ANTHROPOS
The Department of Anthropology
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

The State System of Higher Education
Volume 25, Issue 6

BU Student Wins Prestigious Award
BU anthropology major
Anne Marie Beisswanger
won first pri2e in the poster
competition at the annual
meetings of the Society for
Applied Anthropology, which
were held in Merida, Mexico,
March 22 t.o 25, 2001. What
makes this award especially
significant was that Annie
was the only undergraduate
student entered in the competition; she was competing
against graduate students
from all over the United
States and from other countries.
Annie's poster was based
on the Children's Archaeology Project oonducted last
summer at Camp Victory
near Millville. While work-

ing at Camp Victory, Annie
arranged to have Drs. Wymer and Warner, as well as
anthropology student.a, Brian
Kneeland, Abby Thomas,
and Jason Thomas, create a
two-layered archaeological
site for the children to excavate and analyze. Annie also
organi7.ed a symposium fur
the conference based around
the experience and presented
a paper there.-

Annie was caught completely by surprise by the
award. She received an invitation to the conference banquet and attended, thinking
that was just part of the
process of attending a conference. She was ama7.ed
when, after the Margaret

Mead prize was awarded to a
faculty member, her name
was called. The award also
carried a $300 cash pri2e.
Annie is a senior majoring in both anthropology and
communication studies. She
will be attending graduate
school in anthropology next
year at Temple University in
Philadelphia. This summer
she will help students and
faculty organize stage two of
the Camp Victory project.

Inside this issue:
2001 SSHE Anthropology
Conference

2

Triclcsters in Native
American Religions

3

The Bili Ape Disappoints

4

New Culture Found In
Brazil

4

New Fossil Find From
Kenya

s

Archaeological Sites
Looted

5

Special points of interest:
• BU Anthropology News-p. 4

Lambda Alpha Students Honored
At its annual Awards
Luncheon for students, the
Department of Anthropology
welcomed new initiates into
Lambda Alpha, the national
honorary society for anthro·pology. The luncheon was
held on May 3 in the Hideaway in Kehr Union.

The new initiates are Bradley Boothe, Dorothy Busch,
Jillian Forschner, Roland
Gensel, Heidi Hutdiings,
Bethany Klein, Brian Kneeland, Lauren M~ Janet
Robinson, Jamie Stiely,Nicole
Toth, and Lindsay Waros.
The advisor to Lambda Alpha

• A Minor in Anthropology-p.

is Dr. Warner. Bloomsburg
University is the Zeta Chapter
of Lambda Alpha in Pennsylvania. Bloomsburg joined
Lambda Alpha in 1996.

6

• How to Contact Us-p. 6

2001 SSHE Anthropology Conference by Dr. Dee Anne Wymer
On Friday, April 6, five BU anthropology students and Dr. Wymer left campus at 7:30 A.M. for the long, five-hour
trip to the campus of California University of Pennsylvania for th~ 200 I SSHE
Anthropology Undergraduate Research
Conference. After arriving and settling
into our hotel, we met Dr. John Nass of
CUP and his students for a trip to the famous Meadowcroft Rockshelter Site.
This site has perhaps the oldest levels
with human occupation in the New
World. The oldest verified material has
been radiocarbon dated to approximately
15-16,000 years ago.
The site is nestled in a beautiful, rug-

ged nu-al valley and now has a new visitor's center. Unfortunately, due to the
nearly all-day rain, we were not permitted to enter the rockshelter. The slope to
the site is especially treacherous, and the
director was also hesitant about tracking
in contaminating mud. However, Dr.
Mark McConaughy of the Pennsylvania
State Museum, who participated in the
excavations at the rockshelter as a graduate student, gave a splendid lecture about
the site.
In the evening, we attended a dinner
hosted by CUP and were entertained by
two individuals who lectured about creating authentic bows and arrows based on

Native·American technology and who
also knapped their own stone arrow
points.
The conference took place the following day, with a series of interesting papers
by students from CUP, Indiana University

SSHE Conference (Continued)
of Pennsylvania, Slippery Rock, and, of
course, Bloomsburg. I may be bi~
but I do believe that our students presented some of the best and most interesting pa-pers at the -session. Perhaps the
most distinctive element of the BU presentations was that they were based on
actual archaeological or ethnological
fieldwork. Abby Thomas described our
Camp Victory project, which entailed
creating a ''mock" site with a Native
American and a Colonial level for children who are physically challenged to
excavate and interpret.

Christine Coulmas delighted the audience with her descriptions of her archaeological experiences at the famous
Israeli site of Meggido. Latoya Lopez
impressed the cooference participants
with -her applied project in the village of
Pias Bajos, where she spent an intensive
three months working with teachers and
community members. This llllique internship and independent study was initiated and directed by Dr. Jesus SalasElorza and Dr. Faith Warner. Finally,
Amy Graf revealed a lovely presentation
style that was undoubtedly honed by her

'1 may be biased, but I do believe
that our students presented some
of the best and most interesting
papers at the session."
Dr. Wymer

remarkable internship at the highly respected Museum of Jewish Heritage in
New York City. Amy conducted tours

BU Student Presentations
and school visits, describing Jewish heritage, and especially the impact of the
Holocaust on the world;
The event ended with a discussion of
which institution would host the conference in 2002. I suggested that Bloomsbw;g would love to invite the SSHE anthropologists to view our new facilities in
Centennial Hall. Thus, the Bloomsburg
University Anthropology Department

· Volume 25, Issue 6

will proudly host the 2002 conforence
next March. On the way home, we detoured to State College where a grand
finale to the conference took place at the
Red Lobster. The graduating seniors in
the group were lamenting that they
would miss the 2002 conference.
The BU presentatim titles were:
''The CampVictory Children's Archaeological Project," Annie Beisswanger and

Abby Thomas.
"Digging at Meggido 2000," Christine
Coulmas.
''Mexico: The Status and Role of
Women in a Small Community," Latoya

Lopez.
"Leaming the Holocaust," Amy Graf.
Seth Mitchell also attended the conference.

Page 1.

Tricksters in Native American Religion
Tricksters were common figures in
Native American mythology. Supernatural in origin, tricksters played an
important mythological role in giving
significant technologies or cultural
traits, such as fire or food plants, to a
particular cultural group, though often
unintentionally. Tricksters were not
thought to be ooncerned with human
welfare; rather their gifts to humanity
were usually the result of a joke or an
accident. Tricksters were often seen as
good-natured buffoons, and trickster
tales were a source of entertainment as
well as morality tales for children

The fundamental characteristic of a
trickster figure was its ambiguous nature. Tricksters were supernatural in
origin, but they were definitely not godlike. They laughed, played jokes, and
reveled in bawdy or scandalous behavior. They most often took the form of
an animal, especially a coyote, raven, or
hare--but an animal that oould talk
and act like a human.
Never the biggest, strongest, or bestlooking of supernatural characters,
tricksters lived by their wits. Nevertheless, they were usually too clever for
their own good, with their schemes or

jokes rebounding on them to get them
into trouble. In fact, the sly trickster
was also a numbskull, fooled by his own
guile into fighting with his own reflection or eating his own body parts. Even
successful tricks seldom paid off for the
trickster; after securing a meal through
a trick, for example, the meal would be
lost through the trickster's foolishness.
Many of a trickster's actions might
seem heroic, such as :fighting with a
monster or giving humans some key
skill such as flint knapping, but the heroic behavior was usually unintentional. Moreover, the hero trickster often turned around and next did some-

The Nez Perce Origin Myth
disrespectful or disreputable. Tricksters
wandered the earth, with their enormous
appetites for food or sex getting them
into one fix after another. Tricksters
' were also ageless. They could die, and
often did as a result of their exploits;
however, they were able to survive death
and rebound in another form or be caught
in another predicament.
Tricksters were often seen as the creators of a particular culture. For example,
among the Nez Perce, the trickster was
Coyote. In the Nez Perce origin myth, a
monster exists that eats all the animals

except Coyote, who ties himself to a high
mountain to escape. Finding he cannot
reach Coyote, the monster befriends him
instead. Using his friendship, Coyote
asks ifhe can go into the monster's stomach and visit his animal friends who were
eaten, and to this the monster agrees.
Once inside the monster's stomach, Coyote builds a fire and then cuts out the
monster's heart with a knife; all the animals are able to escape. Coyote dismembers the monster with his knife and
throws the parts around the earth. Everywhere a piece lands, a tribe of Indians is

created. When Coyote is finished, his
friend Fox points out that there is no tribe
on the spot where the monster died. So
Coyote washes the monster's blood from
his hands and lets the drops fall to the
ground; the Nez Perce are created in this
way. Coyote says, "Here on this ground
I will make the Nez Perce. They will be
few in number, but they will be strong
and pure."
Trickster tales were usually narrated
by highly respected members in the community. These specialists memorized the
tales and presented them in creative and

listening. In addition, trickster tales
were presented as morality tales for
children As the trickster found himself
in trouble because of excessive pride,
lust, or greed, children could be re•
minded of proper behavior. The trickster tales also served as safety valves

for adults by making fun of serious rituals or difficult social situations. When
the trickster joked with his mother-inlaw or flaunted the fasts that accompanied many rituals, he was doing something many would have liked to do, but
could not.

Telling the Tale . ..
dramatic tellings. Most of the members
of the community knew the outline of
the tales, but the specialist's acting
abilities brought them alive. Trickster
tales were entertaining. The combination of buffonery, scandalous behavior,
and drama in the tales made them good

--- ----·Page 3

-·- 7

ANTHROPOS

I

A occasional feature on National
Public Radio's Morning Edition program is National Geographic's "Radio
Expedition." This program brings live
· reports from NPR correspondent Alex
Chadwick as he accompanies explorers
into unusual or challenging locations.
On March 26-29, 2001, Chadwick reported on the search for the Bili ape, a
thought-to-be unknown species located
in a remote rain forest in the northeast
corner of the Democratic Republic of
the Congo in Central Africa.
A century ago, a huge simian skull
was brought out of that region by an-

other explorer. Since that time, occasional reports have filtered out of a
large ape, more chimpanzee like than
gorilla. This was the first scientific exploration of the region, an area made
unreachable much of the time by dense
forest, poor roads, and most recently, a
civil war. Reknowned primatologist
Richard Wrangham led the expedition
which also included famed naturalist
George Schaller.
The team found the forest almost
unpenetrable. They had to hack their
way through thick underbrush. They
heard chimpanzees at a distance, but

could never get close enough t;o see
them. The chimps, being arboreal,
moved through the trees, and the terrestrial humans made so much noise as
they followed that the chimps knew
they were coming and easily moved on.
After four days of exploration, all the
team had for its trouble was a sleeping
nest, some feces, and a cast of a large
footprint in the mud next to a stream.
In examining the feces, Wrangham declared the creature to have left them to
be a chimp. Disappointed, the team left
the area, believing that the Bili ape is
most likely a chimpanzee.

BU1\nthropology Nevvs
Dr. Faith Warner gave birth to a
son, Rodriko, on March 11, 2001.
Rodriko's father is Dr. Jesus SalasElorza of the Department of Languages
& Cultures.

three Geisinger Medical Center physicians, all of whom spoke about delivering health care to migrant laborers.

Dr. Tom Aleto presented a paper,
''The Migrant Farmworker's Clinic: Ad,dressing the Health Needs of an Underserved Population in Northumberland
County, PA," at the 10th Annual
Bloomsburg University Health Sciences
Symposium on April 6, 2001. Also appearing on the program with him were

artifacts at the annual meetings of the
Society for American Archaeology
Meetings which will be held April 18-22
in New Orleans. Also attending will be
BU students Lyle Ash, Annie
Beisswanger, Niyata Gemechisa,
Krista Ingram, Jessica Katterman, and
Seth Mitchell.

Dr. Dee Anne Wymer will be presenting her research on Hopewell copper

The BU Dance Ensemble performed
on April 5 and 6, 2001. Dr. Sue Dauria
is the adviser for the Ensemble.
The Department of Anthropology will
be moving into its new facilities in the
renovated Centennial Hall in May. Feel
free to stop by and see our new quarters. ·
Anthropology is located on the first floor.
Dr. Dee Anne Wymer has been
elected chairperson of the Department of
Anthropology for the 2001-2002 year.

New Cu ltu re Found in Brazil
On April 9, 2001, the Brazilian government announced the discovery of an
Amazonian Indian tribe never before
exposed to Western culture. The Tsohon-djapa tribe lives in an area known
as the Vale do Javari in a region between two Amazon River tributaries.
An 11-member team from the Federal
Indian Bureau met with 30 members of
the group earlier this month.

Page 4

The Tsohon-djapa were discovered
last month when a government reconnaissance team flew over their territory
and photographed a previously undetected village of 16 long houses. Brazil
says it hopes to keep contact with these
people to a minimum.

"new'' culture discovered since the early
1970's.. Some previous claims have
turned out to be hoaxes or cultures that
had been contacted earlier and then
forgotten.

Until now, there has not been a

ANTHROPOS

New Fossil Find From Kenya
One of the constants of ANTHROPOS is that there will always be another announcement of yet another fossil find from some part of the world.
Since the last issue, Meave Leakey announced the discovery of a 3.5 million
year old skull from Kenya. The skull
~as actually discovered in August 1999
by Justus Erus, a Leakey research assistant, but the original find was in so
many pieces that it took over a year to
put it altogether and analyze it.
Students in Human Origins (46.220)
class will be alarmed to hear that a new
name has been coined for this find-

Kenyanthropus platyops, or "flat-faced
hominid of Kenya." The name indicates
the remarkable feature of this find-a
flat face more like that of modern humans than other specimens from the
same time period. The new discovery
also has smaller teeth than previous
discoveries, again a feature more like
modern humans.
Kenyanthropus threatens to unseat
Lucy, or Australopithecus afarensis, as
a likely ancestor to humans; the two
specimens date from the same time period. Lucy, Donald Johanson's discovery from 1974, has long been considered

the best candidate as a human ancestor. Now Lucy, with her protruding
face, large teeth, long arms, and short
legs looks like a cousin instead, a possibility even admitted to by Johanson.
The discovery of Kenyanthropus
demonstrates clearly that human evolution was not a simple straight line of
descent. Rather, it is likely that at
every time period in the past, there
were several hominids, each one of
which might have become an ancestor.
Or as one writer put it, ''What we do
know is that ... the tree of life is looking
downright bushy."

Looting of Archaeological Sites Continues
Last month, ANTHROPOS reported
on tombs discovered in Peru from the
Moche culture. It was noted that the site
had been looted by people searching for
' treasme since colonial times. The archaeologists made their discoveries in an area
looters had overlooked.
Looting areas of past human habitation has been going on for centuries.
Virtually every archaeological discovery
in Egypt, for example, was looted in the
ancient past; in some cases, royal tombs
were looted almost as soon as they were
sealed. The famous tomb of Tutankha-

mun was protected only because debris
from one tomb being looted was piled on
the entrance to another.
In this country, the looting ofNative
American sites goes on as the demand for
Native American artifacts soars. Archaeological sites are protected when
they are on federal lands, such as an Indian reservation or a national park,
though the vastness of many federal
holdings makes the detection of looters
very difficult. An archaeological site on
private land is protected only by trespass
laws. If caught, a looter faces a maxi-

mum penalty of 5 years in prison.
Archaeologists decry the looting of
archaeological sites because looters are
typically interested only in an artifact,
such as an intact pot, that will sell. To
get that artifact, looters will destroy everything else in their way, including human remains. A recent article in the Salt
Lake Tribune describes the bmial bundle
of an infant ripped apart by looters, the
skull of the baby tossed aside as garbage.
U.S. Attorney Wayne Dance is quoted as
saying, "You look at what these people
do and it just makes you sick."

hundred percent of anthropologists doing
work in South· Asia report being exposed
to malaria and 41 % contract the disease.
Thirteen percent report having hepatitis
A. Accidents kill and injure researchers.
Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo died when
she fell from a steep mountain trail in the
Philippines in 1981 ... One of us cannot
recall a single instance in his own research when he had not come with dys-

entery in the field. The other-he of the
cast iron constitution--can only recall
two instances of being ill for more than a
day or two while in the field, but he was
beset by other hazards of the fieldwork
enterprise: a broken arm, a cut that required stitches, two unsuccesful coups
d'etat in two different countries, and a
successful one in a third."

Notes and Queries
From Cultmal Anthropology by
Sheldon Smith and Philip Young:
''Nancy Howell has written a book
with the title Smviving Fieldwork
(1990). She surveyed 204 anthropologists about illnesses and accidents in the
field. In the foreword, [Roy] Rappaport
notes the maxim, 'anthropologists are
otherwise sensible people who don't believe in the germ theory of illness.' One

,---- - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - -- - -- - -- - - - - - - -----·- Volume 25, Issue 6

..... ___ ______..,_ . -----· - -·· -

__________.. __. "1
Page 5

I

The Stat e• System of Higher
Educa tt,)n
Department of Anthropology
Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania
400 E. 2nd Street
Bloomsburg University
Dr. David Minderhout, Editor
Phone: 570-389-4859
Fax: 570-389-5015
Email: dminderh@bloomu.edu

We're Oil the Web! WWW.
ltlOOlllll.eLIU/lle11artme11ts/
anthro/

Anthropology i:s the most humanistic
of t he sciences and the most

sdentific of the humanities.
Eric Wolf_
, 1970

ANTHROPOS, the Anthropology Newsletter, is published six times during the
academic year and is mailed to interested students, faculty, administrators,
and alumni. It is also distributed in
anthropology classes and made available on the department's home page. If
you would like to be on the newsletter
mailing list, please contact Dr. Dave
Minderhout at the address and numbers on the left.
The Department of Anthropology
offers a 36 credit B.A degree and a 18
credit minor in anthropology. If you
would like details, please see any of the
anthropology faculty.

A Minor ·in Anthropology
The Department of Anthropology
offers an 18 credit minor in anthropology. Three courses are required for
completion of the minor. They are:
46.200, Principles of Cultural
Anthropology
46.210, Prehistoric Archaeology
46.220, Human Origins
The remaining nine credits are electives to be chosen in consultation with
an anthropology faculty member.
Students wishing to minor in anthropology should pick up a form from
the department office in G05 OSH.
Once this form has been signed by a
department representative, it must be
taken to the Office of Academic Advisement. Also, in order to have the minor
list.ed on a student's final transcript, it

is necessary to obtain another form,
Verification of the Completion of a Minor. This form must also be signed by a
departmental representative, but this
one must be filed with the Registrar's
Offire. This second st.ep is the one most
often missed.

Currently, there are 27 students minoring in anthropology.

Thus ends the 25th year of publication for the Anthropology newslett.er.