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The presence of an upright stone some meters east of the burial may indicate that other significant archeological remains are to be found in the immediate vicinity of these burials. The presence of wide spread fire pit debris covering the burials is also interesting and is probably indicative of a much later phenomena (i.e. it is doubtful that fire pits would be placed anywhere near burial sites) It must be further mentioned that the heat from a nearby fire pit could have played some part in the deterioration of bones however I cannot imagine how this could affect all bones and it would have to have been the same with the second burial which showed as much or more deterioration. Unfortunately I have very little information as to the survival of bone in humid compact sterile sand. Normally the temperature of such environments is remarkably stable, within the tropics, sub-surface temperatures may vary only 2 or 3 degrees annually. Given the absence of bacterial activity, the only other threat to bone may be the eventual leaching of the more soluble constituents, or otherwise occasional deep roots may also have a destructive influence, this was evident in the pelvic region where a number of roots had recently penetrated. Given the above speculation it will seem obvious that a radiocarbon analysis is in order. I have therefore also gathered charcoal samples from immediately above and around the remains. Monday, 26th of March, 1990. I started the day illustrating the various views of the skull and making a number of measurements. The most important of which may be the length (194mm) and the breadth (148mm) this yields a Cephalic Index of 77. This may be subject to a possible error of 2 mm in the measurements, due to the possibility that the reassembled skull may be slightly deformed. This sort of error could lift the Index to 78 or reduce it to nearly 76 however the tight joins in all directions will probably not allow such an amount of error, measurement with home made calipers could also equally result in a smaller but significant amount of error, so a number of measures were attempted in order to arrive at reasonably accurate result. An Index of 77 would suggest a quite narrow head which has more in common with the southeastern Tuamotus, Mangareva and New Zealand than Tahiti (see P. Houghton, page 79) (70-80 dolichocephalic, 80-85 mesaticephalic, 85 and over brachycephalic, Encyclopedia Britannica 1911) As George was at home in the afternoon I showed him the reassembled skull to see if he could offer any information as to the skulls orientation, however he stated that by the time he realized what sort of bones he had discovered they were already badly disorganized, his only comment of note was that he thought the mandible was at the lowest level being the last thing to be found amongst the skull fragments, further he added that he had not recovered any long bones i.e. the missing humerus. |
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