Anthropological Scientism

“I found that this result nicely illustrated the strength of our approach as compared to a typical paleontological analysis. We used clearly defined assumptions and drew conclusions that were bounded by probabilities. Nothing approaching this in rigor could be done using morphological features of bones. Many paleontologists liked to portray what they did as rigorous science, but the very fact that they had been unable to agree on the occurrence of a genetic contribution from Neanderthals to present-day humans despite at least two decades of debate illustrated that their approach had big limitations”[1].

The above quote is a distillation of the Neanderthal genome project and one of its significant aims, the displacing of palaeontological epistemologies by those of genomics and bioengineering. The irony of course is that the quote relates to the probability of genetic contributions from Neanderthals (with Paabo’s original hypothesis being that there was no genetic contribution), and the eventual outcome of the encoding was that there was a 1-4% genetic contribution to Homo sapiens[2]. The nature of genomic enquiry ended up being as speculative and open-ended as palaeontological analysis.

Placing palaeo-anthropological studies as an inferior understanding of evolutionary history becomes the construction of an anthropological scientism. Scientific enquiry becomes an enclosure of techniques and responsibilities where the nature of evidence, the capacity to discover and encode knowledge are referential toward genomic and synthetic practices. This encoding is an enfolding as the technologies and knowledge constructions become immutable facts, above and below the discoveries themselves.

Discovery and coding of ancient DNA (aDNA) is now a fact, a form of knowledge underlying the veracity of these anthropological claims. The nature of the techniques involved are a blueprint for scientific enquiry and innovation, unproblematic in their assumptions and methodologies. Selection of specimens, laboratory decontamination, polymerase chain reaction (PCR) cycling and sequencing primers are the epistemological architecture for anthropology and palaeogenetics. Of course, the histories of these technologies and techniques are loaded with speculations and approximations to make them functional in the detection of recoverable aDNA. The scientistic nature of Paabo’s language comes from the enfolding of these as unproblematic, necessary adjuncts to a rigorous science. To question the architecture of these enquiries would be to deconstruct the lenient entities and knowledges underlying this rigour.

Moving from the unquestioned to the governance of this science. From scientism to epistemology. These entities are not simply inert reactants, to be put together like a puzzle by the correct person with the correct methods. Genomic analysis is constructing a technoscience, whose forms are a matter of correction within the frameworks provided and whose outcomes are in a defined probability space. The very nature of human origin becomes not a matter of possibilities and divergences via spandrels and catastrophes[3] within the developments of conscious thought[4], symbology and cosmology[5] along convergent as well as bifurcatory pathways (far too unspecific for the purposes of scientific rigour), but a set of probabilistic dispositions with determinate start and end points.

Knowledge formation is enclosed within specific practices that are denoted as rigorous. Anything outside of this specific framework is too conjectural and by proxy non-scientific (or at least secondary to genomic analysis). In becoming a technoscience, genomics sits within a tension between its universality and standardisation claims. The former abstracts genetics as a universal explanator and claimant, explaining evolutionary origins and convergences and claiming the capacity to uniquely understand these patterns. The latter relates to its concrete practice, the production of genes within the laboratory context and the development of biological substrates that emerge from this constructive work.

Scientific knowledge is both constructed (from specific techniques within particular contexts) and constructing (moving beyond its specification toward universal claims as a definitive explanatory variable). Simons defines technoscience’s ambition as the exploration of “possible phenomena rather than actual phenomena”[6]. Possibility here as synonymous with the construction of knowledge from the local to the universal. Yet, the definitions of rigour and probabilisation enclose this constructive potential within the bounds of a parameterised set of explanations.

Historiographically, this is the end of history as a retrojection of genetic being in a closed loop. Foreclosing history by defining the practices and potentials of ancient and proto-humans as delineated variables controlled by genetic frequencies and allelic variations. The constructed aspects of genomic and palaeontological knowledge are hidden as already-explained practices that lead toward a definitive conclusion. Their validity is a given. This is what Stengers and Latour have termed factishes, “those beings we fabricate and that fabricate us, from which the scientist (or technician, via different modes) ‘receives autonomy by giving [them] an autonomy he does not have’”[7]. Constructing knowledge means being centred within the productions that both define and create practice.

Paabo situates genomic analysis and the coding of aDNA above the less informative practices of morphological or phenomenological analyses. The archaeologist or anthropologist is lessened in the knowledge hierarchy by the greater explanatory potential and rigour of aDNA encoding. But how has this conclusion been reached. I’ve already noted the irony of such an arrogant statement being incorrect regarding Neanderthal contributions to the human genome and the possibility for Neanderthal-human interbreeding. The design of the genomic field is itself an experimental factish, reflecting “the singularity of the history in which it was produced. And the core of this history is that facts have value only if they can be recognized as being able to obligate practitioners to agree about their interpretation”[8]. The enclosing, or end, of history is doubled, both in the development of the field and in the construction of facts that come from that field’s techniques. aDNA analysis is a set of unquestionable techniques that are always improving. From this, we construct a set of probabilities that define pathways and lifeworlds of ancient hominids.

Why are these practices so rigorous and precise? What makes their conclusions so definitive? The specimens used are extremely selective in the characteristics required to obtain mitochondrial DNA. “The quality of the DNA that survives in ancient samples is highly dependent on the conditions of the archaeological site from which they were excavated, much less than on the absolute age of the sample”[9]. The bones from Vindija Cave in Croatia[10] or the Denisovan remains from Siberia were found in particular temperature conditions away from significant levels of extant moisture and shielded from erosive forces. When held in museum collections the quality of samples varies significantly, with the levels of bacterial DNA contamination being large in a number of morphological specimens held. Thus, the selection of samples already drives a particular pathway through which mtDNA (and later nuclear DNA) is interpretable and coded. The neutral veil of aDNA analysis is already shaken by the geneticist’s choice of samples based on availability and initial conditions. “To date, 20 partial and 7 complete mtDNA sequences have been published that correspond to 27 Neanderthal individuals from 12 archaeological sites. About twice the number of specimens have been tested but not yielded PCR-amplifiable DNA”[11].

When it comes to contamination and PCR sequencing, the nature of laboratory conditions and means of decontamination are of paramount importance. Here, the construction of knowledge comes to the fore as the laboratory itself is constitutive of the methods produced. The lab is not an inert dormancy, but a co-producer of the results. Whether via surface removal through sanding, bleaching or UV irradiation, the potential for limited decontamination or further contamination are high, with the variability wide[12]. Even with the full coding of the Neanderthal genome showing low levels of contamination by modern human DNA, this was premised on the selection of specific specimens. This feeds into the PCR sequencing, with sequencing libraries again showing large variations in the contaminant levels depending on laboratory conditions, replication testing and the transport of specimens between labs.

This is the construction of knowledge via the delegation of tasks to actants that create a network of experimentation and correction. “Delegation is always an invention in the sense that its point of departure is not a general project, oriented toward the grand theme of truth, but one that is partial and partisan. When a ‘hydraulic door closer’ is invented, delegated to automatically close the door behind the visitor to the Center for the History of Science and Technology in La Villette, it is not acting as a golem or a Turing machine supposedly capable of anything we call ‘thinking.’ The door closer is ‘delegated’ to closing the door, period. It is not replacing a ‘human in general,’ but an employee with a specialized function. This delegation brings into existence an ‘agent,’ and this agent is a hybrid being because it testifies both to the interrelations among the nonhuman ‘actors’ it assembles and the human projects that this assemblage realizes”[13].

It also, as Stengers elaborates, creates the conditions for further problems. PCR sequencing, when even minimal amounts of contamination are present, produces false positives as the history of aDNA testing attests to. The selection of primers and the assumptions of amino acid transition as well as matrilinearity to denote haplotypes from mtDNA sequences are the function of the experimenters themselves. This “partial and partisan” schemata through the delegation of tasks to the primers and PCR cycles (that originates from specific specimens selected due to their capacity to elicit useable DNA) is a construction of knowledge rather than an objective function pulled from the scientific ether.

“By providing enormous amounts of more objective data, human paleogenomics has the potential to settle long-lasting debates that originated from the incompleteness of the archaeological and paleontological record. At the same time, it can help establish a more realistic view on the complexity of human evolution”[14]. Palaeogenomics as the means to foreclosure, the ending of history toward the single trajectory of hominid evolution.

Again, where does the rigour come in? The results and assumptions that have come from the Neanderthal genome have presented more questions and arguments than they’ve settled. Rather than resolving incompleteness, the genome sequence has added to questions around the nature of ancient hominids, their practices and livelihoods as well as their potentials (for language, cross-species communication and interbreeding). Debate between morphological, archaeological and genomic techniques continues as how to answer these questions (and whether these can ever be definitively answered beyond speculations).

Within the genomic results, there are questions over the mtDNA sequences’ determination of lineage. aDNA analysis provided evidence of constant levels of genetic diversity between generations among the Shamatari, matching the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium and suggesting limited divergence from modern genetic drift. “These reasonably high levels of diversity suggest that it may be possible to distinguish common inheritance/residence patterns (either general patterns of endogamy vs. exogamy, or specific patterns of patrilineal/patrilocal vs. matrilineal/matrilocal”[15]. However, this falls entirely into speculation beyond the testable Jomon shell midden remains found in Japan. While 29 specimens demonstrated that 75% fell into two distinct mitochondrial haplotypes, the other 7 weren’t haplotypically determinable. Rather than determining matrilocality or patrilocality, assumptions about the sexing suggest societal dynamics that are matrilineal with migratory males coming into the society. How is this speculation any better than morphological or phenomenological analyses?

aDNA analysis for Neanderthal remains demonstrates patrilocal groupings, with limited mitochondrial haplotypes. However, the limitations may also be a function of specimen selection and the availability of Neanderthal mtDNA in degraded samples. Rather than providing objective data, speculations around the sexing of ancient groups, their gendered character and their social organisation are subjectively determined by the delegations of techniques and technologies specific to genomics and the geneticist’s selection of samples and the assumptions that come from them. Neanderthal lifeworlds as determined by the Vindija finds may be localised in terms of the determinable behaviours and characteristics of those groups, rather than a universalisable criterion.

Similar results emerge from the “discovery” of the Denisovans as another lineage of ancient hominids. Through the sequencing of specific finds in the Altai Mountains, it was determined that the remains found, rather than belonging to Neanderthals, had significant enough mtDNA differentiation to constitute another species of hominid. Beyond this initial genomic sequence and the discovery that similar sequences match those of modern day Melanesians, Australasians and Papuans, nothing has been determined about the lifeworlds or extent of Denisovans as a peoples.

“The Denisova might be a novel, independent population of archaic hominins who lived in parts of Eurasia at the same time as did some Neanderthals and / or anatomically modern humans. Or, they might not be—these specimens might just be partial, especially degraded fragments from members of previously-known species such as Neanderthals and / or anatomically modern humans”[16]. There are discrepancies in the divergence from the human lineage between mtDNA and nuclear DNA. Morphological analysis suggests some Denisovan remains have similarities to other ancient hominids, particularly Homo erectus in terms of jaw shape and teeth size. There are also discrepancies between stratigraphic and genomic dating. We are again in the realms of speculation and open-ended enquiry. Rather than closing history into one trajectory, discoveries such as these suggest much greater variation in ancient hominid species and their expansion, as well as the potential for intra-species genetic drift (if Denisovans show nuclear DNA relations to Neanderthals or morphological similarities to Homo erectus). Explanations of social organisation and lifeworld further show discrepancies and divergences rather than contiguity. Denisovan finds have been discovered in the low Altai Mountains and the Tibetan plateau. Such a significant difference in altitude provides alternative trajectories for how Denisovans lived, ate and organised. Explanations are diverging and bifurcating rather than converging.

There is no revelation of secrets through the rigorous objectivity of palaeogenomics. There is no historical endpoint, a foreclosure toward one explanation. For statements such as “my hope is, of course, eventually we will not bring turmoil but clarity to this world”[17] to be uttered is to continue along the scientistic path of enclosure, suggesting that a vast field of partial explanations, assumptions and bootstrapped evidence can be aggregated into one defining paradigm that sits above this twisting assemblage. Is this enquiry, or the partial claims of factishes attempting universality? The supposed objectivity of genomics can only be considered such if the historical methods and forms that underlie it are ignored, if the practices of geneticists and anthropologists are situated as already-explained criteria from which scientific explanation must emerge.

Laboratories, specimens and primers are delegated actants in a network of discoveries that only remain as partial explanations for the phenomena they are encoding. As the results of palaeogenomics show, there are more questions and trajectories than answers and clarifications. From the techniques to the results, all are questionable as subjective entities that constitute “objective” revelations. Even if the most objective forms of investigation were devised, say a time travel device that allowed an observer to see how Neanderthals or Denisovans lived (possibly over millennia), how they interbed and even allowed an observer to procure live DNA from one of these individuals, what questions would be answered? Could a communication channel be opened? Would observations begin to diverge depending on the perspective taken, the individuals or groups observed, the methods of communication between analyser and analysed? Or would this become a phenomenological melange, subjectively bifurcating along alternative trajectories?

The desire to close history is the ultimate scientistic goal, to end turmoil in favour of clarity. This explains Paabo’s strange reaction to Erik Trinkaus’s comments on the discovery of the Neanderthal genome – “the new DNA data and analysis [add] almost nothing new to the discussion… To sum up, the paper is the result of a very expensive, technologically complicated analysis that advances the study of modern human origins and of the Neanderthals very little and in some ways regresses it”[18]. Rather than actually responding substantively to this criticism, Paabo confects outrage at the idea that someone could be critical of this new knowledge. But is Trinkaus wrong? What has come of the genome encoding other than a variety of questions already being asked by palaeontologists?

Attempting to enclose anthropology as a genomic practice, to attempt the end of history as a scientific goal, only ends up asking the same questions and providing further divergences. Phenomenological perspectivism[19] isn’t eclipsed, with the techniques and methods informing an objective science becoming co-constitutive of new perspectives and openings from which debates continue. The partial and partisan nature of Paabo’s project, like other scientistic endeavours, constructs its epistemologies and thus always leaves itself open to historicisation and critique.

[1] Svante Paabo, Neanderthal Man

[2] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221101270X?via%3Dihub

[3] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/271929

[4] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/bies.202100121

[5] Barry Cooper, Paleolithic Politics

[6] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0039368120301849

[7] Isabelle Stengers, Cosmopolitics I

[8] Isabelle Stengers, Cosmopolitics I

[9] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.10179

[10] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5100745/

[11] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221101270X

[12] https://www.embopress.org/doi/full/10.1038/emboj.2009.222