From his knowledge of weapon wounds, the surgical treatment of the time and careful forensic anthropology analysis, Prof. Agelarakis deduced that the shaft of the arrow and part of one of its three lobes had been removed by Greek field surgeons. However, the rest of the arrowhead suspected to be hooked (barbed) had to be left in place, because attempts to remove it were unsuccessful. (PRWeb May ...
Anthropology
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Most Topular Stories
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2,500-Year-Old Bone Fragment from Forearm of Greek Warrior X-rayed at North Shore-LIJ
anthropology - Yahoo! News Search Results22 May 2013 | 6:37 am -
Practical Training for the Digitally Il/literate Anthropologist
Savage Minds Backup20 May 2013 | 6:20 amMost graduate programs in anthropology require us to take a course in methods to prepare us to “do anthropology” on our own. In class, we discuss what makes a good research question, the trade-offs between qualitative and quantitative data, and the importance of taking good field notes. Sometimes we even get to conduct research and experience firsthand how to enter a community, recruit informants, transcribe interviews, and code data. This practical training allows us to try out the methods we are learning in class and troubleshoot any problems we have along the way with our professors… -
New archaeological 'high definition' sourcing sharpens understanding of the past
ScienceDaily: Anthropology News22 May 2013 | 5:54 amA new method of sourcing the origins of artefacts in high definition is set to improve our understanding of the past. -
A Modern Stone Age Family? A Neanderthal’s Molar Suggests Early Weaning
NYT > Archaeology and Anthropology22 May 2013 | 10:00 pmPatterns of barium in the fossil tooth of a child indicate that breast-feeding ended after 1.2 years, researchers say — much sooner than in modern nonindustrial populations. -
Uruk migrants in the Caucasus
Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog22 May 2013 | 9:50 amFrom the paper: The period between the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C. was the time of great cataclysmic events in the Caucasus; its cultural advances were influenced by changes within its boundaries as well as interactions with the outside world. The most significant occurrence of this epoch was the appearance of a large number of peoples of Mesopotamian cultural identity who contributed to speeding up the rhythm of its cultural development, adding “explosive” character to its progress. ... During this period the South Caucasus experienced two powerful waves of Middle…
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anthropology - Yahoo! News Search Results
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2,500-Year-Old Bone Fragment from Forearm of Greek Warrior X-rayed at North Shore-LIJ
22 May 2013 | 6:37 amFrom his knowledge of weapon wounds, the surgical treatment of the time and careful forensic anthropology analysis, Prof. Agelarakis deduced that the shaft of the arrow and part of one of its three lobes had been removed by Greek field surgeons. However, the rest of the arrowhead suspected to be hooked (barbed) had to be left in place, because attempts to remove it were unsuccessful. (PRWeb May ... -
Anthropology-Sociology Students Present Research at Conference
21 May 2013 | 1:25 pmSeniors Megan Beney and Eva Marley spoke at the Central States Anthropology Society. Beney's topic was the musical nature of speech directed at infants, and Marley discussed social media sites and social movements. -
Villagers discover ancient ball game statue in Mexico
21 May 2013 | 9:31 amVillagers installing a water pipe in southwestern Mexico stumbled onto an ancient granite statue depicting a player from a pre-Hispanic ball game, the national anthropology institute said Monday. -
Lafayette College approved to build new sociology, anthropology center
21 May 2013 | 7:06 amConstruction on the 19,600-square-foot Oechsle Center for Global Education will likely begin this summer or fall and take about 16 to 18 months, college officials said. -
Anthropology: Yasmin Bendaas
5 May 2013 | 2:44 pmSenior Yasmin Bendaas found her love for anthropology outside the confines of the university’s campus. During a study abroad trip to Morocco, Bendaas found that her interests in language and culture fell more in line with anthropology than her previously selected major, politics and international affairs.
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Savage Minds Backup
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Practical Training for the Digitally Il/literate Anthropologist
20 May 2013 | 6:20 amMost graduate programs in anthropology require us to take a course in methods to prepare us to “do anthropology” on our own. In class, we discuss what makes a good research question, the trade-offs between qualitative and quantitative data, and the importance of taking good field notes. Sometimes we even get to conduct research and experience firsthand how to enter a community, recruit informants, transcribe interviews, and code data. This practical training allows us to try out the methods we are learning in class and troubleshoot any problems we have along the way with our professors… -
Summer reading…
19 May 2013 | 4:53 pmThe semester is over and grades are in. My family just moved to a bigger place — one block down the street, actually — thanks to my wife’s tenure promotion. And the stress of the two combined, plus Herculean applications of caffeine and alcohol (I thought they were supposed to cancel each other out, no?) has got me nursing a stubborn infection. While I convalesce I am enjoying being reunited with my book collection, which has mostly been in boxes in the attic since 2007. Last night I picked up Frazer’s The Golden Bough, one of many texts I purchased in a fit of… -
Savage Minds Interview: Sarah Kendzior
12 May 2013 | 11:48 amSarah Kendzior is a writer for Al Jazeera English. She has a PhD in cultural anthropology from Washington University and researches the political effects of digital media in the former USSR. You can find her work at sarahkendzior.com, and on Twitter: @sarahkendzior Ryan Anderson: First of all, thanks for doing this interview. Let’s start off with the basics: Why anthropology? How and why did you end up in this field? Sarah Kendzior: I got interested in anthropology while working as a research assistant for an anthropologist, Nazif Shahrani, while getting my MA in Central Eurasian… -
#Adderall: Positionality and Ethics in Social Media Research
9 May 2013 | 10:33 amSavage Minds welcomes guest blogger TAZ KARIM In the past five years, Twitter has become a mecca for social science researchers: the number of topics, informants, and networks waiting to be analyzed are limitless (here are some examples). With the help of a nifty program like Tweet Archivist, you could literally collect thousands of micro-narratives about people’s ideologies, behaviors, and relationships around a search query – all from the comfort of your office. This was the utopian vision I had of Twitter research when I started designing my final project for the Cultural Heritage… -
The Academic Benefits of Twitter
8 May 2013 | 12:08 pmWhy Twitter? What value does Twitter offer to an academic? And, are you missing out if you are not on Twitter? Yesterday someone I follow (@bacigalupe) posted a link to a Digital Sociology post titled “Can academics manage without Twitter?” My answer was: of course they can. Academics do not need to be on Twitter, and yet there are some very real benefits to Twitter. What are they, you ask? In the order I posted them (and with the original 140 character limitations of syntax preserved), here are five academic benefits I’ve experienced through using Twitter: #1: learning about new…
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ScienceDaily: Anthropology News
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New archaeological 'high definition' sourcing sharpens understanding of the past
22 May 2013 | 5:54 amA new method of sourcing the origins of artefacts in high definition is set to improve our understanding of the past. -
Origins of human culture linked to rapid climate change
21 May 2013 | 9:14 amRapid climate change during the Middle Stone Age, between 80,000 and 40,000 years ago, sparked surges in cultural innovation in early modern human populations, according to new research. -
'Whodunnit' of Irish potato famine solved
20 May 2013 | 10:12 pmAn international team of scientists reveals that a unique strain of potato blight they call HERB-1 triggered the Irish potato famine of the mid-19th century. -
Archaeological genetics: It's not all as old as it at first seems
20 May 2013 | 6:51 amGenomic analyses suggest that patterns of genetic diversity which indicate population movement may not be as ancient as previously believed, but may be attributable to recent events. -
Light cast on lifestyle and diet of first New Zealanders
16 May 2013 | 7:57 amScientists have shed new light on the diet, lifestyles and movements of the first New Zealanders by analyzing isotopes from their bones and teeth.
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NYT > Archaeology and Anthropology
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A Modern Stone Age Family? A Neanderthal’s Molar Suggests Early Weaning
22 May 2013 | 10:00 pmPatterns of barium in the fossil tooth of a child indicate that breast-feeding ended after 1.2 years, researchers say — much sooner than in modern nonindustrial populations. -
Alice E. Kober, 43; Lost to History No More
11 May 2013 | 10:00 pmAn unknown language in an unknown script, and the forgotten woman who found the key to deciphering it. -
Who’re You Calling a Neanderthal?
2 May 2013 | 10:00 pmIn the last decade, the Neanderthals have been given a major rethinking. -
Fish’s DNA May Explain How Fins Turned to Feet
17 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pmScientists have decoded the genome of the endangered lobe-finned fish that was long believed extinct until a specimen was found in South Africa in 1938. -
The Gifts of Vesuvius
5 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pmAn exhibition at the British Museum offers a glimpse of how close in spirit the art of Pompeii and Herculaneum, cities buried in 79 A.D. by the eruption of Vesuvius, was to that of the Renaissance.
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Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog
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Uruk migrants in the Caucasus
22 May 2013 | 9:50 amFrom the paper: The period between the 4th and 3rd millennia B.C. was the time of great cataclysmic events in the Caucasus; its cultural advances were influenced by changes within its boundaries as well as interactions with the outside world. The most significant occurrence of this epoch was the appearance of a large number of peoples of Mesopotamian cultural identity who contributed to speeding up the rhythm of its cultural development, adding “explosive” character to its progress. ... During this period the South Caucasus experienced two powerful waves of Middle… -
Cosmic impact event ~12.8kya caused the Younger Dryas
21 May 2013 | 12:37 pmPNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1301760110 Evidence for deposition of 10 million tonnes of impact spherules across four continents 12,800 y ago James H. Wittke et al. Airbursts/impacts by a fragmented comet or asteroid have been proposed at the Younger Dryas onset (12.80 ± 0.15 ka) based on identification of an assemblage of impact-related proxies, including microspherules, nanodiamonds, and iridium. Distributed across four continents at the Younger Dryas boundary (YDB), spherule peaks have been independently confirmed in eight studies, but unconfirmed in two others, resulting in continued dispute… -
More population structure in the Netherlands (Lao et al. 2013)
20 May 2013 | 11:23 amThere was a recent article on the topic by Abdellaoui et al., and here is another one. Investigative Genetics 2013, 4:9 doi:10.1186/2041-2223-4-9 Clinal distribution of human genomic diversity across the Netherlands despite archaeological evidence for genetic discontinuities in Dutch population history Oscar Lao et al. Abstract (provisional) Background The presence of a southeast to northwest gradient across Europe in human genetic diversity is a well-established observation and has recently been confirmed by genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) data. This pattern is traditionally… -
Review on germline mutation rate in humans (Campbell and Eichler 2013)
20 May 2013 | 6:34 amThis is a nice little review of the state of the art in germline mutation rate estimation in humans. This was previously estimated using paleontological calibrations (especially the human/chimp split), but a slower mutation rate emerged on the basis of whole genome data from humans. There may be problems with the latter (because of false positive/negative mutations using whole genome sequencing), but the problem is an important one due to the use of the mutation rate to estimate time depth of common ancestry. In any case, the table on the left summarizes the results of several studies on the… -
An avalanche of Tibetan genetic data (Qi et al. 2013)
17 May 2013 | 11:31 amA very impressive data dump on Tibetan genetic variation gives us an excellent picture on both the Y-chromosome and mtDNA side. There are two interesting things about Tibetans -at least to me. First, their mtDNA is dominated by haplogroup M9, which is ~39 thousand years old, suggesting an early settlement after the dispersal of modern humans across Eurasia. Second, their Y-chromosomes are dominated by Y-haplogroup D, the sister clade of African haplogroup E, which links in some (unspecified, but I'm guessing old) time depth with such diverse peoples as the Andaman Islanders and the Ainu.
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ZERO ANTHROPOLOGY
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Encircling Empire: Report #21—Search and Distort Missions
11 May 2013 | 6:51 amEncircling Empire Reports is a selection of essays, blog posts, and news reports covering a given time period, providing links and representative extracts or key passages from each resource, usually focusing on certain countries/continents and/or processes in each report. The focus of the reports ranges from imperialism discussed in broad strokes, to specific facets of imperialism: militarization and militarism; militainment; “humanitarian intervention” and the “responsibility to protect”; regime-change; nation-building; counterinsurgency; state terrorism; the… -
Africa, Liberal Humanitarianism, and NATO’s Anthropology
25 Apr 2013 | 6:38 am[Many thanks to Dan Glazebrook for producing a review that gets to very the heart of this book, such that reading his review is an education in itself. This was reproduced from the UK's Ceasefire Magazine.] A Libyan man stands on Sirte’s bombed fishing harbour. May 12, 2011. Books | Review | Slouching Towards Sirte: NATO’s War on Libya and Africa by Maximilian Forte In his Ceasefire review, Dan Glazebrook examines Maximilian Forte’s withering indictment of liberal humanitarianism and its collusion in imperialist designs on Africa, as seen in NATO’s Libya campaign of 2011. -
Drones and the Production of Terror in Afghanistan
23 Apr 2013 | 6:02 pmIn his “Drone Strikes” (Anthropology News, March/April 2013) Daniel Varisco softly counsels the raging and confused American warfare machine about the futility of its bloody military operations in the lands of the Others in pursuit of its sadomasochistic “war on terror”. I partially agree with Daniel Varisco; yes, the acts of terror committed by the military forces of the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere are futile—they will continue to produce eternal resistance to the perceived defiling cultural and political presence of the enraged American imperial stupor. But simply… -
“Take It Easy on U.S. Imperialism”: Theocratizing the Middle East
23 Apr 2013 | 5:52 pmThe letter signed by “Mehdi Mohammadzadeh” (MM) in the March/April 2013 issue of Anthropology News contains a number of ethnographic, political and ethical issues which I wish to address. The letter is heavily tinted with strains of occidentosis (Farsi, gharbzadagi). MM has either misunderstood C. K. Mahmood’s comment in AN 53(9), 2012 or is interested only in a point on the margin of the subject of her essay. The salient point of Mahmood’s essay—the rejection of the distortion of Islam and Islamic culture through the secularist filters of Western academia and politics—is … -
Venezuela: What Does a Victory Mean?
15 Apr 2013 | 5:41 amWith 99.12% of the votes counted, and a voter turnout of 78.71%, the numerical results of the Venezuelan presidential elections were much closer than anyone anticipated, though the final political result was as expected: Nicolás Maduro won 50.66% of the votes (or 7,505,338 votes), while the opposition candidate Henrique Capriles Radonski lost with 49.07% of the votes (or 7,270,403 votes). I tried to reconfirm these figures by checking the website of the National Electoral Council (CNE), but it seems to be down. Whether or not this is due to denial of service attacks is not clear, but…
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antropologi.info - anthropology in the news blog
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How scholars in the Middle East developed anthropology more than 1000 years ago
26 Apr 2013 | 6:12 amAnthropology emerged in a relatively high scientific level in the wider Middle East before it existed as a discipline in the West. Therefore, the label of colonialism often coupled to its emergence must be removed. This is the main point of an article by Hassen Chaabani in the recent issue of the International Journal of Modern Anthropology. Although the beginning of the development of anthropology as a discipline is originated in colonial encounter between Western people and colonized peoples and, therefore, coupled to its use in favor of extremist ideologies such as racism, this must not… -
Now I am a truly engaged anthropologist!
24 Apr 2013 | 7:09 amI wanted to write this post long time ago. As you might have noticed, there haven’t been any new posts on this blog since the 24th of October last year. So what has happened? Well, at about the same time I wrote my last blog post, the most wonderful woman entered my life. Two months later we already got engaged. And in a few months, I hope, we will get married. So yes, now I am a truly engaged anthropologist! ! Getting married in Egypt is for me a wonderful, but not actually a cheap endeavour. My economic situation forces me therefore to focus on my paid job at the University in Oslo. -
When anthropology is begging for attention: PopAnth website launched
24 Oct 2012 | 8:34 amRegularily, new initiatives are launched to make anthropological knowledge more accessible to the general public. A few weeks ago, PopAnth was launched - a highly ambitious project that “translates anthropological discoveries for popular consumption” as they explain: We take anthropology’s collective knowledge and translate it for mainstream audiences, much in the way that popular science books, tv shows and trivia quizzes make even the hardest of sciences accessible. We strive to provide you with the best of anthropology in a format that makes you go, ‘Wow! I… -
Minority scholars treated as second class academics: Still a racial bias in anthropology
10 Oct 2012 | 6:39 pmIn a blog post at AnthroNow, Manissa McCleave Maharawal draws our attention to an important article in the American Anthropologist that was already published in november 2011: Anthropology as White Public Space? Here, Karen Brodkin, Sandra Morgen, and Janis Hutchinson show that there is still a racial bias in American anthropology. Their online survey among anthropologists of color in the US reveals that anthropology has “not done well when it comes to decolonizing their own practices around race”. A racial division of labor within departments, as well as a range of everyday… -
What the burial of a 4 year old boy says about daily life more than 24 000 years ago
10 Oct 2012 | 2:30 pmAntropologi.info is mainly about social anthropology. So, maybe now it’s time to get inspired by a paper from a neighbouring discipline - archaeology. Lukas Loeb has sent me this paper that he’d like to share with others: The Human Burial of the Abrigo Lagar Velho Child. An analysis of human burial and the understanding of social relations and ancient society. Loeb is currently a student in the Social Science and Economy Department at the University of Agder, Norway. The paper was written as a part of an anthropology course he took at the University of British Columbia, Canada, in…
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Material World
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CFP Doctoral workshop @webuse on Digital tools to study human behavior in online environments
22 May 2013 | 5:01 pmCALL FOR PARTICIPATION: DOCTORAL WORKSHOP Developing Best Practices for Using Digital Tools to Study Human Behavior in Online Environments webuse.org/workshop2013/ We invite doctoral students who study human behavior in digital environments, and who are at the beginning stages of … Continue reading → -
Call for Participation: Digital Art and the Urban Environment
21 May 2013 | 3:53 pmA Symposium, Art Exhibition, and Scholarly Volume Location: Pace University, Downtown Manhattan, NYC Date: Friday, October 4, 2013 Due Date: All submissions are due by Sunday, July 13, 2012. Pace Digital Gallery Web page: csis.pace.edu/digitalgallery/ Sponsors: Pace Digital Gallery, Seidenberg … Continue reading → -
CFA: Digital Treasures PhD Scholarships
15 May 2013 | 4:43 pmThe Centre for Creative and Cultural Research is seeking two PhD students to join its new Flagship Program, Digital Treasures. The Digital Treasures program builds on our strengths in digital design and cultural heritage. Digitisation is transforming cultural collections into … Continue reading → -
Big Data
13 May 2013 | 4:13 pmGreat piece on the Big Data movement by Kate Crawford in Foreign Policy entitled “Think Again: Big Data, Why the rise of machines isn’t all its cracked up to be” -
Uses of the Past in Past Societies
13 May 2013 | 2:14 amTuesday & Wednesday, 11 & 12 June 2013, 9.30am to 5.30pm Venue: British Academy, 10-11 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AH Convenors: Professor Björn Weiler and Dr Peter Lambert, Aberystwyth University This conference convenes an international group of experts … Continue reading →
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ScienceBlogs
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Journosplaining 101 [Uncertain Principles]
22 May 2013 | 11:39 amOver at National Geographic’s other blog network, Ed Yong offers a guide for scientists talking to journalists. Like everything Ed writes about scientists and journalists, this was immediately re-tweeted by 5000 people calling it a must-read. Also like nearly everything Ed writes about scientists and journalists, some of it kind of rubbed me the wrong way. Given our respective areas of interest, there’s approximately zero chance that Ed will ever contact me to ask my opinion of a paper, but I want to push back on a few of these, anyway. Because, in the end, scientists aren’t… -
“Lead Wars” – The politics of prevention and responsibility [The Pump Handle]
22 May 2013 | 10:27 amBy Elizabeth Grossman What constitutes a disease? If the symptoms are sub-clinical and the cause is an environmental contaminant, what is the appropriate public health response? Once an environmental hazard is identified, who is responsible for removing that hazard to protect people from ongoing exposure and to what extent – or is society’s responsibility limited to treating those individuals already harmed? These are questions central to Lead Wars: The Politics of Science and Fate of America’s Children, Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner’s provocative new book that tells the… -
The Ball State Kerfuffle [EvolutionBlog]
22 May 2013 | 2:05 amEric Hedin, an assistant professor of physics at Ball State University, has come under fire for an honors course called, “Boundaries of Science.” The problem: the course appears to be little more than thinly veiled Christian evangelism. From The USA Today: “BSU appears to offer a class that preaches religion, yet gives students honors science credit,&rdqu; foundation attorney Andrew Seidel wrote to Gora. “BSU appears to have a class with a non-biologist undermining genuine science and scholarship of the Ball State biology department by teaching creationism, a religious… -
The legacy of Andrew Wakefield continues [Respectful Insolence]
22 May 2013 | 12:00 amActions have consequences. No matter how much the person might want to try to hide from the consequences of one’s actions, they frequently have a way of coming back, grabbing you by the neck, and letting you know they’re there. We see it happening now in the U.K. Fifteen years ago, British doctor Andrew Wakefield published a case series in The Lancet in which he described gastrointestinal symptoms in 12 autistic children who were treated at the Royal Free Hospital. His conclusion was that he had identified associated gastrointestinal disease and developmental regression in a group… -
The E-Cat is back, and people are still falling for it! [Starts With A Bang]
21 May 2013 | 6:05 pm“Science literacy is a vaccine against the charlatans of the world that would exploit your ignorance.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson Well, I guess it’s that season again. The charlatan who claims to have invented a cold fusion device — the same device whose flaws were exposed here two years ago — has just held an “independent test” of his device, and there’s now a physics paper out claiming that this device works, and must be powered by some type of nuclear reaction! Image credit: G. Levi et al.; get the whole paper here:…
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Museum Anthropology
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Sac and Fox: turning over Thorpe won't be costly
22 May 2013 | 2:42 pmSac and Fox: Turning over Thorpe won't be costly The Sac and Fox Nation says it's not surprised by the decision by the Jim Thorpe Borough Council in eastern Pennsylvania to appeal a federal judge's order to relinquish the famed athlete's remains so they can be reinterred on American Indian land in Oklahoma. More here and here. -
Oklahoma Senate unveils $80M plan for 2 new museums
20 May 2013 | 2:38 pmOkla. Senate unveils $80M plan for 2 new museums The Oklahoma Senate unveiled a new plan on Thursday to divert $80 million in state sales and use taxes over a four-year period to pay for the completion of an American Indian museum in Oklahoma City and build a new popular culture museum in Tulsa. A Senate budget committee approved both measures, which next must be considered by a similar -
Job announcement: Curator of History position at Michigan State University Museum
8 May 2013 | 12:47 pm<!--[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]> -
Blog Survey Results
6 May 2013 | 3:23 pmHi everyone, The Museum Anthropology Blog put out a survey last fall regarding our content and readership. 35 individuals responded to our survey. Right now we have 94 followers registered on the blog, making this a 37% response rate, fairly high though we recognize that not all blog followers are registered through Blogger.com. If you are interested, the results of the survey are presented -
Repository for state's past faces a challenging future
25 Apr 2013 | 10:30 amThe Arizona State Museum celebrated its 120th anniversary last week- basking in its glory days, predicting a grand future and plodding through its current crises. In June, the museum will install its seventh director, Patrick Lyons, who inherits a venerable institution that faces significant challenges - or, as Lyons prefers, "opportunities." Lyons, associate director since 2009, would like
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Somatosphere
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Bird Flu: The Circulation of Life and Death in a Postspecies World by Natalie Porter
3 May 2013 | 10:44 amAt the end of 2009, linguists around the world collected words to characterize the first decade of the new millennium. “Aporkalypse” appeared at the top of their list, describing a swine-inspired end of days ushered in by the threat of bird flu. Though playful, this term points to a growing recognition that animals –and their diseases –have determining effects on human existence. Recent estimates suggest that over seventy percent of emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic –or have their origins in animals. As self-proclaimed “virus hunter” Nathan Wolfe warns,… -
Top of the heap: Jamie Saris and Elizabeth Wilson by Maria Cecilia Dedios
2 May 2013 | 10:59 am"Book tower" For the latest “Top of the heap” we have lists from A. Jamie Saris of the Department of Anthropology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth and Elizabeth A. Wilson of Emory University’s Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. A. Jamie Saris C. Jason Throop, Suffering and Sentiment: Exploring the Vicissitudes of Experience and Pain in Yap (University of California Press, 2010). Angela Garcia, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession along the Rio Grande (University of California Press, 2010). Natasha Dow Schüll. Addiction by… -
Web Roundup: Abortion Rights and Patent Laws by Matthew Dalstrom
23 Apr 2013 | 1:05 pmThis month’s Web Roundup is dedicated to the role that legislation and the courts have in promoting or restricting access to medical care. In particular, I will focus briefly on the passage of anti-abortion legislation in the US and a few recent court cases that are testing the limits pharmaceutical patents. While not overtly theoretical in nature, I have found these events to be particularly useful for discussing critical medical anthropology in undergraduate courses. Abortion Rights The abortion debate is an issue that never seems to totally go away. According to the Guttmacher… -
Early Career Scholar’s Network Events at the Association for Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV (ASSHH) Paris Conference by Lindsey Reynolds
16 Apr 2013 | 8:39 amThe Association for Social Sciences and Humanities in HIV conference in Paris presents an ideal opportunity to establish an open assemblage of early career researchers and scholars connected through a shared engagement in HIV/AIDS. By coming together and forming this collective, we hope to institute a space in which to provoke and facilitate dialogue and collaboration amongst early career scholars across various disciplines and institutions worldwide. We aim to develop and nurture an inclusive space in which to share research experiences and knowledge emerging from our individual and… -
April In the Journals… (2/2) by Anna Zogas
15 Apr 2013 | 4:15 amFollowing up on Melanie’s In the Journals… (1/2), here is a short sampling of other recently published articles. On “Early View” from Sociology of Health & Illness: In an article entitled, “Undoing gender? The Case of Complementary and Alternative Medicine,” Joslyn Brenton and Sinikka Elliott show how middle-class Americans who use complementary and alternative medicine reproduce traditional gendered identities, and neoliberal tenets like the cultivation of personal control. Fadhila Mazanderani, Louise Locock, and John Powell have investigated what motivates people…
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Photoethnography.com Blog
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Meta: Had to block all traffic from China
22 May 2013 | 3:52 pmWith deep regret, I've had to implement a filter that block all IP traffic originating from Chinese internet service providers. This affects all of the websites and blogs under my control. The reason for this was that I was getting an inordinate amount of web traffic from those IP ranges. These were likely not legitimate traffic but instead spam and/or hacking attempts. With 25-50 gigabytes of traffic a day, my website provider was going to charge me over $1000 a month in bandwidth over-usage costs, even after I had upgraded to one of their high-volume contracts. I just couldn't afford this. -
Link: Color blindness simulator
11 Mar 2013 | 12:05 pmA Color Blindness Simulator (via my pal JL): http://www.etre.com/tools/colourblindsimulator/ -
Info: Open Access doesn't mean free
16 Nov 2012 | 10:22 amAlthough there's strong interest in open access as the future of anthropological publishing, it isn't free. One of the best models for digital publishing is PLOS One but as their website indicates, they charge authors $1350 for publishing an article, and some of the other journals in their portfolio charge up to $2900. There are waivers available. PLOS Biology US$2900 PLOS Medicine US$2900 PLOS Computational Biology US$2250 PLOS Genetics US$2250 PLOS Pathogens US$2250 PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases US$2250 PLOS ONE US$1350 Source: http://www.plos.org/publish/pricing-policy/publication-fees/… -
Stop MS Word from opening up old files when starting up
10 Nov 2012 | 11:53 amIn general, I like the new Mac OS versions but the one thing I don't like is that applications like MS Word open up all my old documents when they start up again. Here's how to stop it: Type the following in terminal: defaults write com.microsoft.Powerpoint NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false defaults write com.microsoft.Word NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false defaults write com.microsoft.Excel NSQuitAlwaysKeepsWindows -bool false Very user unfriendly. Poops. -
Don't Feed the Animals
12 Oct 2012 | 6:35 pmSeeing such an expensive lens being demolished like this is so painful to bare. According to the article, a woman was "trying to change lenses while standing at the edge of the enclosure, and accidentally let the 70-200mm slip out of her grasp and into Felix's territory."
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Analog/Digital
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Links of the Day #15
1 May 2013 | 8:00 amToday's links cover academic publishing and open access; some recent headline news in anthropology; and the significance of place and locality in the ethnography of the Internet. No More Half-measures: Anthropology must Take Responsibility for Open Access Posted: 06 Feb 2013 11:54 AM PSTOpen Anthropology will republish old content from other AAA publications that will be selected by the journal editors for its relevance to current policy discussion and usefulness to a broad audience. This content is supposedly intended to be open access, but contrary to what its name implies, the AAA press… -
Mezzmer Eyewear Review
5 Apr 2013 | 9:59 amSince my reviews of Glasses.com, DB Vision and Warby Parker exploded in popularity, I wrote two additional reviews for high index sunglass options - Cocoons and Eyefly. In response to requests, I have decided to continue my look at some of the latest trendsetting companies now selling eyeglasses online that fit a certain model set out in my earlier reviews. These new web stores offer a limited range of mostly non-designer frames in trendy styles, free home trials, a risk-free returns policy, free shipping both ways, preferably a charity program, and a price point around $100 ($125) for high… -
Links of the Day #14
30 Mar 2013 | 7:40 pmIt has been a while since I've posted a link roundup. This is mostly for technical reasons (the feed stopped working) and also because I've been busy. Now that it's all working, I'll clear the backlog and then try to make these more regular again. Today's links include various perspectives and reflections on anthropology with some humor, technology, news and urban art mixed in.Why has anthropology shifted from discovery and explanation to moralism and advocacy? Posted: 23 Feb 2013 09:45 PM PSTPhilip Salzman via the OAC: "What happened in anthropology during the second half of the 20th century… -
Guns, America and Anthropology
18 Mar 2013 | 12:00 pmAmerica has a problem with guns. This is certainly not news, but at the moment it is once again newsworthy. I have mentioned my position on guns here before (see also comments). More recently, I remarked elsewhere with regard to the poor political efficacy of anthropology that the US is struggling with gun control in a profoundly disturbing way. Meanwhile, it feels as if anthropologists have only just scratched the surface on this deadly issue, throwing their hands up and demanding more research and less action (see AAA Statement on Gun Violence). Notable exceptions to this trend include… -
Eyefly review: tinted sunglasses for fieldwork and photography
18 Mar 2013 | 9:46 am[Update 10 April 2013] My Eyefly sunglasses broke! Scroll down for more info.In my last post, I detailed why polarized sunglasses are great for everyday use and to protect your eyes from harsh glare, but less than optimal for outdoor photography and/or using any devices with an LCD screen like digital cameras, tablets, smartphones, laptops, etc. To recap, lens polarization causes LCD screens to black out at certain angles depending on the manufacturer, so you can't always see what is displayed on the screen. However, there is a solution for photographers and tech geeks: tinted, not polarized,…
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Ethnography.com
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Jason Richwine, Scientist?
22 May 2013 | 4:05 pm"We destroy people with the inappropriate tools we use to study them" – Ray Birdwhistell Jason Richwine has emerged to defend himself in a National Review editorial. As you might expect, Richwine contextualizes his dissertation as an exercise in scientific fortitude and paints himself as a heroic seeker of truth. For example, he sums up the past month this way: The furor will soon pass. Mercifully, the media are starting to forget about me. But a certain amount of long-term damage to political discourse has been done. Every researcher who writes on public policy over the next… -
“1 + 1”: More than an Equation
20 May 2013 | 9:20 amby Amina Tawasil Schooling is supposed to either spark or augment IQ/cognitive ability which is then exhibited as ‘skills’. Thus, it only follows that schooling increases the chances of upward mobility for girls, women and people of color. And, for men and women in ‘small villages of ailing countries’, schooling is considered a pillar to a successful rural to urban labor migration. In short, schooling is supposed to guarantee financial security. If governments hold up the security and economic-progress end of the bargain, then its people are supposed to reap the benefits of having… -
The All-Time Stupidest Question to Ask a Language Learner: Did You Understand what He/She said????!!!!” (Repeated loudly)
18 May 2013 | 12:26 amI’ve been living in Germany for the last nine months. One of my goals is to improve my German skills, and guess what, I am getting better. But still my German is still far from perfect. Occasionally I will be in a conversation (ok more than occasionally) and I will try to guess about meaning. Sometimes I guess kind of right, which means that I will make a kind of odd response to a question. This situation tends to right itself in a normal conversation as your conversation partner realizes how stupid you are, and graciously guides you to what was meant. Or, if that… -
Does PCA Have Politics?
16 May 2013 | 2:58 pmThis morning, armchair scientist and noted fan of this blog, Razib Khan, decided it would be prudent to write about race. It comes by way of Khan issuing a corrective, of sorts, to Ta-Nehisi Coates. The Coates article is wonderful. He takes a historical look at how race has been deployed over the last 150 years. Along the way, he makes all the good points that can be made with the census, and some others as well. It is a nice reminder that far from being fixed, race is a potently flexible concept which can and has been use to classify (or cluster) humans based on any number of arbitrary… -
Test Scores, Inequality, and “Goodnight Moon Time”
16 May 2013 | 12:33 amHere is a recent article about test scores from the New York Times, “No Rich Child Left Behind.” They got through the entire article without connecting cognitive abilities to inherited intelligence. Instead, the connection is made to wealth, poverty, and early childhood development. Do middle/upper class things for a child at night (“Goodnight Moon time”), and they are going to fit into the academic world created by the upper and middle classes in the schools. Goodnight Moon time in turn is highly correlated with poverty. Note too that widening gaps between test scores…
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Visual Anthropology of Japan - 日本映像人類学
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Announcement: VAOJ Student Photo Exhibition, May 22-25
20 May 2013 | 9:58 pmVAOJ students have been working all semester on their ethnographic visual projects and their resulting photos will be exhibited from Wednesday, May 22 to Saturday, May 25. This time the photo exhibition will be included with the Asian Studies Program Ceramics and Manga show. Lots of good art to see. Free and open to all students, staff, faculty and general public. -
グレイス 世菜
16 May 2013 | 8:24 pm幸せ! -
Announcement: IAFOR Open Film Competition in Osaka, November 8-10, 2013
15 May 2013 | 2:39 amThe International Academic Forum (IAFOR) is inviting filmmakers from around the world to submit an original short film for the annual IAFOR Open Film Competition. Amateur and professionals are welcome to enter, however entrants are limited to just one submission for the category, regardless of category. There is no charge for entering a film. Submissions in English (or with English subtitles) are welcome in the following categories: - Fiction (under 40 minutes/over 40 minutes)- Documentary (under 40 minutes/over 40 minutes)- Anime (under 20 minutes/under 40 minutes) -… -
Announcement: VAOJ Student Film Festival, May 14
9 May 2013 | 10:00 amVAOJ students have been working all semester on their projects and their resulting films will be shown on Tuesday, May 14 at 6:30 PM. This time the venue is the Grand Hall on the 4th Floor of the ICC Building. Enter the ICC from the main street near campus or rear access via the land-bridge in front of the library; take the elevator to the 4th floor, enjoy the view and enter the hall for the films. Free and open to all students, staff, faculty and general public. -
Golden Week II: ネコ公園
8 May 2013 | 3:11 amThe second stop for strolling and photographic adventures during Golden Week was what I will refer to as "Cat Park" near my neighborhood. Stray cats are a problem in Japan. Signs are displayed in the park with messages discouraging abandonment of pets and animal abuse, and to "think about" the repercussions of feeding strays. Some people make daily trips to the park to feed the strays and bond with the animals. They get to know the personality of the cats and their various roles in the cat society. I happened upon such a woman who pointed out a male who she considered to be the boss cat…
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International Cognition and Culture Institute
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The 'gratitude trap' where Hungarian patients keep falling
18 May 2013 | 4:01 amAs Rothstein argued at length in his book about the problem of social trust, institutions come in many different flavors: explicitly codified law systems, implicitly taken-for-granted exchange arrangements, and so on. Broadly speaking, they all constitute arrangements of some sort for aggregating individuals and regulating their behaviors through the use of (collectively shared) rules. Moreover, they are all necessary to enable a market system: in their absence, as Douglass North (the 1992 winner of the Nobel prize in economics) showed, entering into and upholding the kind of agreements that… -
Two doctoral fellowships in cognition and culture
30 Apr 2013 | 9:25 amThese are offered to work with Pascal Boyer as part of a new interdisciplinary project at the University of Lyons, France, starting September 2013. Our new team of one PI and two postdocs will do research on [a] threat-detection: influence of evolved cognitive processes on the perception of risk in modern societies, particularly in terms of inter-group relations; [b] evolution and modern societies: influence of evolved cognition on political and economic attitudes in modern large-scale societies. Knowledge of French is not (initially) required. Candidates should have pursued (or be… -
Post-doctoral position in: human evolution, economics and politics
30 Apr 2013 | 9:23 amThis two-year post-doctoral position is to work with Pascal Boyer as part of a new interdisciplinary project at the University of Lyons, France, starting September 2013. The goal of this project is to investigate the influence of evolved human psychology on social processes typical of modern, large-scale societies. This work will focus on such topics as the design of institutions and their reliance on evolved preferences for cooperation; perceptions of markets and our social exchange psychology; how our “intuitive sociology” is based on evolved small-group interaction; how an evolved… -
Quantitative history of emotional words in the English language
24 Mar 2013 | 6:46 amAn interesting new study in PLoS:We report here trends in the usage of “mood” words, that is, words carrying emotional content, in 20th century English language books, using the data set provided by Google that includes word frequencies in roughly 4% of all books published up to the year 2008. We find evidence for distinct historical periods of positive and negative moods, underlain by a general decrease in the use of emotion-related words through time. Finally, we show that, in books, American English has become decidedly more “emotional” than British English in the last… -
Postdoctoral position in Moral Psychology in Paris
22 Mar 2013 | 6:01 amPostdoctoral position in Moral Psychology in Paris The Institute of Cognitive Sciences Ecole Normale Supérieure) is searching for a postdoc to begin working in September 2013, on a newly awarded grant, “The Evolution of Fairness: An Interdisciplinary Approach” (see summary description below). The successful candidate will be part of a newly created team of evolutionary biologists and experimental psychologists, and will conduct experiments on moral judgments (moral dilemmas, distributive justice, punishment, etc.) in the framework of the theory of fairness and partner choice. Candidates…
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Delicious/tag/anthropology
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BBC News - Human fossils hint at new species
22 May 2013 | 5:06 pm -
Evolution – Ape man to Human Pt. 3
22 May 2013 | 8:46 am -
How Social Media Has Changed Us
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IMABE: Imago Hominis 4/2008: Medizin, Ideologie und Markt
21 May 2013 | 10:18 am -
cn.nytimes.com
21 May 2013 | 4:56 am
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Anthropological Notebook
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Doing oral history in George Town
16 May 2013 | 1:03 amIf you're interested in George Town / Penang local histories or how to do community oral history, head on over to the Cherita: Living on Chulia Street 1945-1970 blog, a "project blog set up to document on-going processes, thoughts and reflection during an 8-month oral history documentation project (December 2012 – August 2013) organized by George Town World Heritage Inc." The project coordinator -
From my latest manuscript: First knowledge, 1988
6 May 2013 | 5:37 pmI'm only on the first rough draft, but here goes: ------------------------------- This on my first trip to Taman Negara, 1988: One afternoon my friends and I rushed to reach an observation hide before the rains hit. The winds were already blowing hard. I took the rear and was the last to jump across a muddy creek. I looked back; there, where I stood a moment past, was a newly fallen -
Goodbye and thank you: Muncok, 193* - 2013
20 Apr 2013 | 7:32 pmMy dear friend Muncok died yesterday around 11 am. I had been expecting it for some time but had hoped for a bit more time. He is one of my oldest Batek friends. Below is a commemorative collage from previous postings: A posting from February 2010, on our first meeting in seven years: Muncok, probably the best known Batek man in Taman Negara national park, Malaysia... When I arrived in Taman -
Walking with students in George Town
3 Mar 2013 | 11:49 pmWe took the students in my Societies and Cultures of Southeast Asia class on a walking tour of George Town last Saturday. "We": me and the guide Kuah Li Feng (a community heritage worker). The students are going to do fieldwork-based research for their term projects this semester; to kick off, I organised the tour to introduce them to the spatial and socio-cultural diversities found in the core -
Flowers
2 Mar 2013 | 6:02 am
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Glossographia
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Alice E. Kober papers
19 May 2013 | 8:29 amFor those interested in a more in-depth look at the state of Minoan/Mycenean script decipherment in the late 1940s, or more generally in the life of Alice Kober, here is a link to a wonderful digital collection of her papers, held at the University of Texas. It’s neat stuff, giving a detailed look at the discipline just prior to the decipherment of Linear B, and involving correspondence with many of the luminaries of the age. Filed under: Linguistics -
Alice Kober’s belated obituary
14 May 2013 | 7:09 amYesterday’s New York Times features a much-belated obituary of Alice Kober, a professor of classics at Brooklyn College who in the late 1940s played a central preliminary role in the decipherment of the Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) script. Although she died of cancer two years before Michael Ventris made the key breakthrough identifying the Linear B script as encoding a variety of archaic Greek, Kober’s work was a building block on which Ventris relied. Her key insight was to identify certain sets of signs that occurred commonly at the ends of words, and which (correctly,… -
Language and Societies abstracts, vol. 5 (2013)
14 Apr 2013 | 8:52 pmThe abstracts below are summaries of papers by junior scholars from the 2013 edition of my course, Language and Societies, and presented at the course blog of the same name. The authors are undergraduate and graduate students in anthropology and linguistics at Wayne State University. Over the next few weeks, some students will be posting links to PDF versions of their final papers below their abstracts. Comments and questions are extremely welcome, especially at this critical juncture over the next week, when the authors are making final revisions to their papers. Heather Buza: An Analysis… -
Number Writing: All the Ways Humans Did It
25 Jan 2013 | 10:14 amI just used the fascinating Up-Goer Five Text Editor, named after this XKCD cartoon, to write an abstract of my book, Numerical Notation: A Comparative History, using only the ‘ten hundred’ most common words in the English language. It was a bit of a challenge since I couldn’t use ‘history’, ‘numeral’, ‘system’, or ‘math’, but it seems to be pretty sensible and complete: Number Writing: All the Ways Humans Did It There are a lot of different ways to write numbers, but you can put them all into five types. Let’s look at… -
Proto-Elamite decipherment-oid potentially in progress
22 Oct 2012 | 5:31 pmI’m the first to advocate for computational tools in script decipherment, and for crowdsourcing-style work in aid of such efforts. But is it just me, or is this account of current steps towards a proto-Elamite decipherment not really a story? The phrase ‘could be about to be decoded’ and the lack of any published work (so far) does not give me hope. Don’t get me wrong: I do think that Proto-Elamite is decipherable, although I’m not sure what to make of the (new-ish?) claim for the absence of scribal training as an explanation for apparent errors. …
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media/anthropology
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The diffusion of protests (2)
30 Apr 2013 | 5:36 pmExcerpts from the paper “Diffusion Models of Cycles of Protest as a Theory of Social Movements” n.d. by Pamela E. Oliver (University of Wisconsin) and Daniel J. Myers (University of Notre Dame), www.nd.edu/~dmyers/cbsm/vol3/olmy.pdf This paper develops a theoretical framework for understanding social movements as interrelated sets of diffusion processes and explains why such a conception is broadly useful to scholars of social movements. [...] We begin with the fundamental observation that in social movements, actions affect other actions: Actions are not just isolated,… -
The diffusion of protests (1)
30 Apr 2013 | 5:35 pmExcerpts from Koopmans, Ruud (2004) ‘Protest in time and space: the evolution of waves of contention’, in David A. Snow, Sarah A. Soule and Hanspeter Kriesi (eds), The Blackwell Companion to Social Movements. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 19–46. A simple repetition of past patterns of protest by dissidents is [...] unlikely to lead to such an exposure of political opportunities. Regimes have established ways of dealing with known types of protest and elite controversies are unlikely to emerge over how to respond to them. The possibilities for exposing political opportunities… -
E-seminar: Media and social changing since 1979
30 Apr 2013 | 12:37 amThis e-seminar took place some time ago (in December 2012) but I thought I’d repost the relevant information and links here from the Media Anthropology Network site for archival purposes. Media Anthropology Network European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) E-seminar 42 4-18 December 2012. John Postill (RMIT): Media and social changing since 1979: Towards a diachronic ethnography of media and actual social changes. (PDF, 230 KB) Comments: Brian Larkin (Columbia University) (PDF, 80 KB) E-Seminar on Media and social changing since 1979 (PDF, 220 KB) Abstract In this paper… -
Swarms need hives: Paolo Gerbaudo on the 2011 wave of protests
10 Apr 2013 | 5:37 pmExtracts from Paolo Gerbaudo, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism London and New York: Pluto Books, 2012. p. 27-28 ‘If Castells… was the [late 1990s] social theorist of the rise of the World Wide Web, Hardt’s and Negri’s joint work, which came at a later stage, bears the stamp of the era of mobile media and the new forms of collective action their diffusion inspired. Compared to Castells’ discussion of networks, Hardt and Negri do recuperate an appreciation of the role of the body and its mobility… Yet they too fail to take into account the emplaced… -
The concept of affordances (in brief)
7 Apr 2013 | 6:35 pmA useful summary of the concept of ‘affordances’ found in Juris, J. S. (2012), Reflections on #Occupy Everywhere: Social media, public space, and emerging logics of aggregation. American Ethnologist, 39: 259–279. In the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies, the concept of “affordances” was introduced as a way to navigate the Scylla and Charybdis of technological determinism, on the one hand, which views new modes of social relations as actively caused by particular forms of technology, and technological constructionism, on the other hand, which views…
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American Journal of Physical Anthropology
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Maritime adaptations and dietary variation in prehistoric Western Alaska: Stable isotope analysis of permafrost-preserved human hair
17 May 2013 | 9:46 amABSTRACT The reconstruction of diet and subsistence strategies is integral in understanding early human colonizations and cultural adaptations, especially in the Arctic—one of the last areas of North America to be permanently inhabited. However, evidence for early subsistence practices in Western Alaska varies, particularly with regards to the emergence, importance, and intensity of sea mammal hunting. Here, we present stable carbon and nitrogen isotope data from permafrost-preserved human hair from two new prehistoric sites in Western Alaska, providing a direct measure of diet. The isotope… -
5-HTTLPR genetic diversity and mode of subsistence in Native Americans
17 May 2013 | 8:16 amABSTRACT The relationship between the “individualism-collectivism” and the serotonin transporter functional polymorphism (5-HTTLPR), suggested in the previous reports, was tested in Native South Amerindian populations. A total of 170 individuals from 21 populations were genotyped for the 5-HTTLPR alleles. For comparative purposes, these populations were classified as individualistic (recent history of hunter–gathering) or collectivistic (agriculturalists). These two groups showed an almost identical S allele frequency (75 and 76%, respectively). The analysis of molecular variance showed… -
Brief communication: A midtarsal (midfoot) break in the human foot
17 May 2013 | 8:16 amABSTRACT The absence of a midtarsal break has long been regarded as a derived feature of the human foot. Humans possess a rigid midfoot that acts as an efficient lever during the propulsive phase of bipedal gait. Non-human primates, in contrast, have a more mobile midfoot that is adaptive for tree climbing. Here, we report plantar pressure and video evidence that a small percentage of modern humans (n = 32/398) possess both elevated lateral midfoot pressures and even exhibit midfoot dorsiflexion characteristic of a midtarsal break. Those humans with a midtarsal break had on average a… -
Odontometric determination of sex at mound 72, Cahokia
14 May 2013 | 12:31 amABSTRACT The mortuary context of Mound 72 at the Cahokia site is one of the most unusual ever described in prehistoric North America. Previous skeletal analyses suggested that four large mass graves within the mound contained only female skeletons. However, these findings were complicated by extremely poor bone preservation that limited the number of skeletal observations that could be made. Furthermore, most skeletons were aged in the 15–25 year range, a time when sexually dimorphic bony traits may still be developing. In this study, dental remains were used to examine sex in the four… -
The convergent evolution of blue iris pigmentation in primates took distinct molecular paths
2 May 2013 | 6:40 amABSTRACT How many distinct molecular paths lead to the same phenotype? One approach to this question has been to examine the genetic basis of convergent traits, which likely evolved repeatedly under a shared selective pressure. We investigated the convergent phenotype of blue iris pigmentation, which has arisen independently in four primate lineages: humans, blue-eyed black lemurs, Japanese macaques, and spider monkeys. Characterizing the phenotype across these species, we found that the variation within the blue-eyed subsets of each species occupies strongly overlapping regions of CIE L*a*b*…
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Into the Wild
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International Biodiversity Day 2013
22 May 2013 | 5:04 amMay 22nd is International Biodiversity Day, first established by the UN in 1993. -
Past Frontier staff: where are they now? Nisha Owen, Research & Development Manager
21 May 2013 | 2:09 amNisha Owen has just finished her PhD studying human-wildlife conflict with large mammals in South India having spent several years before that gaining experience with Frontier. -
Volunteer Photo of the Week: Char Armitage
20 May 2013 | 9:05 amChar Armitage volounteered on the Madagascar Wildlife Conservation Adventure where she took this stunning photo of a rainforest tree frog. -
5 things to do in Madagascar
17 May 2013 | 3:58 amWhile volunteering, it's important to make sure you don't miss out on the fantastic things to see and do. Madagascar is a country of unusual sights and creatures, full of different things to do in your free time. We have compiled a list of the 5 top things to see and do while in Madagascar. -
Competition!
15 May 2013 | 2:50 amStay safe and knowledgeable with these RFID-blocking passport and credit card sleeves, courtesy of Funky Leisure and The Volunteer Traveler’s Handbook, courtesy of author Shannon O’Donnell the A Little Adrift blogger.
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Anthropogenesis
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Comparative Mythology and the Origin of Na-Dene
1 May 2013 | 3:30 pmОт бытия к инобытию: фольклор и погребальный ритуал в традиционных культурах Сибири и Америки: сборник статей. Санкт-Петербург: МАЭ РАН: Кунсткамера, 2010. C. 7-49. Yuri Berezkin The Mythological Explanations of Human Mortality and the Problem of the Origin of Na-Dene/Мифологические объяснения смертности человека и проблема происхождения на-дене. (in Russian) Link I have already introduced the readers… -
Y-DNA hg C3* in South America and Putative Ancient Transpacific Contacts
28 Apr 2013 | 11:12 pmPLoS Genet 9(4): e1003460. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003460 Continent-Wide Decoupling of Y-Chromosomal Genetic Variation from Language and Geography in Native South Americans Lutz Roewer, Michael Nothnagel, Leonor Gusmão, Veronica Gomes, Miguel González, Daniel Corach, Andrea Sala, Evguenia Alechine, Teresinha Palha, Ney Santos, Andrea Ribeiro-dos-Santos, Maria Geppert, Sascha Willuweit, Marion Nagy, Sarah Zweynert, Miriam Baeta, Carolina Núñez, Begoña Martínez-Jarreta, Fabricio González-Andrade, Elizeu Fagundes de Carvalho, Dayse Aparecida da Silva, Juan José Builes, Daniel Turbón,… -
The Toca da Tira Peia Site and the End of an Ice Age in American Archaeology
23 Apr 2013 | 8:43 pmJournal of Archaeological Science 40 (2013), 2840-2847 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2013.02.019 Human Occupation in South America by 20,000 BC: The Toca da Tira Peia Site, Piauí, Brazil Christelle Lahaye, Marion Hernandez, Eric Boëda, Gisele D. Felice, Niède Guidon, Sirlei Hoeltz, Antoine Lourdeau, Marina Pagli, Anne-Marie Pessis, Michel Rasse, Sibeli Viana. When and how did the first human beings settle in the American continent? Numerous data, from archaeological researches as well as from palaeogenetics, anthropological and environmental studies, have led to partially contradictory… -
An Out-of-America Signal as Seen Through Human Regulatory Genes
16 Apr 2013 | 9:59 pmPLoS Genet 9(4): e1003404. doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1003404 Balancing Selection on a Regulatory Region Exhibiting Ancient Variation That Predates Human–Neandertal Divergence Omer GokcumenQihui Zhu, Lubbertus C. F. Mulder, Rebecca C. Iskow, Christian Austermann, Christopher D. Scharer, Towfique Raj, Jeremy M. Boss, Shamil Sunyaev, Alkes Price, Barbara Stranger,Viviana Simon, and Charles Lee. Ancient population structure shaping contemporary genetic variation has been recently appreciated and has important implications regarding our understanding of the structure of modern human genomes. We… -
Congenital Anomalies, Kinship Systems and Pleistocene Demography
7 Apr 2013 | 8:32 pmPLoS ONE 8(3): e59587. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0059587 An Enlarged Parietal Foramen in the Late Archaic Xujiayao 11 Neurocranium from Northern China, and Rare Anomalies among Pleistocene Homo Xiu-Jie Wu,Song Xing, and Erik Trinkaus. We report here a neurocranial abnormality previously undescribed in Pleistocene human fossils, an enlarged parietal foramen (EPF) in the early Late Pleistocene Xujiayao 11 parietal bones from the Xujiayao (Houjiayao) site, northern China. Xujiayao 11 is a pair of partial posteromedial parietal bones from an adult. It exhibits thick cranial vault bones, arachnoid…
