shamanism may be so designated. Christiandoes not obscure the differences among the various de-nominations; neither need shamanism conceal differ-ences. Differences are important, but so are shared fea-tures.

Inevitably, there will be instances in which everyonewill agree that shamanism (depending, of course, onits definition) is an appropriate word and others in whichthe consensus will be that it is inappropriate. There willalso be instances in which consensus will be difficult toachieve. These grey cases do not automatically inval-idate the word.

It is therefore important to remember that criticismof the use of the word shamanism does not automat-ically rob it of its utility. Criticisms themselves shouldbe carefully evaluated. It may well turn out that sha-manismisthe best (thought not the perfect) word avail-able (cf. Womack2001). That nothing better has yet beenproposed may well confirm my prediction.

Reply

c e c el i a f . k l e i n a n d m a y a s t a nfi e l d-

m a z z i

Department of Art History, 100Dodd Hall, 405Hilgard Ave., University of California, Los Angeles,

CA 90095-1417, U.S.A. ([email protected]).29 i 04

We are gratified to see that our 2002article on shaman-ism is still igniting responses, in this case a critique fromone of the most distinguished writers on South Africanrock art. Lewis-Williams defends those Mesoamerican-ists who we contended could have been more critical intheir use of the term. He also rejects our broader argu-ment that the word shamanism is, in general, toovague a term to be very useful. We think that his claimsare important and will take them up in the above order.

Lewis-Williams criticizes us for complaining that a



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Volume 45, Number 3, June 2004 F 405

serious problem in Mesoamerican studies stems fromdeliberate avoidance of the demands of rigorous schol-arship. What we meant was that some scholars are notdoing all that could be done to situate their work in asolid historical and historiographic context. We can ap-preciate that a rock art specialist such as Lewis-Williamsmight well lack the amount, range, and kind of historicaland ethnographic information that is available to Me-soamericanists. Our article, however, was directed atMesoamericanists, and Mesoamericanists, although oursources are not as extensive as we would like, have ac-cess to a relatively large amount of such information.What we were urging was that our colleagues tryto makebetter use of this information by undertaking a morecritical, historiographicaland historicalapproach toborrowed terms and concepts (p. 400). We providedwhat we thought were compelling examples of the in-sights that can be gained by burrowing into the historyof a loaded term, checking its general utility across cul-

tures, and making greater use of the available ethno-graphic and linguistic data. Since most Mesoamerican-ists are fully aware of the information that is out there,we saw their decision not to use it as deliberate.

Although our assertion that many scholars avoid thepolitical aspects of shamanism was a general one, locatedin our introductory remarks, Lewis-Williams links it toour critiques of specific works by Schele and Freidel, aswell as Reilly, and describes these critiques as an at-tack. Specifically, he points out that Schele and Freidelsattention to the political power of Mayan leaders is ev-ident in their use of the term shaman-king and impliesthat this exempts them from our category of those whohave avoided the political aspects of shamanism. As ad-

ditional evidence of our lack of fairness, he points to ourfailure to cite publications in which Reilly discusses theeconomic aspects of state formation. We never said, how-ever, that these particular scholars had ignored thepolitical dimension of shamanism. If that had been ourintention, we would hardly have called attention to theiruse of the term shaman-king and would have omittedmention of Reillys attempts to compare the Olmec tothe Shang. What we argued instead was that these at-tempts are somewhat simplistic in light of the infor-mation that is currently available. Our concern, in otherwords, had to do with the degreeof thoroughness of in-vestigation and sophistication of analysis that we havebeen seeing. We never said that Reilly had not attemptedto probe the economic implications of the Olmec reli-gion; rather, we pointed out that what he said about itsrelation to Shang China was invalid. More generally, weclaimed that much of the writing on the relation of Me-soamerican art to shamanism is predicated on a romanticvision of Mesoamericans that can be prejudicial whencompared with the ways in which scholars characterizesimilar beliefs and practices in European history. We seea danger in writing Mesoamericas history as if it boreno resemblance whatsoever to that of the Old World.These are broad arguments that Lewis-Williams does notmention. By insisting that our mission was to attack the

work of certain scholars, he has managed to avoid dis-cussing the main points of our article.

In his own writings (2002a:19396; 2002b:13334),Lewis-Williams provides a working definition of sha-manism that is based in part on his extensive knowledgeof the San peoples of South Africa. He restricts the termto hunter-gatherers and defines shamans as individualswho use dissociation and other experience of alteredstates of consciousness to contact supernaturals, healthe sick, and control the natural world.His effort to tailorhis definition to the local rock art area of which he writesand the kind of social organization that it presumablyrepresents exemplifies the precision, based on careful re-search, that we advocated in our article. His definition,however, as we pointed out in our article, does not workfor certain Amerindian and Asian peoples whose reli-gious and medical practitioners are also described as sha-mans. As we have shown, not all shamans enter intoaltered states of consciousness to realize their aims.

Lewis-Williamss analogy with the use of the termChristian strikes us as inapt. Christians of every stripeare united by their fundamental belief in Jesus Christ.One cannot be a Christian without holding to that belief.In contrast, as we pointed out, there is no single, uni-versal belief or practice that appears in each and everyculture described as shamanistic. Moreover, the beliefin Christ is rooted in a single historical person, place,and moment. Christianity spread from that place andfrom that point in time. No one would call Christiana group or person whose beliefs and practices were sim-ilar to those of Christianity but had no historical rela-tionship to the Middle East during the time of Christand his apostles. Shamanism, in contrast, cannot beproven to have spread from a single place at a specificpoint in time any more than shamanic cultures canbe demonstrated to share a common ideology. Shaman-ism is not analogous to Christianity.

Although Lewis-Williams would have us believe thatthese variations in practice do not justify abandoning theword shamanism, we continue to insist that it servesno heuristic purpose beyond marking shamanistic peo-ples as our cultural Others. In our article we went onto argue that careless use of that amorphous concept mayactually distort our understanding of other peoples, theirbehaviors, and their beliefs. In our opinion, the term cre-ates more problems than it solves. This was the centralpoint of our article. It is a point that Lewis-Williams

appears to have missed.

References Cited

a t k i n s o n , j . m . 1992. Shamanisms today. Annual Review ofAnthropology21:30730.

f r e i de l , d a v i d , l i n d a s c h e l e, a n d j o y p a r ke r .

1993. Maya cosmos: Three thousand years on the shamanspath. New York: William Morrow.

k l e i n, c e c e l ia f . , e u l o g i o g u z m a n , e l i s a c .

m a n d e l l , a n d m a y a s t a n fi e l d - m a z z i . 2002. Therole of shamanism in Mesoamerican art: A reassessment. cur-rent anthropology 43:383419.

l e w i s - w i l l i a m s , j . d a v i d . 2002a. A cosmos in stone: In-



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On Sharpness & Scholarship in the Debate on “Shamanism”