Science: Detective Hrdlicka

Almost every year for twelve years Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, famed Bohemian-born anthropologist of the Smithsonian Institution, has conducted expeditions to Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to find traces of prehistoric migrations from Asia, has brought back carloads of material from hundreds of village sites. Far from digging at random in the hope of uncovering such a site, when he enters new terrain Dr. Hrdlicka can now spot one as far away as he can see. What makes this scientific detective work possible he last week explained in Science.

The accumulated deposits of a village site, ranging in depth from a yard or so to 16 ft., contain ashes, shells, sea urchin spines, rotted wood and sod, bones of fish, birds and mammals (including whales), blown dust or silt, organic refuse of all sorts. Naturally the scientist cannot see this stuff without digging, because it is covered with vegetation. It is the vegetation itself which gives the clue. Rooted in such beds of unintentional fertilizer, the growth is darker, richer and taller than the average, and may show a luxuriant cover of plants which are rare elsewhere. On Kodiak Island the sites were covered with stinging nettles and wild parsnip; over burial sites elderberries were common. One site at Uyak Ray was covered every year with handsome forget-me-nots, the only ones found in the region. Monkshood and fireweed were other prominent indicators of sites.

"Old human sites," declared Detective Hrdlicka. "show botanical phenomena which seem well to deserve an expert study."