Anthropology

"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 to several behavioral traits or tendencies. Also, a pair of twins separated at birth and raised up in very different cultures are likely to exhibit more differences than similarities owing to the different cultures but perhaps some set of seemingly uncanny…
English political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588 - 1679) is widely held as the "father of political science." His 1651 book Leviathan makes the case for why monarchy is the only political system that is consistent with human nature. He bases his argument on the following assumption about humans in "the state of nature" (what we would now call indigenous peoples): Let us return again to the state of nature, and consider men as if but even now sprung out of the earth, and suddenly, like mushrooms, come to full maturity without all kind of engagement to each other . . . Whatsoever therefore…
Don't worry, it is not as bad as it sounds, but it is somewhat contagious. Abwrackpraemie is German for "car scrappage bonus" which is what you get if you turn in your older lower mpg car for a new higher mpg car, I assume. The word was added to the German Language earlier today as five thousand words in total were loaded into Das Dictionary. Other words include Konjunkturpaket (stimulus package) and "After-Show-Party" (that one is from English). Oh, and we have a new verb in German as well: Twittern. Not sure what it means, though. There is a story on this here at the BBC or you can…
BMC Evolutionary Biology has a new paper which will be up soon (not on site), Reconstructing Indian-Australian phylogenetic link. ScienceDaily has a preview: Dr Raghavendra Rao worked with a team of researchers from the Anthropological Survey of India to sequence 966 complete mitochondrial DNA genomes from Indian 'relic populations'. He said, "Mitochondrial DNA is inherited only from the mother and so allows us to accurately trace ancestry. We found certain mutations in the DNA sequences of the Indian tribes we sampled that are specific to Australian Aborigines. This shared ancestry suggests…
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 often uses that expression. That can be a pleasant experience, or an unpleasant one. If you know what I mean. A moment or two ago a person who could only be described as annoying, whom I do not personally know, corrected me on Facebook. I had responded to Carl Zimmer's lament…
... 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. This was on the location of an historic hunting reserve, where every one of the buildings where guests were quartered and entertained was built well before World War II. Even the ancient charcoal refrigerator was intact and in use. This was a large cylindrical structure with double mesh walls. When the game was afoot and dozens of buck were…
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 out there do not understand the momentous nature of this event. So stand still for a minute while I force some wisdom on you. Back in those days I was hanging around a lot with Bob Miller, a classmate who wanted to grow up and be an oceanographer. Bob had a pool in his…
If you are going to be around Brooklyn, New York tomorrow night and don't already have plans you might want to stop by JLA Studios to check outGeeking Out, hosted by Gelf Magazine. Among the guests will be paleoartist Viktor Deak, the man responsible for the beautiful hominid restorations in the "Lucy's Legacy" exhibition and the book The Last Human. Even if you cannot make it, though, you can still check out this interview with Deak.
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 Kimberley South Africa is said to be the most haunted city in the world, and it certainly is a city with a remarkable and dark history. The culture of Kimberley is constructed from the usual colonial framework on which are draped the tragic lives of representatives from almost every native culture from thousands of kilometers around. The city's very existence is highly questionable…
As Eddie Izzard notes in the video above, the English, within our cosy, post-imperialist, monolingual culture, often have trouble coping with the idea of two languages or more jostling about for space in the same head. "No one can live at that speed!" he suggests. And yet, bilingual children seem to cope just fine. In fact, they pick up their dual tongues at the same pace as monolingual children attain theirs, despite having to cope with two sets of grammar and vocabulary. At around 12 months, both groups produce their first words and after another six months, they know around 50.…
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 that comes out of the tap at the cabin. Anyway, I bought a couple of gallons, and then decided to buy a six pack of bottles, because we had four people going up in the car, two were kids who never drink enough water, and I thought this would be a good idea. Then, only after deciding to get bottles of water, I walked over to the bottled water…
On July 9, 1858 the German-American anthropologist Franz Boas was born. To honor the man widely held as the "father of American anthropology" the American Anthropological Association offered a tribute for Boas today on their blog. What conveniently went unmentioned was the fact that the AAA censured Boas in 1918 for revealing that American anthropologists were covertly working as spies for the US government. As Boas wrote to the editor of The Nation: The point against which I wish to enter a vigorous protest is that a number of men who follow science as their profession, men whom I refuse…
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 had sloping foreheads; they were short of stature, bow-legged and otherwise misshapen. They also clearly were, in the eyes of the traveler, of subhuman intelligence. The traveler described these people as a separate, subhuman race that lived in…
In my review of Joshua Blu Buhs' new book Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend I wrote; As with many legendary creatures, advocates Bigfoot's existence often claim that the creature has been known for hundreds or even thousands of years. How could so many cultures in so many parts of the world have stories about "wild men of the woods" if none actually existed? An entire volume could be devoted to this question alone (for starters, see the chapters on "yeren" in The People's Peking Man) ... Given that both books (Bigfoot and The People's Peking Man) were published by the University of…
The coffee shop was already loud. The walls, floor, and ceiling of the Caribou are all made of sound-bouncy materials. The equipment behind the counter is loud to begin with and is not muffled by any structure. The barista has developed the typical barista habit of banging shit on other shit as loud as he can and as often as he can. Then in walked the big loud highly annoying Christians from the local seminary.... ...I am sitting at the far south end of the coffee shop where it is dark, and they are sitting at the absolute other end of the coffee ship, by the windows. I can hear every…
Human nature is often cited as an explanation for behavior—not a result. But as Eric Michael Johnson of The Primate Diaries explains, human nature is as much a product of individual actions as it is a driving force. And knowing how social structures arise out of individual patterns of behavior may help us adapt to changing environments, particularly in the face of climate change. Eric is hopeful that evidence of resource-sharing behavior in other species can provide insight and direction to our own: "It's somewhat reassuring to know that, while our individual actions will continue to be…
Four Stone Hearth #70, the migrating anthropology blog carnival, has been posted today at the new site of Afarensis. I hosted the carnival earlier at the original home of The Primate Diaries, and I hope to again soon. There's a lot of great posts in this edition and I encourage everyone to check them out. My picks include: Anthropology.net has a terrific review of the new paper on Eem Neanderthals: The suggestion that Neanderthals made their own fitted clothes and kept food in storage rather than eating as much as they could on the spot, before heading off in search of the next meal,…
A somewhat tamarin-like restoration of Ganlea megacania. By Mark A. Klingler of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. It seems that almost every time a new fossil primate is announced the first question everyone asks is "Is it one of our ancestors?" Nevermind that it is all but impossible to identify direct ancestors and descendants in the vertebrate fossil record (including primates). If the fossil can be construed to be a human ancestor it gets plenty of attention and if it is not the reports are left to wither. For a primate fossil to be seen, it must be promoted, and this often leads…
This post was originally titled "Mail Order Brides and Hypergyny." I was prompted to revisit the post because it received a a rather astonishing comment that I chose not to allow, but I did post it on my Facebook page where any attention it would receive would be from the thoughtful people that make up my Facebook community rather than just anybody out there on the Internet. Also, I recently received a complaint from a reader that Scienceblogs.com has been showing a lot of ads for "mail order brides," and this post was originally partly a response to that. I should also mention that in the…
Sunrise on the Maasai Mara, Kenya. Vearl Brown / Creative Commons From the beginning our human family has been on a journey. Born together, in eastern Africa about 100,000 years ago, our ancestors migrated to distant points around the globe. Our family scattered, communication was cut off and, in most cases, we forgot about them all together. We went our separate ways and lived our separate lives. Like siblings each adopted by different parents in distant lands, we came to identify with where we were raised instead of where we were from. Now, after accumulating so many years of…