Anthropology posts
- February 17, 2010
- 03:52 AM
- 749 views
When relics are not what they have been proclaimed to be
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is still unusual when the Catholic church allows a scientific study of one of their relics. So I was surprised to find the manuscript describing the study of the DNA of the remains of one of Europe's patron saints, St. Birgitta (Bridget of Sweden) in my PLoS One inbox one fine day in May, 2008. I'm a neurogeneticist by training, so I felt competent to take this manuscript on as academic editor. The manuscript stated that they had found through both DNA analysis and carbon dating that not only........ Read more »
Nilsson, M., Possnert, G., Edlund, H., Budowle, B., Kjellström, A., & Allen, M. (2010) Analysis of the Putative Remains of a European Patron Saint–St. Birgitta. PLoS ONE, 5(2). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008986
- February 16, 2010
- 01:20 PM
- 1,165 views
Bonobos and the Child-Like Joy of Sharing
by Eric Michael Johnson in The Primate Diaries
Bonobos retain juvenile traits related to tolerance and cooperation. Image: Vanessa WoodsHow many times as a kid would your parents tell you to grow up and act your age? It turns out that not acting our age may be the very reason why we're so successful as a species.
Brian Hare and colleagues have just released a video (see below) showing a bonobo juvenile voluntarily helping another indiv........ Read more »
Wobber, V., Wrangham, R., & Hare, B. (2010) Bonobos Exhibit Delayed Development of Social Behavior and Cognition Relative to Chimpanzees. Current Biology, 20(3), 226-230. DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.070
- February 15, 2010
- 07:07 AM
- 923 views
Speaking truth to Slow Food
by Jeremy in Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Slow Food is against standardization, right? Slow Food is for diversity, right? Well, sort of. That is certainly the rhetoric, but a paper by Ariane Lotti in Agriculture and Human Values suggests that the practice can be rather different.
Lotti, who’s something of an insider, analyzes one of Slow Food’s projects in detail and comes to [...]... Read more »
Lotti, A. (2009) The commoditization of products and taste: Slow Food and the conservation of agrobiodiversity. Agriculture and Human Values, 27(1), 71-83. DOI: 10.1007/s10460-009-9213-x
- February 14, 2010
- 06:29 PM
- 935 views
Paleo-Eskimo Genome Sequenced
by Kris in Ge·knit·ics
As reported in the New York Times, the cover article of Nature this week describes the sequencing of a Paleo-Eskimo genome from Greenland. This is the first ancient sequence from the New World, and is important for a number of reasons: The sequence analysis was conducted from a sample of human hair that was recovered [...]... Read more »
Rasmussen, M., Li, Y., Lindgreen, S., Pedersen, J., Albrechtsen, A., Moltke, I., Metspalu, M., Metspalu, E., Kivisild, T., Gupta, R.... (2010) Ancient human genome sequence of an extinct Palaeo-Eskimo. Nature, 463(7282), 757-762. DOI: 10.1038/nature08835
- February 14, 2010
- 01:00 PM
- 1,033 views
Children and their Pets: A Valentine’s Weekend Post
by Jason Goldman in The Thoughtful Animal
Well, its Valentine’s weekend, and a good excuse to talk about animals and love. And animals in love. And humans in love with animals. And such. Of course, I can’t talk about kissing and animals without giving a shout out to Sheril and her upcoming book The Science of Kissing, and her Science of Kissing [...]... Read more »
Melson, G. (2003) Child Development and the Human-Companion Animal Bond. American Behavioral Scientist, 47(1), 31-39. DOI: 10.1177/0002764203255210
- February 13, 2010
- 04:28 PM
- 1,305 views
Maori Wetland Deposits
by Martin Rundkvist in Aardvarchaeology
I'm studying sacrificial deposits made by people of a lo-tech culture in Sweden 3000 years ago, largely in wetlands. This was long before any word relevant to the area was written. The objects were mainly recovered during the decades to either side of 1900. Yesterday while trawling through back issues of the Journal of Wetland Archaeology I came across a really cool paper on a similar theme. It's about wetland deposits made by lo-tech people and excavated during the 20th century. But in this cas........ Read more »
Caroline Phillips, Dilys Johns, & Harry Allen. (2002) Why did Maori bury artefacts in the wetlands of pre-contact Aotearoa / New Zealand?. Journal of Wetland Archaeology, 39-60. info:other/
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- February 12, 2010
- 12:27 PM
- 1,166 views
Jane Guyer “on possibility”: another “How Is Anthropology Going” redux
by Kevin Karpiak in Kevin Karpiak's Blog
Some of you might remember a panel I organized, along with Chris Vasantkumar and Mattais Viktorin, at the 2008 annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association called “How Is Anthropology Going? An Inquiry into Movement, Mode and Method in the Contemporary World” (if not, you can read a bit more about it in an earlier [...]... Read more »
Guyer, J. (2010) On 'possibility': A response to 'How Is Anthropology Going?'. Anthropological Theory, 9(4), 355-370. DOI: 10.1177/1463499609358143
Nadezhda Dimitrova Savova, . (2009) Heritage Kinaesthetics: Local Constructivism and UNESCO's Intangible-Tangible Politics at a Favela Museum. Anthropological Quarterly, 82(2), 547-585. DOI: 10.1353/anq.0.0066
- February 10, 2010
- 10:40 PM
- 515 views
Gobble
by teofilo in Gambler's House
So, turkeys. I mentioned in an earlier post that there’s been an important new paper about turkeys published in PNAS. It’s been mentioned in two good media accounts linked by Southwestern Archaeology Today in two separate posts. Unlike most PNAS articles, this one is Open Access, so both the article itself and its supplement are [...]... Read more »
Speller, C., Kemp, B., Wyatt, S., Monroe, C., Lipe, W., Arndt, U., & Yang, D. (2010) Ancient mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals complexity of indigenous North American turkey domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909724107
- February 10, 2010
- 05:21 PM
- 599 views
Navajo Has Two and a Half Words for Snow
by teofilo in Gambler's House
It’s snowing like crazy here in New Jersey right now. Rutgers canceled all classes today and morning classes tomorrow, so I’ve got a lot of unexpected time off. Seeing all this snow is reminding me, as always, of Navajo linguistics. Words for “snow” play a disproportionately important role in understanding the history and dialectology of [...]... Read more »
Sapir, E. (1936) Internal Linguistic Evidence Suggestive of the Northern Origin of the Navaho. American Anthropologist, 38(2), 224-235. DOI: 10.1525/aa.1936.38.2.02a00040
- February 10, 2010
- 01:49 PM
- 10,062 views
Birds of a feather are bred together: domesticated turkeys in prehistoric SW US
by Rachel in The Sage of Discovery: Exploring the world of food one ingredient at a time
Turkeys have long been an important foodstuff in many parts of the world. In the U.S., not only has our post-colonial society been fueled by this fowl; historically, turkey meat, feathers, and bones have provided important uses for pre-contact Native Americans. But where did these birds come from? By examining the remains of turkeys from [...]... Read more »
Speller, C., Kemp, B., Wyatt, S., Monroe, C., Lipe, W., Arndt, U., & Yang, D. (2010) Ancient mitochondrial DNA analysis reveals complexity of indigenous North American turkey domestication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909724107
- February 10, 2010
- 04:56 AM
- 568 views
Are We All Homeopaths Now?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
There are two main kinds of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) - the ones that involve actually doing stuff, and the ones that don't.Things like herbal medicine, chiropractic, and acupuncture could plausibly make someone better, as more than just a placebo, given what we know about physics and chemistry, because they involve physically acting on the body. I don't claim to know whether they do in fact work, but in theory, they could.Other CAM techniques, however, are just magic. Homeopa........ Read more »
Shang, A., Huwiler-Müntener, K., Nartey, L., Jüni, P., Dörig, S., Sterne, J., Pewsner, D., & Egger, M. (2005) Are the clinical effects of homoeopathy placebo effects? Comparative study of placebo-controlled trials of homoeopathy and allopathy. The Lancet, 366(9487), 726-732. DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(05)67177-2
- February 9, 2010
- 05:20 AM
- 849 views
Evolutionary origins of religion: weak relation to morality
by Björn Brembs in bjoern.brembs.blog
It is a long-standing argument among religious believers that religiosity were necessary for morality. In a recent Trends in Cognitive Sciences article (requires subscription), Pyysiäinen and Hauser argue that morality can arise and indeed can be found without and before any religious education and thus religion is a by-product of pre-existing cognitive properties of the brain. Indeed, religion is not ubiquitous, as for instance the Hadza's religion has been described as 'minimal', and yet, coo........ Read more »
Ilkka Pyysiäinen, & Marc Hauser. (2010) The origins of religion: evolved adaptation or by-product?. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. info:/10.1016/j.tics.2009.12.007
- February 8, 2010
- 02:49 PM
- 1,121 views
Diminishing the Double Digital Divide
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
To wrap up my notes on Social Media Week, I thought I would pursue a comment made by Meebo CEO and co-founder Seth Sternberg during the Social Graph Optimization panel. He suggested that without proper education on the use of digital tools, we would see the a growing divide between two technological classes increase: those with access to information would be at a greater advantage than those
... Read more »
Hargittai, E. (2002) Second-level digital divide: Differences in people’s online skills. First Monday, Peer-reviewed journal of the Internet, 7(4). info:/
Jung, J. (2008) Internet Connectedness and its Social Origins: An Ecological Approach to Postaccess Digital Divides. Communication Studies, 59(4), 322-339. DOI: 10.1080/10510970802467387
- February 5, 2010
- 12:28 AM
- 1,316 views
Social Media Week NYC: Remembering the Human Element in CSR Initiatives
by Krystal D'Costa in Anthropology in Practice
At today's panel, Putting the Social Back in CSR (CSR = corporate social responsibility) at the Paley Center for Media, Jamie Daves, executive director of Think Social, began the discussion by reminding the audience (and panelists) of social media's potential. Characterizing it as both dangerous and powerful, he drew upon examples where revolutions in communication methods had profound impact on
... Read more »
KAS KALBA. (2008) The Adoption of Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets: Global Diffusion and Rural Challenges. International Journal of Communication, 631-661. info:/
- February 1, 2010
- 05:56 PM
- 1,283 views
Neanderthal toothpicking - 100,000 year-old evidence from Poland
by Julien Riel-Salvatore in A Very Remote Period Indeed
There's an interesting newsreport that summarizes a recent paper on the discovery, context and characteristics of three Neanderthal teeth recovered from Stajnia Cave, in southern Poland. Urbanowski et al. (2010) suggest that, on the basis of the associated fauna, which comprises mostly reindeer as well as some red deer, horses and ibex, as well as some cut-marked cave bear bones, the most likely age for these remains falls towards the end of Oxygen Isotope Stage 5, somewhere between 80-100,000BP........ Read more »
Urbanowski, M., Socha, P., Dąbrowski, P., Nowaczewska, W., Sadakierska-Chudy, A., Dobosz, T., Stefaniak, K., & Nadachowski, A. (2010) The first Neanderthal tooth found North of the Carpathian Mountains. Naturwissenschaften. DOI: 10.1007/s00114-010-0646-2
- January 30, 2010
- 05:12 PM
- 629 views
Is Depression Undertreated?
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Neuroskeptic readers will be familiar with the idea that too many people are being treated for mental illness. But not everyone agrees. Many people argue that common mental illnesses, such as depression, are undertreated. Take, for example, a paper just out in the esteemed Archives of General Psychiatry: Depression Care in the United States: Too Little for Too Few.The authors looked at the results of three large (total N=15,762) surveys designed to measure the prevalence of mental illness in Ame........ Read more »
Gonzalez, H., Vega, W., Williams, D., Tarraf, W., West, B., & Neighbors, H. (2010) Depression Care in the United States: Too Little for Too Few. Archives of General Psychiatry, 67(1), 37-46. DOI: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2009.168
- January 30, 2010
- 11:00 AM
- 1,037 views
Dynamics of 2ch Discussions
The structure of online discussions are partially determined by its platform. Whether it is through blogs, BBS, chat, email and other online platforms, the depth, dynamicity, communicability, accountability, communability and the behavior of the discussions vary. As an easy example, the presence of anonymity limits the responsibility and accountability of the communicator — diluting the constructiveness of the thought into a more emotional one. Huffington Post utilizes a thumbs up/down sys........ Read more »
Matsumura, N., Miura, A., Shibanai, Y., Ohsawa, Y., & Nishida, T. (2004) The dynamism of 2channel. AI , 19(1), 84-92. DOI: 10.1007/s00146-004-0302-5
- January 28, 2010
- 04:18 PM
- 1,420 views
Evo. Anthro. Study Suggests You Might Be Running Wrong
"The Barefoot Professor", a behind-the-scenes look at the new Nature paper.
Humans that had to escape from saber-toothed cats, giant hyenas, and charging mammoths did not wear Nike or Adidas sneakers. They ran barefoot, but don't feel too bad that they did not have good running shoes to help them. As suggested by a team of researchers led by Daniel Lieberman in the latest issue of Nature, habitually shoeless runners have a unique step that may be better for our feet than even the most expe........ Read more »
Lieberman, D., Venkadesan, M., Werbel, W., Daoud, A., D’Andrea, S., Davis, I., Mang’Eni, R., & Pitsiladis, Y. (2010) Foot strike patterns and collision forces in habitually barefoot versus shod runners. Nature, 463(7280), 531-535. DOI: 10.1038/nature08723
- January 28, 2010
- 02:33 PM
- 644 views
The British Media's "Blonde Moment"
by Neuroskeptic in Neuroskeptic
Ten days ago, the Sunday Times - Britain's "newspaper of record" - recorded thatBlonde women born to be warrior princessesWomen with fair hair are more aggressive and determined to get their own way than brunettes or redheads, according to a study by the University of California... “We expected blondes to feel more entitled than other young women — this is southern California, the natural habitat of the privileged blonde,” said Aaron Sell, who led the study...Well who'da thought it. Ot........ Read more »
Sell A, Tooby J, & Cosmides L. (2009) Formidability and the logic of human anger. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 106(35), 15073-8. PMID: 19666613
- January 28, 2010
- 11:14 AM
- 993 views
Is Homo floresiensis really that strange?
by zinjanthropus in A Primate of Modern Aspect
BMC Biology has recently published a paper (It’s Open Access!) which explores trends in brain size in the Primates. A trend toward a larger brain is usually considered one of the “hallmarks” of the Primates, but Stephen Montgomery and his colleagues have shown that in many lineages, there is a trend towards secondarily “shrunken” brains.
The [...]... Read more »
Montgomery, S., Capellini, I., Barton, R., & Mundy, N. (2010) Reconstructing the ups and downs of primate brain evolution: implications for adaptive hypotheses and Homo floresiensis. BMC Biology, 8(1), 9. DOI: 10.1186/1741-7007-8-9
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