Charles Darwin, “little Dawkins” and the platycnemic Yale men: introducing a bioarchaeological tale of the descent of man

Abstract

A small box of animal bones, forwarded by Charles Darwin from North Wales, led to excavations by William Boyd Dawkins in Denbighshire between 1869 and 1872 and in Flintshire in 1886. Neglected riches of the archival record allow glimpses of Darwin and his family and contribute to this first narrative account of a pioneering episode in prehistoric archaeology which resulted in the three most important discoveries of Neolithic human remains in North Wales (and their later apparently near total disappearance). Many of the leg bones had features of the flattening of tibia (platycnemia) and femur (platymeria) first noted by George Busk in Neolithic bones from Gibraltar in 1863, and by Paul Broca at Cro-Magnon in 1868. Within a few years flattened leg bones were recognised across the globe, subsequently in samples extending back to the Middle Palaeolithic and forward to modern hunter-gatherers; platymeric shafts have been found at early hominin sites. Busk's platycnemic index and understanding of flattening as related to muscular activity anticipate the work of modern bioarchaeologists. Dawkins was recipient of a much quoted account of the Huxley-Wilberforce confrontation at Oxford and opponent of Darwin's views on human origins: his work opens up instructive perspectives.