Tuesday, December 7, 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section A · Page 7
African-American students, faculty celebrate Kwanzaa
By Erin R. Barcomb writer@kansan.com
Kansas staff writer
Although the Kwanzaa holiday has been celebrated by people of African descent for only 33 years, an estimated 18 million people around the world observe it, including some at the University of Kansas.
Created in 1966 by Maulana Karenga, an activist in the Pan-African movement, the holiday lasts seven days, beginning Dec. 26 and ending Jan. 1.
Based on African harvest festivals, Kwanzaa focuses on seven principles: unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity and faith.
Joyce McCray Pearson, director of the Law Library, said she celebrated Kwanzaa with her family. McCray Pearson said she began celebrating the holiday during college, where she learned about Kwanzaa from different African-American groups.
She said she thought the Watts Riot and other events during the 1960s prompted Karenga to found the holiday.
"There was a sort of disturbance in the community," she said. "They thought they would do something to celebrate family and unity."
Alton Scales, director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs,
said his family dedicated a day to practicing each of the principles, including cooperative economics.
"I have a ten-year-old," Scales said. "We give her different things to do to earn her spending money. She makes Christmas tree ornaments. I solicit customers for her."
Scales said his family recognized self-determination by examining the accomplishments of Africans and African Americans.
"That's one of those times we emphasize the importance of individual leadership and what it means to set goals and attain them," Scales said.
Seven symbols represent the holiday, including the kinara, a candle holder containing seven candles. The black, red and green candles represent Black people, their struggles and their futures.
"We don't always do it all seven days, because it's hard to get everyone together," McCray Pearson said. "The last day is usually the big dinner in our family."
Erica Morris, president of Zeta Phi Beta, said the African-American sorority usually celebrated with other Greek groups by having a Kwanzaa celebration with the Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence, 1520 Haskell Ave.
—Edited by Kelly Clasen
Tartar gives clues ancient diets
Tooth decay helps KU student study extinct mammals
By Scott Kirsch Special to the Kansan
Paleontologists have known for years that extinct prehistoric mammoths and mastodons had bad teeth. But only recently did they discover that the information could be useful.
By scraping tartar off extinct mammals' teeth, paleontologists hope to get a better idea about the mammals' diet and gain a better perspective on what led to their extinction. In addition, since it is extremely rare to find an extinct mammal with its stomach intact, the tartar is the best way to know what they ate
Katrina Gobetz, a graduate student working on her Ph.D. in paleontology, has played a large part in the development of tartar research at the University of Kansas. So far, Gobetz has conducted most of her research on mastodons, teleoceras and mammoths.
Gobetz was able to extract more than five grams of tartar from the teeth of a teleoceras, a type of hippopotamus that lived in Kansas about 10,000 years ago. Although it has been known that the teleoceras was a plant eater, not much else is
known about the animal's diet.
Tartar also led to more discoveries about the mastodon, a kind of ancient elephant whose remains have been discovered along the Kansas River. It has been assumed that this creature ate trees and pine needles and liked to reside in the forest.
Gobetz inspected the silica in the mammal's teeth, which is made of plant stones. Plant stones are little silica bodies, which look like sand. From the silica, it would appear that the mastodon ate around water and not in the forests. This hypothesis stemmed from the discovery of tiny algae in their tartar.
Grass was found in the silica of mammoths, showing that they appeared to enjoy the open prairie grazing.
If these prehistoric mammals were out on the open prairie, they would have been a lot more susceptible to predators, which Gobetz said might explain part of why these mammals became extinct.
All of this new dental information has been made possible by a technique developed by Steve Bozarth, a phytolith expert in the University's Geography department. Bozarth had used the technique on bison, but new information on the diets of prehistoric creatures was made possible when Gobetz applied the technique to mammoths and mastodons.
The discovery began last fall, when she enrolled in Opal Phytolith, a course taught by Bozarth. The focus of the class was learning to identify plant
"Bad dental hygiene is good for paleontologists."
Larry Martin
Senior curator-professor,
Natural History Museum
stones.
Gobetz's tartar extraction technique came out of the class' final project. She continued to work with Bozarth on it even after the semester concluded.
"She's currently working on the last set of samples," Bozarth said. "Then we'll work on a manuscript, which we'll submit for publication. She'll be the main author though."
Gobetz and Bozarth's technique became more widely known within the paleontology field in October, when Gobetz presented her research to the Society of Vertebrae Paleontology in Denver.
The Society wanted somebody to speak from the Romer Prize Competition, which Gobetz won with Matthew Bonnan on Oct. 21. There were 18 competitors, some from Harvard, along with Craig Sundell, Jong-Doek Im, and T.J. Meehan, also from the University of Kansas.
After all her hard work and ingenuity, Gobetz said she had one piece of advice. Not only for prehistoric mammals, but for everybody.
"You should definitely always floss," she said.
Edited by Jamie Knodel
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