Imaging and imagining the Neanderthal: the role of technical drawings in archaeology.

Imaging and imagining the Neanderthal: the role of technical drawings in archaeology. Reconstruction drawings intended to illustrate the realities ofprehistoric life Prehistoric life are the diverse organisms that have inhabited Earth from the origin of life about 3.8 billion years ago (b.y.a.) to the Historic period (about 3500 BC) when humans began to keep written records. can be fatuously fat��u��ous?adj.1. Vacuously, smugly, and unconsciously foolish. See Synonyms at foolish.2. Delusive; unreal: fatuous hopes. revealing of preconceptions in theminds of the modern illustrator and of the researcher who briefs theillustrator. But are the less interpretative drawings whose purpose isto record the material evidence more neutral in their look?Nineteenth-century technical illustrations of the Neanderthal skull areunintentionally revealing of attitude.RepresentationsAt the height of his career, the Dutch-English painter Sir LawrenceAlma-Tadema Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, OM, RA (January 8, 1836, Dronrijp, the Netherlands.- June 25, 1912 Wiesbaden, Germany ) was one of the most renowned painters of late nineteenth century Britain. (18361912), famous for his minute depictions of life inantiquity, worried about the quality of reproductions of his work inpopular art magazines (Verhoogt 1996). In correspondence withlithographers, engravers and etchers, AlmaTadema appears as a touchystickler for accuracy, meticulously pointing out all discrepanciesbetween his paintings and the reproductions. Before WalterBenjamin's 'age of mechanical reproduction', a poorreprint meant, beyond a financial setback, a blow to the artist'sfame. With editions reaching several hundred thousand copies, thereprints in art magazines could build or ruin a painter's career.Alma-Tadema's artistic taste and commercial instinct rightlyassumed that to a certain extent reproductions replaced the originals.Much the same holds true for fossils. Because of their fragility,they were and still are mostly known through representations such asdrawings, plaster casts and photographs. The casts of the disappearedChoukoutien fossils are now as valuable as their originals once were.But even with still-existing fossils, the representations are there tore-present, i.e. to render present what is absent (Latour 1988). Theyallow the reader to 'virtually witness' (Shapin 1984) theoriginal form. Representations of fossils therefore do not need only tobe accurate, but also to convince the reader that they are so. In thisarticle, I investigate how 19th-century technical depictions of theNeanderthal skull stood in for the fossil evidence while at the sametime conveying a strong theoretical statement.Pictorial reconstructionsClive Gamble's statement that 'archaeology does not yettake its visual language very seriously' (Gamble 1992: 363) hasbeen a call to arms ! a summons to war or battle.See also: Arms , judging from the number of subsequent publications.Images from the past, especially of the Palaeolithic, have becomesources for a critical historiography The term Critical Historiography is used by various scholars in recent decades to emphasize the ambiguous relationship between history writing and historiography. Traditionally, historiography was seen as the study of the history-of-history or as a very specialized form of history of archaeology (Burtt 1987; Cohen cohenor kohen(Hebrew: “priest”) Jewish priest descended from Zadok (a descendant of Aaron), priest at the First Temple of Jerusalem. The biblical priesthood was hereditary and male. 1994: 25-44; Gamble 1992; Hurcombe 1995; Moser 1992; 1996; Moser &Gamble 1997; Stoczkowski 1990; 1997; Stringer & Gamble 1993: 18-33;Trinkaus & Shipman ship��man?n.1. A sailor.2. A shipmaster. 1993: 399410), with Molyneaux's (1997)collection of papers on visual representation in archaeology a tentativeapex in this field. A wider movement in history and sociology of science Sociology of science is the subfield of sociology that deals with the practice of science.Generally speaking, the sociology of science involves the study of science as a social activity, especially dealing "with the social conditions and effects of science, and with the also studies the pervasiveness of visualizations in scientific knowledge(Fyfe & Law 1988; Lynch & Woolgar 1990; Rudwick 1992).Thus far, pictorial reconstructions have received most attention.These 'scenes from deep time' (Rudwick 1992), equippingprehistoric people with clothes and tools and staging them in a pristinelandscape, mostly appear in newspapers, children's books, museumdisplays and other popular media. As pictorial reconstructions always gobeyond what archaeological data reveal, the illustrator is obliged todepict aspects about which the material evidence is silent. InMolyneaux's volume, Simon James Simon James refers to these people: Simon James (actor), a Canadian actor in African Skies Simon James (actor II), an actor in Love Jones Simon James (hockey player), a British hockey player Simon James (musician), of Acoustic Alchemy (1997) gives an intriguing accountof the decisions he was forced to take in his Boxgrove reconstruction.He concludes: 'Palaeolithic archaeology, being relatively"uninhibited uninhibited/un��in��hib��it��ed/ (un?in-hib��i-ted) free from usual constraints; not subject to normal inhibitory mechanisms. " by data, has maximal scope for speculation,error, controversy, and the projection of one's ownprejudices' (1997: 45).The historical analyses of these images have mostly focused onunderlying preconceptions. Gender archaeologists have repeatedly pointedto the traditional sex roles assumed in these drawings: men are nearlyalways shown hunting or flint-knapping; women seem to do little otherthan preparing skins or some other crouching activity (Burtt 1987;Hurcombe 1995). Quite independent from their empirical base, pictorialreconstructions are mirrors in which the ever-changing ideologies of thepresent are reflected. Next to this short-term influence, other scholarshave stressed the impact of long-term concepts on humanity, savagenessand bestiality BestialitySee also Perversion.AsteriusMinotaur born to Pasiphaë and Cretan Bull. [Gk. Myth.: Zimmerman, 34]Ledaraped by Zeus in form of swan. [Gk. Myth. (Gamble 1992; Stringer & Gamble 1993: 18-33; Moser& Gamble 1997; Stoczkowski 1990; 1997). For them, prehistoric scenesrepeat a long iconographic tradition in Western culture; pictures of ahairy, slouching and club-wielding Neanderthal are transformations ofthe iconography of the Plinyan races, the medieval wildmen andethnographic savages. In this approach, also, images are seen aspassively reflecting external ideas.Attention on popular reconstructions has prevented an appreciation ofthe role of images at the heart of archaeological science Archaeological science (also known as Archaeometry) is the application of scientific techniques and methodologies to archaeology.Archaeological science can be divided into the following areas: itself.Stephanie Moser, however, has repeatedly argued that reconstructions aremore than simply reflections of scientific and non-scientific beliefsbut 'influential documents which play a part in the shaping ofarchaeological debates' (1992: 831). Studying the pictorialreconstructions of Neanderthals (1992) and australopithecines (1996),she asserts, 'the image is more than a summary of data, it is adocument which contains a theory' (1992: 837). Just before thefirst World War, the discussion on the phylogenetic phy��lo��ge��net��icadj.1. Of or relating to phylogeny or phylogenetics.2. Relating to or based on evolutionary development or history. place of theNeanderthals between Boule bouleDeliberative council in the city-states of ancient Greece. It existed in almost all constitutional city-states, especially from the late 6th century BC. In Athens the boule was created as an aristocratic body by Solon in 594 BC; later, under Cleisthenes, 500 members and Keith was flanked by two popular but verydifferent reconstructions - the one portraying the Neanderthal as ahairy beast, the other showing a noble savage Noble SavageChactasthe “noble savage” of the Natchez Indians; beloved of Atala. [Fr. Lit.: Atala]Chingachgookidealized noble Indian. [Am. Lit. . Moser (1992: 831) states:'It is my contention that visual dialogue had a central place inthe production of scientific knowledge on the Neanderthals'. Here,drawings do not reflect but actually constitute knowledge.Moser's attempt to understand 'the relationship between ourvisual language and archaeological knowledge production' (Moser& Gamble 1997: 186) is intriguing because it moves the discussionfrom how pictures are made to how they function in science. Yet sincepictorial reconstructions mostly appear in the popular press, how do theillustrated magazine pictures direct working scientists? The scenic andthe scientific only rarely interfere; it cannot suffice to studyreconstructions while neglecting the type of publication, itsdissemination and its readership.Technical illustrations are, unlike pictorial reconstructions,central to science. They appear in publications which are read, citedand copied by colleague scientists. Though the interpretive margin isless broad than with scenic reconstructions, technical illustrations arenot objective either. They are interpretive and theory-laden in a waywhich only differs in degree from the fancy images in popular magazines.A scientific illustration is a selective, highly-conventionalizedrepresentation of a much more complicated reality. Whereas a popularillustrator has to add certain aspects to the bones, a scientificdraughtsman constantly has to omit parts of the real fossil. Reductionand reconstruction are both transformations of a given reality whichneed permanent interpretation and judgement. Technical illustrations areinteresting for a critical history of archaeology The history of archaeology has been one of increasing professionalisation, and the use of an increasing range of techniques, to obtain as much data on the site being examined as possible. OriginsThe exact origins of archaeology as a discipline are uncertain. .There are few studies on the role of technical illustration inarchaeological debate; only one paper in Molyneaux's volume dealswith the issue (Bradley 1997). Yet a small case-study on the19th-century depictions of the Neanderthal skull sheds some light on theproduction, distribution and consumption of technical illustrations.Drawings of the Neanderthal skullIn 1856, in the Neander valley near Dusseldorf (Germany), fossilbones and a skull cap were discovered when a cave was blasted duringlimestone extraction works (Bach 1957; Spencer 1984; Trinkaus &Shipman 1993: 46-90). A local schoolteacher, Karl Fuhlrott, and the Bonnanatomist a��nat��o��mistn.An expert in or a student of anatomy.anatomistone skilled in anatomy. Herman Schaaffhausen undertook a preliminary study(Schaaffhausen 1858; 1861). Similar fossils had been unearthed Unearthed is the name of a Triple J project to find and "dig up" (hence the name) hidden talent in regional Australia.Unearthed has had three incarnations - they first visited each region of Australia where Triple J had a transmitter - 41 regions in all. previously in Belgium and in Gibraltar, but these had not stirred upcontroversy. Some years after its discovery, the Neanderthal becameentrenched in debates on the antiquity and the descent of man untilthese were altered by the discovery of two nearly intact skeletons fromthe Belgian cave site of Spy in 1886, and by Dubois' finds on Javaof Pithecanthropus erectus Pithecanthropus erectus:see Homo erectus. in 1891-2 (Bowler 1986: 33-5; Theunissen1989; Trinkaus & Shipman 1993: 126-58).Palaeoanthropology was an incipient science at that time. Since onlyfew human fossils were known, there was no tradition of illustratingthem, nor a set of standardized conventions. Even in anatomy, where thework of all these scholars found its intellectual and disciplinaryroots, regular conventions were only being formulated around this time,particularly in the work o f the British physician Henry Gray (1858; cf.Ford 1992; Roberts & Tomlinson 1992). The early decades ofNeanderthal research were a time of iconographic experimenting[ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 1, 2 & 3 OMITTED]. The issue at stake wasnot only how to draw a fossil skull but also how to convince the readersthat the drawing is accurate. The first question belongs to theproduction stage of a drawing, the second to its consumption.ProductionDuring the 1860s and 1870s conventions were invented within specifictheoretical contexts. Early Neanderthal depictions often stressedcharacteristics suggesting primitiveness. To understand these it isinstructive to report the opinion of a later critic, Worthington GeorgeSmith (1894), who explicitly criticized the early drawings almost 40years after the discovery. Smith, a devoted amateur archaeologist whowas trained as an architect, gained his living as a scientificillustrator (Dyer 1978). His comments and his own drawing [ILLUSTRATIONFOR FIGURE 4 OMITTED] are extremely valuable.In the second half of the 19th century, technical drawings weremostly made with an optical instrument called a camera lucida (Hammond& Austin 1987), a small device developed in the early 19th centuryand popular among explorers, artists, architects and scientists. Huxley(1863: 161), for example, said that 'the outlines [of theNeanderthal skull] are copied from very accurate Camera lucida drawingsby my friend Mr. Busk'. The implement is based on a simple opticalprinciple of reflection in a four-sided prism, mounted on a rod, throughwhich the artist sees object and pencil at the same time [ILLUSTRATIONFOR FIGURE 5 OMITTED]. Unlike a camera obscura, there is no projectionof the image on to the paper, only a reflection. The camera lucidaallowed quick sketches to be made with a reliable perspective;photographic accuracy could not be obtained with it. If, said acontemporary. in 1831, the inventor had not discovered 'a Royalroad to drawing, he has at least succeeded in Macadamising the wayalready known' (quoted in Hammond & Austin 1987: 87).Trained as an architect and with the profession of illustrator, Smithwas well acquainted with the problem of perspective drawing and thecamera lucida (Dyer 1978: 142). A short distance between camera andobject resulted in a distortion of perspective; the closer partsenlarged and the further reduced. When drawing the Neanderthal skull,Smith stated that '[i]f the camera is placed too near theeye-orbits, the ridges become exaggerated, and the body of the skullbehind is made too small' (Smith 1894: 16). He advised placing theskull 2 feet away from the camera, not 1 foot such as was all toofrequently the practice. Comparing Smith's own drawing with earlierones, the differences are obvious. In Schaaffhausen's andHuxley's depiction, the prominent brow ridges even seem broaderthan the skull itself, while the Neanderthal's voluminous cranium cranium:see skull. is greatly reduced. Smith's drawing shows a more moderatesuperciliary region and a higher cranial vault cranial vaultObstetrics The bones that form the movable part of the fetal skull–bones–2 frontal, 2 parietal, occipital, and mold themselves to the ♀birth canal, allowing passage of a cephalic-presenting infant .A second conventional practice involved the orientation of the skull.Before the international acceptance of the Francfort plane, there was nostandard way to orientate or��i��en��tatev.To orient. a skull. 'This relic has sometimes beendrawn so much below a proper point of sight that little but eye-ridgesis seen,' Smith noted, remarking that '[t]he point of sightshould also be exactly level with the centre of the eye-orbits. If thisrule is not observed, there will either be too much or too littleforehead' (Smith 1894: 15-16). Drawn with a backwards inclination,Schaaffhausen's and Huxley's Neanderthals had a reducedforehead, a small brain case and strongly protruding eyebrows. GeorgeBusk busk?intr.v. busked, busk��ing, busksTo play music or perform entertainment in a public place, usually while soliciting money. , who translated Schaaffhausen's study and added some morefigures, realized this problem. All skulls, he stated, should be'placed as nearly as possible in the same direction':'The position selected is that in which a line drawn from thejunction of the sagittal sagittal/sag��it��tal/ (saj��i-t'l)1. shaped like an arrow.2. situated in the direction of the sagittal suture; said of an anteroposterior plane or section parallel to the median plane of the body. and coronal cor��o��naladj.1. Of or relating to a corona, especially of the head.2. Of, relating to, or having the direction of the coronal suture or of the plane dividing the body into front and back portions. sutures [this is on the top of theskull] to the middle of the external auditory openings would bevertical' (in Schaaffhausen 1861: 176). This is a clever solutionif both points are known. But the parts with the auditory openings arenot preserved in the Neanderthal skull and the sutures were impossibleto discern (Davis 1864). The fossil could be positioned at any angle! Anextreme example comes from de Quatrefages & Hamy's illustration[ILLUSTRATION FOR FIGURE 3 OMITTED] in the first volume of their Crania cra��ni��a?n.A plural of cranium. ethnica (1873). Here, the skull's orientation is exceedinglybackwards. Although the caption says it is a frontal view ('vu deface'), the term basilar-frontal view would be more appropriate. Inusing a modern cast of the Neanderthal skull, I found that the facialpart had to be raised by at least 7 centimetres to achieve this view.A third and final difference is Smith's use of classical drawingtechniques. The clear outline, the abundant white, the sober shading,and even the slightly elongated right eyebrow in his drawing all suggestregularity. Gradual shading indicates a smooth transition between browridges and forehead, making the eyebrows less prominent. This contrastsmarkedly with the robust brow ridges in the three other depictions.Through the use of different shading techniques the upper sides arecontrasted with the forehead and by heavily shading the under sides, arobust character is evoked.In sum, the older drawing conventions gave the Neanderthal massiveand prominent brow ridges, a short and strongly receding forehead, and asmall skull with a low cranial vault. With these three conventions, anyskull can be altered in multiple ways. Using a cast of the Neanderthalskull and a Watkins and Hill camera lucida from the mid-19th century(Whipple Science Museum, University of Cambridge, Inventory Number1265), I have tried to demonstrate that one can make the Neanderthal asprimitive or as advanced as required by simply altering distance,orientation and shading. The left column in FIGURE 6 uses theconventions of the early drawings, the right column follows Smith'salternative instructions. Both drawings are 'correct', infollowing a standard set of conventions. The matter is not which of thetwo is more objective. Objectivity is not a criterion to assess theaccuracy of a technical drawing; conformity to conventions is. There area hundred ways to draw a skull correctly, with different conventions;every way highlights certain aspects and hides others. Technicaldrawings are correct and theory-laden at the same time.The early Neanderthal drawings stressed features believed to beprimitive. 'A marked prominence of the supraorbital supraorbital/su��pra��or��bi��tal/ (-or��bi-t'l) above the orbit. su��pra��or��bit��aladj.Located above the orbit of the eye.supraorbitalabove the orbit. region,'says Schaaffhausen (1861: 166), 'occurs most frequently in thecrania of barbarous races . . . which must have given the human visagean unusually savage aspect. This aspect might be termed brutal.'Craniometry craniometry/cra��ni��om��e��try/ (kra?ne-om��ah-tre) the scientific measurement of the dimensions of the bones of the skull and face.craniomet��ric cra��ni��om��e��tryn. had stipulated that a receding forehead indicatedsavageness; despite many counterexamples, a small brain case stood forlimited intelligence (Gould 1981: 8298).Alongside their drawings, Schaaffhausen, Huxley and de Quatrefages& Hamy interpreted the Neanderthal in the same primitive way. Theywere convinced that the bones were old (while Blake (1864) and Mayer(1864) thought them recent) and not pathological (while Pruner-Bey(1863) and Virchow (1872) thought them so). They did not believe itbelonged to a separate species (while King (1864) coined the term Homoneanderthalensis) but to a racial variation within Homo sapiens Homo sapiens(Latin; “wise man”)Species to which all modern human beings belong. The oldest known fossil remains date to c. 120,000 years ago—or much earlier (c. .Finally, they were convinced that the Neanderthal was human, not themissing link between man and ape postulated by evolutionary theory ''This article is about the creole theory. You may be looking for the concept of biological evolution. For other uses, see Evolution (disambiguation).Main article: Creole language The evolutionary perspective . Thissurprising consensus crosses their theoretical divergences:Schaaffhausen and Huxley were evolutionists, de Quatrefages & Hamyanti-evolutionists. Evolutionists were looking for missing late and thesea-level rise rate much too links, yet since the Neanderthal could'[i]n no sense... be regarded as the remains of a human beingintermediate between Men and Apes' (Huxley 1863: 157), they agreedwith the antievolutionist idea of 'the oldest human race hithertoknown' (de Quatrefages & Hamy 1873: 43). In short, to thesescholars the Neanderthal belonged to the oldest and most primitive ofall human races. Visually as well as verbally, the Neanderthal wasimaged and imagined as a primitive human being.Whether the drawings were intentionally manipulated for theoreticalpurposes is hard to assess. With no iconographic tradition or explicitrules, one was free to draw a skull largely according to according toprep.1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians.2. In keeping with: according to instructions.3. one'sexpectations. Conscious manipulation or not, for those who had not seenthe skull, the early drawings conveyed a savage connotation. This bringsus to the context of distribution and consumption.DistributionIn early discussions about Neanderthals the distribution of graphicrepresentations played a crucial role. Just as with Alma-Tadema'spaintings, the fossils were mainly known through representations. Theskull and the bones were Fuhlrott's private property, and he didnot show them to many. Only very few scholars in Britain and on theContinent had seen the skull or obtained a cast. Originally, evenSchaaffhausen was using a cast (Trinkaus & Shipman 1993: 49), and hehad to ask Fuhlrott's permission to mould an endocast(Schaaffhausen 1863). Schaaffhausen's principal opponent, RudolfVirchow, could only study the remains in Fuhlrott's house aftergaining access from his wife when Fuhlrott was away (Erickson 1974:148). In France, Pruner-Bey was given a cast by Schaaffhausen (1863) andthe British scholars Huxley (1863) and King (1864) had obtained one fromFuhlrott. The eminent geologist Charles Lyell Sir Charles Lyell, 1st Baronet, KT, (November 14, 1797 – February 22, 1875) was a Scottish lawyer, geologist, and populariser of uniformitarianism.Charles Lyell was born in Kinnordy, Angus, the eldest of ten children. travelled to Neanderthalin 1860 when he was preparing his Geological evidences of the antiquityof man (1863; Wendt 1971: 53; Grayson 1983; Van Riper 1993). Lyell ismost likely the only British scholar who has seen the actual skull; as ageologist working on the antiquity of man, his main expertise andinterest was in sediments and stratigraphy stratigraphy,branch of geology specifically concerned with the arrangement of layered rocks (see stratification). Stratigraphy is based on the law of superposition, which states that in a normal sequence of rock layers the youngest is on top and the oldest on the , less in fossils. The chapterin his Evidences devoted to the Neanderthal fossil was actually writtenby the anatomist Huxley - who had himself not seen the skull but who'requested Sir Charles Lyell to be so good as to obtain for me fromDr. Fuhlrott, the possessor of the skull, answers to certain queries,and if possible a cast, or at any rate drawings, or photographs'(Huxley 1863: 140; see also Desmond 1994: 299). Apart from Lyell'sobservation and the few casts, the only available visual informationcame from publications. The visual replaced the fossil evidence.While the skull was immobile, the early drawings were extremelymobile, appearing in crucial and widely distributed Adj. 1. widely distributed - growing or occurring in many parts of the world; "a cosmopolitan herb"; "cosmopolitan in distribution"cosmopolitanbionomics, environmental science, ecology - the branch of biology concerned with the relations between organisms publications of thetime. Schaaffhausen's preliminary report from 1858 was a first-handaccount of the skull; its English translation (1861) became well-knownas it was published in Huxley's own influential periodical, theNatural History Review. Huxley's essay Man's place in nature(1863), the written version of a popular lecture series, became aVictorian bestseller. Along with his chapter in Lyell's Evidences,this masterpiece of palaeontological Adj. 1. palaeontological - of or relating to paleontologypaleontological reasoning was widely read. Craniaethnica compiled by Armand de Quatrefages & Ernest Hamy was aprestigious atlas of racial variation amongst human skulls, publishedwith outstanding illustrations between 1873 and 1882. Many universitylibraries today still have a copy of it. The Neanderthal volume,appearing in 1873, became the standard description, depiction andinterpretation of the Neanderthal remains before the Spy discovery in1886 (Erickson 1974: 174-83). So, the early Neanderthal researchers notonly immobilized or fixed a certain view of the Neanderthal on paper,they also mobilized this view over Europe through widely distributedpublications. The drawings were genuine 'immutable mobiles'(Latour 1990: 26-35): fixed visual reports that were displaced anddistributed.ConsumptionWhat is eventually to be mobilized is not just a drawing, but thereaders' opinion. Schaaffhausen, Huxley and de Quatrefages &Hamy were equally successful here. Despite different evolutionist ev��o��lu��tion��ism?n.1. A theory of biological evolution, especially that formulated by Charles Darwin.2. Advocacy of or belief in biological evolution. sympathies, their interpretation of 'the oldest human race'became generally accepted and silenced many alternative views for nearlya quarter of a century. It was only challenged in 1883 by de Mottillet,and at the turn of the century by Schwalbe and Keith, who all sawNeanderthals as ancestral to modern humans (Spencer 1984; Bowler 1986:68-87; Richard 1992; Trinkaus & Shipman 1993: 1568).The success of this early consensus, I presume, was facilitated bythe illustrations. Despite the tacit suggestions of savageness, mostreaders regarded the drawings as neutral depictions of the skull. Beforethe advent of scientific photography, the camera lucida was widely seenas a reliable drawing device. The positivist pos��i��tiv��ism?n.1. Philosophya. A doctrine contending that sense perceptions are the only admissible basis of human knowledge and precise thought.b. longing for a'mechanical objectivity' was generously responded to by theoptical authority of the camera lucida which suppressed the'suspicion of subjectivity' (Daston & Galison 1992: 117).Looking at a drawing of the Neanderthal, a naturalist in London or ananthropologist in Paris could believe he was observing the real skullwhich Fuhlrott kept hidden in his Rhineland country house. Therepresentation turned the physical absence into visual presence. Just asRichard Boyle's detailed descriptions of his 17th-century gasexperiments were meant to make his audience feel present, the technicaldrawings of the fossils allowed the reader to 'virtuallywitness' the Neanderthal bones (Shapin 1984).With their faithful reproduction of the perspective, camera lucidaoutlines produced drawings which looked real. Geometric drawings, whichresulted in less realistic images, preserved angles, so another form ofvirtual witnessing was possible: one could take one's ownmeasurements on the drawings. This was the case with the magnificentlithographs in the second volume of Crania ethnica (which did notcontain the Neanderthal, however)***:' one can verify on [ourfigures] the majority of the measurements as shown in our tables or eventake new ones' (de Quatrefages & Hamy 1873: vi). The debateover the relative merits of perspective and geometric drawings inanatomy dates back to at least the 18th century. Yet both techniquesresponded to the reader's need for virtual witnessing: the onelooked real, the other could be measured as if it was real. Thisdiscussion reminds us that drawings, no matter how conventional, arealways 'constructed to be realistic' (Lynch 1991: 207).The early Neanderthal drawings were powerful rhetorical documents indisseminating a certain view on the fossil. The failure of alternativetheories to gain acceptance rests partly on the lack of a coherentvisual programme. Yet, the images were not so much cogent because theycontained a theory, but because they were seen as objective in spite oftheir theory. It is hardly new to state that technical drawings aretheory-laden, but it is fascinating to see how they are still trusted asaccurate at the same time. If you had not seen the real skull, youlooked at a drawing which seemed in all respects sound and which wellsupported the accompanying interpretation. Certainly, an illustrationallows the reader to virtually observe the fossil, but this observationalways occurs through the eyes of another. A good drawing is like aTrojan horse: to be rhetorically effective, its interpretation must behidden inside.Acknowledgements. Part of this research was originally undertaken formy M.Phil thesis in archaeology at Cambridge. I received financialsupport from the British Academy, the British Council (Brussels) andlater also the Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research. Fordiscussion and comments, I am indebted to Barbara Bender, RaymondCorbey, Dirk Jacobs, Jan Kolen, James McAllister, Tim Murray, JosePollard, Nathalie Richard, Wil Roebroeks, Nathan Schlanger, WiktorStoczkowski, Bert Theunissen, Martin Wobst and two anonymous referees.Special thanks are due to Margaret Bellatti from the BiologicalAnthropology Department (Cambridge) for lending me a cast of theNeanderthal skull, Jim Bennett, former curator of the Whipple ScienceMuseum (Cambridge) for letting me use the precious Watkins & Hillcamera lucida, and, finally, Colin Forbes, former curator of theSedgwick Geology Museum (Cambridge), for instructing me how to draw witha camera lucida. Virtual witnessing of my drawing experiment was madepossible through Teresa Anderson's photographs; Nigel Pleasants washelpful in checking my English. 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