of preserving valuable specimens for future generations while at the same time facilitating research. I had found, in some instances, that they considered their primary role to be the exertion of power, refusing access to specimens even when the possible gain of knowledge seemed to far outweigh the value of preserving a small piece of a bone. If such curators were approached in the wrong way, they could say no and then, for all-too-familiar reasons of human pride, find it difficult to go back on their word. While fretting about this, I received one day, in the most remarkable of convergences, a phone call from Bonn. The caller was Ralf Schmitz, a young archaeologist who, together with the Bonn museum curator, was responsible for the Neanderthal type specimen. He asked if I remembered an exchange we had had a few years back.
He reminded me that in 1992 he had asked what the chances of success were if one were to try to obtain DNA from a Neanderthal. This conversation had slipped out of my mind, being one out of many with archaeologists and museum curators. Now I remembered. At the time I had not known what to answer. My immediate, and slightly delinquent, impulse had been to suggest that the chances were good, so that they might readily part with a Neanderthal bone. But almost as quickly I had realized that honesty was the best way forward. After some hesitation, I had said that in my opinion we might have a 5 percent chance of success. Ralf had thanked me and I had heard nothing more from him since.
Now, almost four years later, Ralf was on the phone and said that, yes, we would be allowed to have a piece of the Neanderthal from Neander Valley. As it turned out (Ralf later told me), others had approached the museum to request samples, saying they were almost certain to get usable DNA out of the specimen. The museum authorities had then prudently decided to get the opinion of another lab and had asked Ralf to contact me. Not only our track record but also our apparent honesty in suggesting that the chances were slim had convinced Ralf and the museum that we would be their best partners. They were, as it turned out, the exact opposite of the obstructionist museum curators I had been fretting about. I was delighted.
What followed were weeks of discussions with the museum about how much bone material we would get, and from which part of the skeleton. In total, there was about half of a skeleton of what seemed to be a male individual. Our experience had shown us that the best chances of success were with compact bone—for example, a part of the shaft of an arm or leg bone, or the root of a tooth, rather than thin bones with a large marrow cavity, such as ribs. Eventually we agreed on a piece of the right upper arm, from a part where the shaft had no ridges or other features of interest to paleontologists, who study how muscles had attached to the bone. It also became clear that we would not be allowed to remove the sample ourselves. Ralf and a colleague came to see us in Munich, and we gave them a sterile saw, protective clothing, sterile gloves, and containers in which to store the sample—and off they went. In the end, it was probably fortunate that I was not allowed to put the saw to the archetypal Neanderthal myself. I would probably have been too intimidated by this iconic fossil and would have cut off a very small piece, perhaps too small for success. When we received the sample, we were impressed by the size of what they had removed—3.5 grams of what looked like very well-preserved whitish bone (see Figure 5.3). Ralf reported that when they sawed through the bone, a distinct smell of burnt bone spread through the room. This, we believed, was a good sign; it had to mean that collagen, the protein that makes up the matrix of bone, had been preserved. It was with awe and trepidation that I approached my graduate student Matthias Krings, who had spent more than a year on fruitless attempts to extract DNA from Egyptian
He reminded me that in 1992 he had asked what the chances of success were if one were to try to obtain DNA from a Neanderthal. This conversation had slipped out of my mind, being one out of many with archaeologists and museum curators. Now I remembered. At the time I had not known what to answer. My immediate, and slightly delinquent, impulse had been to suggest that the chances were good, so that they might readily part with a Neanderthal bone. But almost as quickly I had realized that honesty was the best way forward. After some hesitation, I had said that in my opinion we might have a 5 percent chance of success. Ralf had thanked me and I had heard nothing more from him since.
Now, almost four years later, Ralf was on the phone and said that, yes, we would be allowed to have a piece of the Neanderthal from Neander Valley. As it turned out (Ralf later told me), others had approached the museum to request samples, saying they were almost certain to get usable DNA out of the specimen. The museum authorities had then prudently decided to get the opinion of another lab and had asked Ralf to contact me. Not only our track record but also our apparent honesty in suggesting that the chances were slim had convinced Ralf and the museum that we would be their best partners. They were, as it turned out, the exact opposite of the obstructionist museum curators I had been fretting about. I was delighted.
What followed were weeks of discussions with the museum about how much bone material we would get, and from which part of the skeleton. In total, there was about half of a skeleton of what seemed to be a male individual. Our experience had shown us that the best chances of success were with compact bone—for example, a part of the shaft of an arm or leg bone, or the root of a tooth, rather than thin bones with a large marrow cavity, such as ribs. Eventually we agreed on a piece of the right upper arm, from a part where the shaft had no ridges or other features of interest to paleontologists, who study how muscles had attached to the bone. It also became clear that we would not be allowed to remove the sample ourselves. Ralf and a colleague came to see us in Munich, and we gave them a sterile saw, protective clothing, sterile gloves, and containers in which to store the sample—and off they went. In the end, it was probably fortunate that I was not allowed to put the saw to the archetypal Neanderthal myself. I would probably have been too intimidated by this iconic fossil and would have cut off a very small piece, perhaps too small for success. When we received the sample, we were impressed by the size of what they had removed—3.5 grams of what looked like very well-preserved whitish bone (see Figure 5.3). Ralf reported that when they sawed through the bone, a distinct smell of burnt bone spread through the room. This, we believed, was a good sign; it had to mean that collagen, the protein that makes up the matrix of bone, had been preserved. It was with awe and trepidation that I approached my graduate student Matthias Krings, who had spent more than a year on fruitless attempts to extract DNA from Egyptian
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