Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1993 May
Contents
Geographica On This Job, Only Muscle Power Allowed Think you have a tough com mute? Bernie Weisgerber and his crew of U. S. Forest Service historic preservation car penters clambered into a truck at Hungry Horse, Montana, last sum mer and jostled over 72 miles of dirt road to a trailhead. They mounted horses and led pack mules another 32 miles to the Big Prairie ranger station in the Bob Marshall Wilder ness area (GEOGRAPHIC, May 1985). Then they went to work: repairing the station's Depression-era bunk house-by hand. To help keep wilderness areas pristine, Congress has barred the use of motors, including power tools, and the Forest Service must comply, even when repairing "historically significant" buildings. Weisgerber and his team wielded only axes, hammers, handsaws, brace and bits, and wood chisels at Big Prairie. In three weeks the four men installed a new roof on the bunkhouse, added flashing, and replaced deteriorated logs. "We're used to remote locations, but we usually take a generator with us," says Weisgerber. "We did this one as we're supposed to in wilder ness areas, the traditional way." Life for Ancient Greeks: Short, Disease-ridden Classical literature shows the ancient Greeks as healthy, vibrant citizens, competing in athletic contests, going to war, writing plays, and discussing philos ophy. A new study of the bones of Greek colonists farming at Meta ponto in southern Italy paints a far darker picture. Although Metaponto was renowned for its doctors, infant and child mortality was high, and the average adult died at the age of 40. Almost four out of five colo nists had malformed tooth enamel, indicating serious childhood dis ease. Many harbored organisms like those that today cause malaria or syphilis. Several of the skeletons had bone fractures, and most of them had healed without being set. "The unset bones were really a shocker," says Joseph C. Carter, a University of Texas archaeologist who has been excavating the site since 1974. "What's interesting is the contrast between the reputation of the ancient Greeks and what we see reflected in their remains." Carter's team found 320 burials, dating from 580 to 250 B.c., on the ten-acre site. Anthropologists Maciej and Renata Henneberg con ducted one of the most thorough physical studies ever made of an ancient population. The Greeks seem to have been aware of the quality of their medi cal care. A curse inscribed in one tomb vehemently denounced at least 15 local doctors. An Ice Age Survivor Roams the Arctic his is a wonderful time to be a musk-ox. The shaggy, horned remnant of the Pleis tocene epoch, nearly wiped out by hunting after guns came to the far north, has made a comeback. On Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic, 19th-century Inuit hunters shot musk-oxen for their skins and meat. Now protected, the remaining musk-ox population has grown to more than 40,000, and authorities have allowed local Inuit to resume limited hunting. In Alaska in the 1930s, biolo gists reintroduced musk-oxen from Greenland. "We now have thousands, more than when humans first came to Alaska," says David Klein of the University of Alaska, Fair banks. Herds also roam in Siberia and northern Quebec. In nature, however, nothing is forever. Experts caution that a series of wet winters, over grazing of the legumes musk oxen prefer, or an influx of hunters could reverse the situa tion once more. -BORIS WEINTRAUB NationalGeographic, May 1993
Links
Archive
1993 Jun
1993 Apr
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page