anthropology
Tag archives for anthropology
Does Your Genealogy Reveal Amazing Anthropological Stories?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 26, 2013 
I gave a talk at the Brookdale Public Library last night as part of the celebration of DNA day. DNA Day, or DNAD for short, was created about the time of the “completion” (more or less) of the Human Genome in 2003, and is set to be on the date of the publication of the…
Meat Eating in Human Prehistory
Posted by Greg Laden on April 20, 2013 
All human hunter-gatherer groups that have been studied incorporate meat in their diets. Studies have shown that the total dietary contribution of meat varies a great deal, and seems to increase with latitude so that foragers in subarctic and arctic regions eat a lot of meat while those living near the equator eat less. It…
Noble Savages: Napoleon Chagnon’s Fierce Book
Posted by Greg Laden on April 5, 2013 
Napoleon Chagnon spent years living among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and wrote, among other things, a classic ethnography still used widely in anthropology classes. It came to pass that Chagnon and his ethnography came under scrutiny, actually a few waves of scrutiny, from practitioners of cultural anthropology in part because his monograph depicted the Yanomamo…
What the heck is Vocal Fry?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know what the heck Vocal Fry is. Apparently some people have gotten really annoyed about it, as it is a speech mannerism that has emerged among young folks, who are always annoying, and especially females, who are always annoying. Apparently. (I also did not know that until…
The Feast (A Thanksgiving Day Story)
Posted by Greg Laden on November 22, 2012 Today is Thanksgiving in the US. Happy Thanksgiving. Let us being with a word of advice: TAKE THE TURKEY OUT OF THE FREEZER NAO!!! And now … a feast.
Is it appropriate to use the term “Pygmy” when speaking of…Pygmies?
Posted by Greg Laden on August 5, 2012 Some of the people who live in the rain forest of Central Africa are known widely as “Pgymies.” That word…Pygmy…is considered problematic for a few different reasons. It refers to a person’s physical appearance, because it means “small.” The word is sometimes used in biology to refer to the smaller species among a group of…
The Feast
Posted by Greg Laden on November 24, 2011 Time for the thanksgiving story. But first, when you are preparing your Thanksgiving Turkey, you might want to keep this in mind. And now … a feast.
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…
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…
, which is now available for the 
