Anthropology
Category archives for Anthropology
A nice overview Remembering Claude Lévi-Strauss
Posted by Greg Laden on November 4, 2009 is here, on Savage Minds. Where else!?!? Thanks, Rex.
Claude Lévi-Strauss has Died
Posted by Greg Laden on November 4, 2009 When I was first reading about Anthropology as a budding Archaeologist, Claude Levi Strauss was old. When I went to graduate school, I was shocked to see Claude Levi Strauss walking around at conferences, being old and revered. Every decade or so since then Claude Levi Strauss would show up in one place or another.…
The corporation = one of the best documentaries ever.
Posted by Greg Laden on October 25, 2009 I first watched The Corporation when it was first shown around, at the Minneapolis Film Fest, with the producers and the director. The Corporation could be termed a forensic personality profile of the American Corporation, but I viewed it as an insightful ethnography of the most important tribe to emerge in human history. The most…
Cultural Preservation: The Blue Shield
Posted by Greg Laden on October 17, 2009 Corine Wegener interviewed by Scott Lohman
Silence = Death
Posted by Greg Laden on October 15, 2009 I have been to Uganda a number times, but only illegally or by accident, in which case I was in the remote bush, or in transit, stopping at Entebbe Airport, so I can’t say that I know much, directly, about the culture there. However, I have spent months in Kenya and years in Zaire/Congo, and…
Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces
Posted by Greg Laden on October 15, 2009 Constructivism. Determinism. It is all a bunch of hooey. A recent paper published by PLoS (Culture Shapes How We Look at Faces) throws a sopping wet blanket on widely held deterministic models of human behavior. In addition, the work underscores the sometimes spooky cultural differences that can emerge in how people see things, even how…
Cultural Evolution from Mosquitos to Worm Grunting
Posted by Greg Laden on October 14, 2009 A very good day of grunting worms. Credit: Ken Catania So-called Gene-Culture Co-Evolution can be very obvious and direct or it can be very subtle and complex. In almost all cases, the details defy the usual presumptions people make about the utility of culture, the nature of human-managed knowledge, race, and technology. I would like…
The Bible in Translation
Posted by Greg Laden on October 14, 2009 Watch Humanist Views: Humanism and the Bible in Activism & Non-Profit | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
The “Swine Flu” does not have a name?
Posted by Greg Laden on October 12, 2009 Effect Measure has an interesting take-down of a post on The Global Language Monitor (GLM), which brings up an interesting point or two. The GLM is a very strange site which has, as Revere points out, declared itself to be an important go-to place to find out about language trends across the world. I have…
The Hurricane Lantern Effect
Posted by Greg Laden on October 7, 2009 This is for all your nascent researchers about to head off to remote places to engage in your very first fieldwork, and for all you eco-tourists or educational travelers about to embark on a trip through strange lands afar.
The Roman Polanski Drama: “Then” vs. “Now” effects.
Posted by Greg Laden on September 30, 2009 The Roman Polanski story has certainly gotten interesting. Well, actually, the story is still only mildly interesting, but the discussion about it has developed in interesting ways. So, I thought I’d muddy the waters by throwing in a few thoughts.
Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) III
Posted by Greg Laden on September 23, 2009 This is the third of three parts of this particular falsehood. (Here is the previous part)
Primitive Cultures are Simple, Civilization is Complex (A falsehood) I
Posted by Greg Laden on September 21, 2009 This is yet another in a series of posts on falsehoods. To refresh your memory, a falsehood is a belief held by a number of people that is in some way incorrect. That incorrectness may be blatant, it may be subtle, it may be conditional, it may be simple, it may be complex. But, the…
Does the term “DrugMonkey” give you the warm fuzzies? How about “GoatF$ck@ry”?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 3, 2009 It has been said that the only way to effect real change in important socio-political debates is to be very aggressive and unapologetically rude in making arguments. Civility and politeness are the hobgoblins of the Western Heternormative Colonoracist Patriarchy. I personally feel that there are indeed times and places for such a thing, but I…
Culture Overrides Biology (Another falsehood)
Posted by Greg Laden on September 3, 2009 At issue here is the idea that “biology” is slow and ponderous, glacial, even geological, in its rate of change, while culture is quick and snappy and makes rapid adjustment. Connected to this is a subtly different but very important idea: Culture actually makes sensible adjustments to compensate for changes in the biological realm.
Conflict in how to frame animals?
Posted by Greg Laden on September 2, 2009 OK, folks, your wisdom is needed. I got an email from Sheril Kirshenbaum asking me to promote a blog post in which she asks for pictures that might be used to illustrate her upcoming book on kissing. I had planned to help her out, and in fact, here I am doing that right now: Please…
Explaining the Spread of Agriculture into Europe
Posted by Greg Laden on August 31, 2009 The practice of growing food and keeping livestock was invented numerous times throughout the world. One ‘center’ of agriculture is said to be the Middle East. Despite the fact that calling the Middle East a “center” in this context is a gross oversimplification, it is true that agriculture was practiced in Anatolia and the Levant…
The Four Stone Hearth Blog Carnival
Posted by Greg Laden on August 12, 2009 Four Stone Hearth is the Anthropology Blog Carnival. The main page for the carnival is here. The previous carnival was held at A Hot Cup of Joe, and the next edition will be at Natures/Cultures blog. The current edition of the Four Stone Hearth Anthropology Blog Carnival is ….. HERE, below the fold. Please visit…
Musings on the Aquatic Ape Theory
Posted by Greg Laden on August 4, 2009 The Aquatic Ape Theory is being discussed over at Pharyngula. As PZ points out, an excellent resource on this idea is Moore’s site on the topic. Here, I just want to make a few remarks about it.
Slaughter a Cow Every 28 Days: How the Bible Ruined Western Society
Posted by Greg Laden on July 29, 2009 In which I explain how Abrahamic religious tradition, ingrained in Western society since before its very history began, explains some of the special ways in which we can be so dumb.
The Natural Basis for Inequality of the Sexes
Posted by Greg Laden on July 27, 2009 Is the Natural World a valid source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane areas of thought such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast?1 When it comes to airplanes, you’d better be a servant to the rules of nature (such as gravity) or the airplane…
Reading Human Nature
Posted by Greg Laden on July 26, 2009 “Human nature” is an interesting topic. People will argue over the definition of human nature, but regardless of what people think or say, it is reasonable to assume that all humans share a psychological and developmental framework to the extent that any two people raised in the same background will ‘turn out’ similar with respect…
Silence of the muffins.
Posted by Greg Laden on July 23, 2009 There is no red shirted man making deals on the phone as he paces back and forth. There is no group of large voiced church people being all holier than thou. And loud. Eight out of ten customers in this coffee shop are writers. I can tell because they come in and sit down and…
My sister in law just got Abwrackpraemie
Posted by Greg Laden on July 22, 2009 Don’t worry, it is not as bad as it sounds, but it is somewhat contagious.
Memetics of Meaning, Memory and Me: The minefield of the annoying or endearing mannerism
Posted by Greg Laden on July 20, 2009 Did you ever notice how some verbal expressions have an extra meaning for you, just you, because of history? In reflecting on this, it is impossible to not consider such lofty topics as memes, cultural transmission, and … well, meaning. A particular expression might invoke a memory of an event, or of a person who…
A True Ghost Story Part 5: The Grave on the Hill
Posted by Greg Laden on July 17, 2009 … continued … One of the main reasons we were staying in Kimberley at all was to assist the museum staff with a particular, and rather singular, survey and excavation. The location and circumstances of this field project were quite remarkable.
Primitive beings walking on the moon
Posted by Greg Laden on July 17, 2009 This week we celebrate the anniversary of the first time human beings walked around on the moon, and as part of that celebration we find NASA releasing improved versions of the original scratchy black and white low resolution images of the first steps taken on the moon by Neil Armstrong. I’m worried that the youngsters…
A true ghost story. Part I: A City of Death and Misery
Posted by Greg Laden on July 13, 2009 Everything I’m about to tell you in this story is true.1 This is a long story, so it may span more than one blog post. You might not want to read this story while you are alone or while sitting in the dark.2
Oooh look… Shiny
Posted by Greg Laden on July 9, 2009 So the other day I stopped at the grocery store to get a few items for the trip up north. One of the things I needed was water. I know, I know, if I buy bottled water the earth will split in half and we will all die. But you have not tasted the water…
What a Difference a Century Can Make
Posted by Greg Laden on July 8, 2009 At the beginning of the 20th century, a traveler in Central Africa made mention of some strange people that he had come across. He was traveling among regular, run-of-the-mill natives…probably Bantu-speaking people living in scattered villages and farming for their food. But along the way, strange people came out of the forest. These strange people…
, which is now available for the 
