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Erik Trinkaus knows Neandertals.
Trinkaus, Ph.D., professor of anthropol- ogy in Arts & Sciences, began his collegiate career in physics and ended by majoring in art history at the University of Wisconsin. But in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania, his interest in human behavior and adaptation in the context of how things work led him to study anthropology, especially archeology and human paleontology.
"I rapidly specialized in human paleontology, which allowed me to combine my interest in human behavior and in functional anatomy while keeping in touch with archeology," Trinkaus said.
That interest led him initially to study human limb bones, because they more directly reflect an organism's behavior, completing his doctoral thesis on Neandertal feet in 1975.
"My friends had a heyday with that, saying, among other things, that this was one of the more pedestrian theses," he joked.
Although his friends jested, little did they know Trinkaus' knowledge of Neandertal feet would lead him down a path to becoming "one of the world's leading experts on Neandertal anatomy," according to an article in last July's National Geographic magazine. The Neandertals were archaic humans in Europe and the Near East who immediately preceded modern humans across that region.
 (From left,) Kim, "Sasha" and Erik Trinkaus sledding at Tilles Park. |
"Studying the feet of early humans leads to information on the evolution of human locomotion," Trinkaus said. "Since the feet connect with the ground, if you look at the feet in detail, they tell a lot more than other limb parts. And since locomotion is a key element of how these people made a living as hunters and gatherers, the feet provided a ground-up view into Neandertal adaptations."
While he completed his "pedal doctorate," Trinkaus joined Harvard University's department of anthropology and remained there as a junior faculty member until 1983. This led to a regular faculty position at the University of New Mexico, and being named a Regents' professor of anthropology in 1996.
"The Harvard position allowed me to get my career under way, but it was at New Mexico that my thoughts on the Neandertals and modern human origins first came together," he said.
But Washington University lured him away in 1997.
"I was delighted that he was moveable," said Richard J. Smith, Ph.D., chair of the anthropology department. "Erik has been a friend and colleague for 25 years. He's doing important work and attracting great students. He's brought excitement to our department --with the video and news crews blocking the hall to interview him."
Trinkaus' reputation for solid work and interesting, if sometimes controversial, interpretations has reached the point where archeologists call him to work on newly discovered fossils, including some important recent finds in Europe and the Middle East. His first analysis of a fossil sample was 25 years ago, when he described the large collection of Neandertals from Shanidar Cave in Iraq. The resultant book on the sample helped establish his reputation in the field.
More recently, Trinkaus was invited to analyze a series of early modern human skeletons from 26,000-year-old sites in the Czech Republic, a 25,000-year-old child's skeleton in Portugal, and scattered remains from France. On the first two projects, he helped form an international team of specialists to analyze the fossil remains. With such international work, Trinkaus has been associated with the UniversitŽ de Bordeaux for many years. All three of these projects involve both the paleontological descriptions of the remains and their interpretation in the broader context of the Neandertals and modern human origins.
Trinkaus works closely with University graduate students, involving them in his research.
"Erik is working on a lot of projects, but he is incredibly unselfish with his time, resources and lab," Laura Shackelford, a second-year anthropology graduate student, said of her adviser. As for his notoriety, she added, "If you read anything about Neandertals, you're bound to run into Erik Trinkaus."
Clearly, Trinkaus' research addresses some interesting questions.
"The question that emerged for me early on in my studies was, what was special about early modern humans that enabled them --or rather their biology --to replace Neandertals relatively rapidly about 30,000-40,000 years ago?" he said. "In the early part of my career, I thought that there had been major changes, but now, based on ongoing research, I know that these changes were very subtle."
This change in perspective came about from several lines of research. One of them involves biomechanically analyzing limb remains of these past humans. Other perspectives concern looking at aspects of the paleobiology, or functional anatomy, paleopathology and paleodemography of these peoples. It also includes approaches such as the accurate dating of specimens from around the time of the transition to early modern humans.
For example, in the fall of 1999, an international team of scientists including Trinkaus confirmed that Neandertals roamed central Europe as recently as 28,000 years ago, indicating thousands of years of coexistence between Neandertals and early modern humans.
"Those dates demonstrate that Neandertal disappearance was a slow and geographically mosaic process," Trinkaus said. "The differences between Neandertals and early modern humans in basic behavior and abilities must have been small and rather subtle."
When Trinkaus did his graduate work at Penn in the early '70s, the general view was that Neandertals were basically like us. This view has shifted to seeing them as quite distinct from us, and now back to perceiving them as closer to ourselves.
Yet, Neandertal studies can't escape controversy surrounding the origin of human beings. There is almost an obsession about whether Neandertals were our ancestors. Are we walking around with Neandertal genes? Trinkaus is not overly concerned.
"Many people don't want to be descended from anything less human than themselves, and this concern has been driving our perceptions of the Neandertals for over a century," he said. "Where our genes come from doesn't determine what we are as people, but knowing what happened 30,000 years ago when Neandertals and early modern humans met may shed some light on what it means to be 'human.'"
The study of modern human origins has been dominated recently by analyses of living human and Neandertal DNA, which purports to exclude Neandertals from our ancestry. Yet, Trinkaus said, "It's becoming increasingly obvious that all of the molecular data on modern humans and DNA from fossils will never tell us to what extent Neandertals inbred with early modern humans --only whether we have Neandertals in our pedigree. But the fossils may shed some light."
Indeed, the 1998 discovery of the Portuguese child, an early modern human with some Neandertal features, supports some degree of inbreeding among the two groups. Invited by Portuguese colleagues, Trinkaus has been commuting to Portugal for two years to help with final excavation and to study the bones.
Despite the publicity surrounding the 1999 announcement of the Portuguese "love child," Trinkaus prefers to focus on who the Neandertals and early modern humans were as people.
"I focus on things that are reflections of behavior --what they did during their life spans," Trinkaus said. Looking at skeletons, he knows a particular bone's size and shape is modified by the individual's behavior, based on pattern and levels of activities. "For example, in studying teeth, we look at the amount and pattern of tooth wear --front vs. back --these are ways of getting at aspects of behavior, and the amount of change and different patterns vary from one group to the next."
But finds are few and far between --pieces of only 400 skeletons have been discovered.
"Samples are minuscule, so it is important to extract as much information as possible from the available remains," Trinkaus said.
When he's not studying Neandertal bones, Trinkaus enjoys working with his hands in other ways.
"I like shop work --handyman stuff," he says. His wife, Kim (Kathryn), a biostatistician at the medical school, appreciates that. Their son, 7-year-old Alexander, thinks his papa's bones are funny. "Sasha," the first-grader's nickname, also thinks it's great when Trinkaus is on TV.
Trinkaus loves horseback riding, which he did a lot of in New Mexico, but has found it hard to pursue in more urban St. Louis. And although this world-renowned scientist has a way with fossils, he does have some limitations.
"I spent years growing grass in the desert, yet I can't get it to grow in Missouri mud," Trinkaus laughs.
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