The Broken Hill Skull - 30-31 May 2018, UNESCO, Paris 21st Session of the ICPRCP 21ème session du Comité intergouvernemental

The Broken Hill Skull

            21st Session of the ICPRCP
   21ème session du Comité intergouvernemental
         30-31 May 2018, UNESCO, Paris
John Jackson, The Natural History Museum, London

The Natural History Museum
• Founded in 1753 as the British Museum with
  separate status in 1963.
• Collection of 80 million items is used for public
  engagement and display, education, scientific
  research and cultural experience.
• 4.5 million visitors yearly with free entrance to
  exhibitions.
• Worldwide collaboration on health, biodiversity,
  earth science, digital collections and other subjects.

The status of the Museum
• A public institution that operates with
  independence from Government.
• Collection is the property and responsibility of
  the Museum Trustees – not of the UK
  Government.
• Strict legal constraints on powers of Trustees to
  give away, transfer or exchange items under the
  British Museum Act 1963.

What is the Broken Hill skull?
• Fossilized cranium of Homo heidelbergensis
• A species found in Africa and Europe from 700k
  to 150k years ago.
• The Broken Hill skull is 250k years old.
• Distinct species - lacks the identifying human
  features of H. sapiens and H. neanderthalis.
• The cranium has a capacity of 1,280 cm3, large
  brow ridges and a low forehead.

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 2016;371:20150237

Discovery and removal
• Discovered in 1921 in mining operations 90 feet
  below ground by the Rhodesia Broken Hill
  Development Company Ltd.
• Large quantities of fossil animal material were
  discovered at the same site from 1907 and
  continued to be found after 1921.
• Fossil was exported from Northern Rhodesia in
  1921, brought to London by the Company.

How the skull was acquired
• Directors of the Broken Hill Development Company
  donated the cranium to the Museum in a letter of 7
  November 1921.
• The gift was recorded in Museum Trustees’ minutes
  of 28 November 1921.
• Trustees thanked the Directors through the company
  Chairman, Mr Edmund Davis.
• The fossil is owned by the Trustees of the Natural
  History Museum and is part of the collection.

Legal context 1
• It was suggested that the Bushman Relics Proclamation
  (No.15 1912), made on 8 August 1912 at Pretoria by the High
  Commissioner of Northern Rhodesia, may apply to the fossil.
• The proclamation, copying a 1911 South African Act, aims to
  protect "Bushman relics and ancient ruins". A "Bushman relic"
  is defined as
   "any drawing or painting on stone or petroglyph of the kind
   commonly known or believed to have been executed by the
   Bushmen or other aboriginals and shall include any of the
   anthropological contents of the graves, caves, rock shelters,
   middens or shell mounds of such Bushmen or other aboriginals".

Legal Context 2
• The intention of the proclamation was to protect the material
  culture of the San people or other people inhabiting or
  formerly inhabiting the area, echoing the 1911 South African
  law prompted by the South African National Society’s
  campaign on rock art
• There is no indication that the proclamation was intended to
  apply or thought at the time to apply to fossils or the remains
  of other species such as H. heidelbergensis
• The proclamation specifies rock art and items from sites
  clearly associated with the cultural practices of indigenous
  people: there is no evidence that the site of discovery at
  Broken Hill was considered to be such a site.

Legal Context 3
• There is no detectable legal objection or adverse comment from
  the authorities in 1921 or later. The fossil find was widely known
  and publicized in the press in Bulawayo, South Africa and UK.
• The fossil’s discovery and transfer was publicly facilitated by the
  Rhodesia Broken Hill Development Company at the highest level
• Northern Rhodesia Secretary of Mines was active in making the
  Museum aware of later discoveries from the mines and liaising
  with the Company to ensure that these reached the Museum,
  with no requirement for specific documentation with relation to
  local law or any suggestion that the proclamation was relevant to
  fossils or discoveries at this site.

Legal Context 4
• There is no indication that the legal authorities in Northern
  Rhodesia or South Africa regarded or intended any law as
  limiting the freedom of the Company to possess, export or
  donate the fossil cranium, or that it was thought to come
  within the scope of the proclamation.

Where is the skull?
• The skull is on free and permanent public display in
  the Natural History Museum’s Human Evolution
  gallery, which was opened in 2015
• The gallery shows the diversity and relationships of
  human relatives and ancestors over the past 7
  million years, using casts and original specimens.
• The Museum’s international collaborative research
  on human origins is emphasised in the gallery and in
  accompanying public programmes.

Conservation & Security
• Cleaned and conserved for the Human Evolution
  gallery in 2015. Condition is stable.
• The cranium is sometimes removed for research
  use and conservation assessment.
• Display in a high specification bespoke case
• The case provides a sealed environment, meets
  national standards for good security and reduces
  vibration, UV and light.

Research Background
Research in the 1920s and 1930s described the skull and
the context of discovery:
• Woodward, A.S. (1921) A new cave man from Rhodesia,
  South Africa. Nature 108: 371–2.
• Hrdlička, A. (1926) The Rhodesian Man. Am. J. Phys.
  Anthrop. 9: 173.
• Pycraft, W.P. et al. (1928) Rhodesian Man and
  Associated Remains. BM(NH), London.
• Hrdlička, A. (1930) The Skeletal Remains of Early Man.
  Smithson. misc. Collns., 83: 98-144.

Recent Research
• The past century has seen extensive scientific
  collaboration and wide reference in publications, using
  new techniques as they are developed.
• There has been progressive discovery of fossil remains of
  Homo heidelbergensis and other species that have
  generated new ideas on the evolution of this group and of
  our own species, Homo sapiens.
• New techiques continue to emerge and to generate new
  results and insights: CT scanning, DNA analysis, isotope
  analysis.
• The Museum has established a centre of excellence in
  human evolution research, a focus for international
  collaboration.

Examples of recent research
• Stringer C (2016) The origin and evolution of Homo sapiens.
  Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371: 20150237.
• Balzeau A et al. (2017) The Internal Cranial Anatomy of the
  Middle Pleistocene Broken Hill Cranium. PaleoAnthropology
  2017: 107-138.
• Godinho, RM et al. (2018) Supraorbital morphology and social
  dynamics in human evolution. Nature Ecol. & Evol. doi:
  10.1038/s41559-018-0528-0
• Godinho, RM et al. (2018) The biting performance of Homo
  sapiens and Homo heidelbergensis. J. Human Evol. 118: 56-
  71
• Godinho, RM & O’Higgins, P (2018) The biomechanical
  significance of the frontal sinus in Kabwe 1 (Homo
  heidelbergensis). J. Human Evol. 114: 141-153.

Similar fossils
• Homo heidelbergensis was widespread over Africa and
  Europe
• Up to 15 individuals have been found, dated between
  700k and 150k years.
• The first (Mauer) found in 1907 at Heidelberg in
  Germany.
• Those grouped with Broken Hill are:
   – Petralona – Greece
   – Arago – France
   – Elandsfontein - South Africa
   – Bodo - Ethiopia

Significance 1
• It is the fossil cranium of Homo heidelbergensis, a
  species existing in parallel to Homo neanderthalis and
  Homo sapiens.
• It is an internationally valuable specimen for research
  and public understanding of diversity and evolution of
  Homo.
• It is an iconic exhibit for public engagement, on
  permanent free display in a modern scientific context,
  accessible to 5 million visitors each year.

Significance 2
• The Museum provides open research access to the
  fossil as a key specimen in an excellent collection for
  comparative research
• Museum scientists collaborate internationally on
  innovative research to tell us more about this species
  and its relationships to our own.
• The collection and research is combined with new
  laboratory and digital technology in the Museum to
  explore new questions.

Past engagement
There has been earlier communication between Zambian
and UK representatives:
• 1972: correspondence between Zambia and UK Foreign
  and Commonwealth Office
• 1974: correspondence between Zambia and UK High
  Commissioner in Lusaka
• 1978: correspondence between Zambian and UK
  Ambassadors at UNESCO
• 1982: correspondence between Zambian High
  Commissioner in London and UK Foreign and
  Commonwealth Office

Recent engagement
• The Intergovernmental Committee's published modalities of
  requesting return or restitution state that only when bilateral
  negotiations have failed or have been suspended can the case
  be brought before the Committee.
• The UK, both at Government and Museum level, strongly
  believes that there is significant room for progress in bilateral
  negotiations with Zambia, and a need for closer discussion than
  the two Member States have had in the past.
• Accordingly, UK officials wrote to Zambian counterparts in April
  2017 to propose bilateral negotiations, which will allow mutual
  understanding of the issues and to arrive at a mutually agreeable
  solution on a bilateral basis.

Proposal
• The UK believes this will be the most appropriate and efficient
  way to proceed at this stage in relation to the request.
  Bilateral negotiations and discussion should be initiated.
• Zambian and UK representatives should agree an agenda for
  discussion that may include:
   – the origins and status of the cranium;
   – the administrative and legal background;
   – the scientific and cultural importance of the cranium,
      including ongoing and future research;
   – options for location and future access;
   – capacity building and institutional collaboration; and other
      matters to be agreed.