The identification of genetic material from pathogenic organisms in ancient tissues provides a powerful tool for the study of certain infectious diseases in historic populations. We have obtained tissue samples from the genital areas of 12 mummies in the American Museum of Natural History collection in New York, N.Y. The mummies were excavated in the Andes Mountain region of South America, and radiocarbon dating estimates that the mummies date from A.D. 140 to 1200. DNAs were successfully extracted from all tissues and were suitable for PCR analysis. PCRs were carried out to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex and mycobacteria other than M. tuberculosis (MOTB). M. tuberculosis complex was detected in 2 out of 12 samples, and MOTB were detected in 7 samples. This study confirmed the adequate preservation of genetic material in mummified tissues and the existence of mycobacteria, including M. tuberculosis, in historic populations in South America.

The generalized/primitive nature of the hominoid dentition and often fragmentary nature of fossils, coupled with enthusiastic optimism for making revolutionary finds, has wreaked havoc with recognition of early human ancestors and reconstruction of fossil hominoid phylogeny. As such, the history of paleoanthropology is one of repeated misidentification of fossil ancestors and of occasional fraud. Although this history has led many workers to lose confidence in morphology based systematics (MBS), past and present misidentifications are actually due to a disregard of systematic methodology. Systematics depends on the continuity of life and gains its objectivity largely from the order alpha taxonomy imposes on morphologic discontinuities in closely related taxa (i.e., species and genera). Transformation of characters fixed in species into character complexes, as manifested in taxa nested at different levels of relationship, form the foundation for higher-level taxonomy and for phylogeny. Because in most cases, hominoid fossils are unable to provide the data needed to resolve alpha taxonomy, classification and phylogeny of fossil taxa must be guided by analogies to living taxa. Hominid and hominoid fossil taxonomy and phylogeny, however, has been based largely on preevolutionary notions and on misinterpretations of the polarity of assumed diagnostic characters. More often than not, fossils lack resolution for the taxonomic level or rank they are assigned to and taxa are erected without appropriate analogies to living forms. As such, phylogenies based on these classifications are unlikely to be correct. More in-depth anatomical studies that are in accordance with systematic methodology are likely to hold the key to correctly classifying fossils and unraveling hominoid and hominid phylogeny. Anat Rec (New Anat) 269:50 -66, 2002.

Human and chimpanzee occipital bones are thought to grow and develop in distinctly opposite bone remodeling patterns. Preliminary research examining growth-remodeling fields (GRFs) from the surfaces of the occipital bone in modern humans and chimpanzee indicates this may not be entirely correct. By using vinyl/resin-casting techniques, coupled with scanning electron and reflected-light microscopy, GRF profiles from a cross-sectional sample of humans and chimpanzees have documented the ongoing histological activities that reflect developmental processes through which taxon-specific ontogenetic trajectories alter bone morphology. Surface bone profiles aid in explaining how the posterior skull takes shape, thereby aiding in our understanding of the developmental processes that may contribute to the morphological variation in the posterior skull in humans and chimpanzees.

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