Anthropology Times

The Neandertals and Modern Human Origins
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 193-218 (Volume publication date October 1986)
Eric Trinkaus
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I read this article based on the title after having come across a rather fluffy piece in the Guardian titled “Should We Clone Neanderthals?”An article of the same title, but with a more serious discussion can be found at Archaeology (“Should We Clone Neanderthals?”).

The New York Times has an article discussing the analysis of the Neanderthal gene sequence and the extent to which Neanderthals may have interbred with humans, Signs of Neanderthals Mating With Humans, with some scientists saying that interbreding was relatively insignificant and others saying that it may have had noticeable impact on the evolution of modern non-African humans. Writing in 1986, Trinkaus mentions this same discussion. From reading the NYT article, it seems the introduction of genetic evidence has heightened this discussion, but hasn’t interjected the clarity one might expect.

I was most interested in Trinkaus’ discussion of some of the details of the origins of modern humans such as possible connections between changes in upper limb morphology and advantageous changes in tool use and tool development. Further reading of this type would probably make my B-List of things to read.

Eric Trinkaus’ has a wikipedia page. When googling Trinkaus, his page on Rate My Professor came up in the results. It seems that the vast majority of the review articles are written by people who teach somewhere. Before now, I had never thought of looking them up at Rate My Professor.

That’s it for now.

Kind thoughts,

S.

Analysis of Style in Artifacts
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 12: 125-142 (Volume publication date October 1983)
Stephen Plog
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I never got around to looking at the content of this review and the last side-by-side (making a note to go back and do that.) Still …

The question of what can be said about the depth and type of interaction between groups that share similar styles seemed to taunt the imagination. Plog and Hegmon mention studies involving analysis of how styles are produced and distributed in living cultures and what could be gleaned from those studies to help the understanding of style variation and distribution in prehistoric cultures. They both also discussed what could be said about the level of exchange between groups based on the level of style they shared, whether whole patterns or parts of patterns or similarities in the thickness of lines for example. I started to wonder whether analyses of the relationship between shared language traits and level of interaction between cultures might be instructive with respect to variation and exchange in artifacts. It’s one of those weeks where I haven’t poked around on the net as much. Next week will likely be the same.

In reading these reviews on style, I kept thinking about the styles of being human. What are my human styles? What style of human am I? Particularly I thought of one of the habits of my recently deceased friend. He was quite good about going toward people in distress. He didn’t avert his eyes or avoid contact. He offered to listen, to interact, to hug, to share information. He was so beautiful in this way.

Several times this week I saw this mother who appeared to be in general distress. I wanted to talk to her, but I was so worried about being a bother or having nothing useful to say or share that I felt paralyzed in her presence. (What a thing it is to feel at once disconnected from my own existence while being so obsessed with the particular and small details of it.) Her children were lovely and sweet to each other. Her daughter looked eight or nine, but being the oldest of four she was quite focused on being a big girl and a strong girl for her mother and her siblings. In the time it took me to set aside my own angst, they were gone.

Kind thoughts,

S.

What’s New in African Paleoanthropology?
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 17: 391-426 (Volume publication date October 1988)
Russell H Tuttle
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Mr. Tuttle made for a spirited read. I don’t think I’ve read as many pop culture references in any other review. In speaking about how some “attempts to erect novel genera” often failed and resulted in the groups being lumped together, he wrote that the new genera (Bodvapithecus, Graecopithecus …) were lost “faster than Zsa Zsa changes mates.” He goes on to refer to the trend of splitting/creating new genera as “splitomania.” In closing out a discussion of hotly contested issues he writes, “For now, recalling our radio days, only ‘The Shadow knows.’” When writing on whether the individuals unearthed at Hadar represented more than one species, Tuttle makes use of a Biblical reference: “ Truly, that a flash flood sealed two species of hominids (and few other vertebrates) together in Hadar sediments is scarcely more likely than our finding righteous Israelites among Pharaoh’s finest under the Red Sea (Exodus 14).” Perhaps adding to this vibe was the fact that Tuttle refers to himself in the first person. The writer of the previous review, also published in 1988, did the same. Was all this a trend in the 1980s?

The section that discusses the Laetoli footprints is titled, “The Laetoli Trails: Facts, Fabrications, Phantoms and Folderol.”

folderol: (from Wiktionary)
1. (uncountable) Nonsense or foolishness.
2. (countable) A decorative object of little value; a trifle or gewgaw.

Tuttle writes about an academic dispute in this section. He had been invited by Mary Leakey to study the Laetoli prints. He writes that(Tim) White and (Gen) Suwa “bumptiously” accused him of academic shenanigans regarding his conclusions about the footprints.

bumptious: Obtrusively pushy; self-assertive to a pretentious extreme. (From Wiktionary)

Others join in with “invidious” public statements and “umbrageous” sources. Tuttle’s language and style in this section left me LOL. It seemed such a good example of the academic dispute language and style that I noted when reading Dean Falk’s review (“Hominid Paleoneurology” and the Dispute That’s All Inside the Taung Baby’s Head).

invidious: Prompted by or expressing or adapted to excite envious dislike or ill will; offensively or unfairly discriminating. (From Wiktionary)
umbrageous: Having shade; shady. (From Wiktionary)

I read in a short bio that Tuttle’s interest include social prejudice in physical anthropology. That interest seemed apparent in this review in several instances including a short remark regarding “man the hunter.” He writes that “observations of hunting, meat-eating, tool-making, and tool-assisted foraging by chimpanzees … and documentation that females are more adept and persistent tool-users, slew the ‘man the hunter’ hypothesis, which, in retrospect, appears to be little more than a corporate male fantasy.”

So, it’s late and I don’t really have a pithy way to wrap this up, so I’ll leave it. Perhaps I will try again next week to write a little earlier.

Ever yours,

S.

Trends in the Study of Later European Prehistory
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 16: 365-382 (Volume publication date October 1987)
S J Shennan
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

Reading “Trends in the Study of Later European Prehistory” I felt a poke in the direction of actually getting caught up on current events. And lucky me, I have several great newspapers on my desk at the moment. I tend to prefer thinking in terms of trends and types, but it’s good sometimes to take note of the current particulars.

A comment about the thinking of Gordon Childe seemed to me a commentary on current trends in Western cultures or at least U.S. culture. The comment contrasts cultures of the Near East with then emerging European cultures: “The Near East was the ultimate source of innovations and ideas; but after the growth of civilization, Near Eastern society became stagnant and oppressive; superstition ruled technology and suppressed innovation; society became totalitarian. European society, however, was open. Technological innovation was not subject to social control…” This type of thinking sticks out to me as something to toss around when viewing trends in the interactions between politics and academia in America as well the changing relationship between West and East, but I don’t feel that I have a lot of particulars to which to point

Is there some relationship between bursts of technological advancement and growing desires to turn to superstition and oppression? Will stagnation in one part of the world encourage innovation in another part of the world, and will that encouragement lead to greater freedom in that part of the world? Thinking of the West as a declining power and the East as an emerging power… Are declining powers more suspicious of innovation because they are afraid that new technologies will bring further decline, while emerging powers are more welcoming of innovation because they believe that new technologies will bring further progress? And how does all this work itself out culturally?

The article speaks of applying new approaches (in this case, structuralism, French neo-Marxism and German critical theory) to data and to fields of study (in this case data and archaeology having to do with later European prehistory). The discussion speaks to the fact that it’s so easy to highlight information that fits a certain theoretical framework while ignoring significant information that doesn’t happen to fit. I find sometimes that the purest fun can be had by tossing around ideas within the framework of some debunked theory. There’s no obsession with “rightness” or “truth.” There just the fun of bringing a new perspective to familiar ideas and seeing what new thoughts spring from that.

I’ll end with that.

S.

Anthropology, Evolution, and “Scientific Creationism”
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 14: 103-133 (Volume publication date October 1985)
James N. Spuhler
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to my Tutor….

My dearest Simone,

I read “Anthropology, Evolution, and ‘Scientific Creationism’ and I feel at a loss for what to say.  I find it hard to believe that such a large percentage of Americans reject evolution.  The article was published in 1982 and quotes Gallup Poll numbers:  “44% of the population in the United States does not accept an evolutionary origin for the human species.”  Looking at a December 2010 Gallup  poll, 40% of Americans believe that “God created humans in their present form about 10,000 years ago.”

So looking around a little longer – with the concept phrased a little differently, it seems 25% reject evolution rather than the 40% implied by the other poll.  From a February 2011 poll…. “39% of Americans say they ‘believe in the theory of evolution,’ while a quarter say they do not believe in the theory, and another 36% don’t have an opinion either way.”

I found The Sensuous Curmudgeon a good read.  The site focuses on the “evolution vs. creationism” controversy in the U.S.  I’ve only poked around a little.  I don’t agree with all the viewpoints on the site, but the coverage and commentary seem extensive.  The writing is witty, funny and snarky.  I’ve bookmarked it to read more later.

I grew up in Mississippi, so I likely knew a lot of people with creationist beliefs.  I don’t think I ever had a science teacher who was willing to teach creationism in the classroom.  I specifically remember a junior high teacher (sometime in the 1980s) saying with passion that she would not teach creationism.  I don’t remember the details, but I think a local school board must have been considering forcing science teachers to teach creationism (didn’t happen).  I think many of the people in the area who believed in creationism, didn’t think it should be taught in schools — some of them believing that teachers couldn’t be trusted to teach creationism the right way.

I’ll leave it at that for now.

My heart to yours,

S.

The Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 15: 461-490 (Volume publication date October 1986)
M Tosi
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to my Tutor….

My dearest Simone,

I was more consciously aware of holes in my knowledge when reading “The Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia.”  A greater familiarity with the geography of the region, a very clear picture of the geological timeline and geological processes, a better understanding of non-Western history all would have helped.  Certainly I understand how to consult a map and appropriate reference materials, but I’m finding that I can no longer put off committing to memory a wider body of information.  I have too often told myself not to waste brain space on information that I could easily look up.

When I chose this article I didn’t immediately have in mind the fact that Arabia stands apart from the typical timeline of agricultural development.  Certainly I had been exposed to discussions of pastoralism, hunting and gathering and maritime economies, but I don’t know that I had given much thought to them in a prehistoric context in the sense discussed by Tosi, that study of the prehistory of the region could be used to complement “traditional focus on agricultural origins and early urbanism” and used to develop “a more comprehensive definition of economic evolution.”  It’s worthy of a bookmark.

As to the archaeology in the region, both the geographical and political climates in the region make establishing a prehistoric chronology difficult.  Erosion hampers the recovery of organic remains resulting in only a handful of radiocarbon dates; remains such as rock carvings and megaliths lack the contextual means of dating; passing of data from colonial authorities to local authorities and still more local authorities results in loss of context for the collected data.   Tosi’s discussion of all of these seemed interesting, but I wasn’t in a mind to digest it.

The author seemed to be an interesting sort.  Andrew Lawler wrote the following in a May 2010 article in Science:

“He told colleagues he was looking for ancient lapis lazuli mines. But when Maurizio Tosi crossed into Afghanistan at the height of the war between the Soviet Union and the mujahedin in 1984, his real goal was to locate wooden boxes that had once contained American-supplied Stinger missiles. Those missiles threatened Soviet helicopters, and Moscow was eager to trace the route they had taken into Pakistan. … ” (Link)

I should be able to locate the full text of this article soon.

Of late I have been distracted and uninspired.  Inspiration isn’t necessary for productivity, but it helps.  I hope that you do not grow tired of me.

Ever true,

S.

Letters to my Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

A copy of America Day by Day came in at my local library.  I’ve only grazed and skimmed so far, but I’m delightfully excited about the level of detail you share about your experience and observations traveling in America.  I have high hopes of gaining insight into my very American self.

When I lived in London, I loved being “that American girl,” no matter the tone in which it was said.  Something hit me in the face when there — I was American first and black second when it came to how others saw me.  I hadn’t noticed beforehand how much I had felt that in America, I was black first and American second when it came to how others saw me.  Perhaps, this has something to do with why it is that “foreigners” usually easily identify me as American no matter how I’m dressed or how I speak whereas other Americans have frequently thought me to be foreign since I was a teen.  I will reflect more on this as a read your travel journal.

I will save my comments on my regularly scheduled reading in anthropology for next week.  I won’t bore you with the details, unless you ask.

My warmest regards,
S.

Functional Analysis in Anthropology and Sociology: An Interpretative Essay
Annual Review of Anthropology
Vol. 19: 243-260 (Volume publication date October 1990)
S N Eisenstadt
In lieu of an abstract, the publisher reproduces the first page of the article. (Link)

Letters to my Tutor….

My dearest Simone,

I’ve read enough in anthropology to be frustrated by my lack of basic knowledge of the discipline. I don’t know why exactly I haven’t been able to focus more on enjoying what I am learning no matter how little it feels or how confused I may be at times. I study anthropology because I enjoy it, because I think it will make me a better fiction writer, because I think it will make me a better a thinker, a better person. Maybe my American self demands that I tie study to some concrete and not-too-distant money-making goal? I think a bit of your commentary on American culture is on point. In “An Existentialist Looks at Americans” you write on the American obsession with concrete results, the lack of joy in doing a thing. You write also of how concrete results are often measured in dollar signs for Americans:

“…to cut the result from the human movement which engendered it, to deny it the dimension of time, is also to empty it of every sort of quality: only dry bones remain. With quality lacking, the only measure that remains with which to estimate the work and achievement of man is a quantitative one–money.”

Chris Rock spoke of this American obsession with money in a comedy routine. I believe it speaks directly to your writing on Americans:

As copied from Wikiquote (with edits) (Link):
The number one reason people hate America… the number one reason is because of our religion. Americans worship money; we worship money. Separate God from school; separate God from work; separate God from government; but on your money it says, “In God we trust.” All my life I’ve been looking for God, and he’s right in my pocket. Americans worship money, and we all go to the same church, the church of ATM. Everywhere you look there’s a new branch popping up … remind you about how much money you got and how much money you don’t got. And if you got less than twenty dollars, the machine won’t even talk to you.

OK, so that’s that. What do I have to say about “Functional Analysis in Anthropology and Sociology: An Interpretative Essay?” Eisenstadt writes about his analysis of bureaucratic empires. One thing in particular coincides with some of my recent thoughts on politics. He writes:

The rulers…attempted to limit the influence of the very aristocratic system of stratification and legitimation that made them rulers; meanwhile the lower strata of the population, to whom the rulers attempted to appeal, began to “aristocratize” themselves. Such contradictions generated struggle, change, and the eventual demise of these systems.

I’ve been thinking more of the second part of that statement, of how attempts to appeal to the “lower strata” can lead to demise. There’s this whole fiction of the “middle class” that’s grown up in the politics. As near as I can figure, the term “middle class” can only properly be applied to the children of nobles who aren’t in line to inherit a title. But these new middle class are repackaged peasantry desperate to identify as something else, desperate to “aristocratize” themselves; they seem to believe that they can somehow use existing social structures to limit or in some small way control the behavior of the ruling class, you know, democracy and all that. I do not believe it a sustainable thing for governments, for rulers, to appeal to this sentiment, at least not in the current fashion. I would be curious to read Eisenstadt’s work with a mind to how it speaks to more recent “democracy” movements. I believe this current cult of the middle class to be one of the more insidious movements against freedom and intellectual advancement. I believe you write about this very thing as well… the complacency and such of the petit bourgeois.

Perhaps we will pick this up later? I am constantly saying this, I know.

With all my heart,
S.

Letters to my Tutor…

My dear, sweet Simone,

I haven’t finished reading the review scheduled for this week. Most of the reviews I’ve read have been around 20 pages; the latest one is around 40 pages and I didn’t schedule for that.  I could have finished the reading, but I decided that it might be better to stretch it over two weeks.  And plus, this leaves open the chance to write to you about something that has been playing in the back of my head for several weeks now.

Back in the 1990’s one of my African-American history professors asserted during class that all African-Americans were atheists…except for the odd few here or there.  I don’t have a clear memory of my understanding of his statements at the time, so my more recent thoughts might be a rehash of my thinking then.  I also don’t recall the professors exactly elaborations, but I do remember being more in agreement than not.  You’ve written of socializing with Richard Wright, a fellow Mississippian.  Did you two ever speak about religion?  I know he had strong feelings and beliefs about the matter. You’ve mentioned so far in one of your letters to Nelson that Richard might take unkindly to some of your opinions of him, but that you thought that this would be more due to a misinterpretation of your view. I hope to hear more about your conversations with Richard.

I’ve thought back on the subject due to more recent casual observations of an African-American who identifies as atheist.  His atheism is quite strange to me in that it seems to assume and be in reaction to a type of belief that I didn’t think existed in the African-American community.  It’s possible this gentleman grew up in more integrated community, but still it seems that he’s old enough that this should not have skewed his relationship with Christianity so far into the mainstream. He makes remarks along the lines of  this or that Christian belief isn’t true or that church officials will twists general statements in an effort to bamboozle congregants.  Now, my experience (and I think one that was shared by the professor) was that even in a community that was at least ostensibly filled with believers, statements like the above were considered an essential part of the education of the black child such that if an African-American identified as atheist the remarks would come from some place other than Christianity lacked truth.

Part of my early education was that religion, politics, science, society were all used to lie to me about who I was and what my potential was as a black child.  Out in the popular culture “blackness” was spoken of as a punishment from god; “scientific” studies showed that blackness and black culture were inherently inferior; political spin doctors never lacked plentiful justifications for laws now popularly considered to have been unjust.  In all-Black settings especially, there was strongly resistance to these types of things in popular culture.  Children were heavily encouraged to developed a sense of self that stood apart from religious truths and “scientific” truths and truths found in popular culture.  The tone of the statements of the African-American atheist I mentioned earlier suggests to me that he didn’t receive this early education that I thought was the norm.

One thing I do remember the professor saying is something along the lines that Christian religiosity in the black community was more or less a song and dance, a pageant, a play for the benefit of the powers that be.  During American slavery, religious meetings often served as a cover for other activities such as learning to read or planning escapes to freedom or other communications.  Religious singing during fieldwork and other group work was often used as a signal for secret meetings and plans.  Later, during the Civil Rights Movement, stressing the idea that we black people worshiped the same god as the wider population was often helpful in combating racism.  This last thought co-mingled with some of the general thinking about whether all African-Americans are atheist has lead me to reinterpret part of my elementary school education.

I went to a segregated elementary school.  My mother attended an integrated elementary school, at least for a short while, but that had fallen out of fashion by the time I was in school… and then back in fashion again before I had finished grade school.  Getting back to the point, there was prayer in my public school.  And when it was discovered that I did not know the Lord’s Prayer after I had been chosen to lead the class in prayer and failed, my teacher took me aside and taught it to me.  It’s recently dawned on me or perhaps re-dawned on me that prayer in the black school was part of a survival strategy. My teacher taught me the Lord’s Prayer because it was an essential tool for my health and safety as a black child in Mississippi.. this apart from whatever her personal beliefs may have been.  Calls to prayer could sometimes be effective in diffusing racially heated situations headed toward violence.

I’ve been trying to sort out what I was taught about religion as a child.  The same teacher who made sure that I knew the Lord’s Prayer also did a great job at teaching about the religions in other cultures; there was no condescension.  She did not teach in a tone that suggested that non-Christian religions were lesser or further away from some universal truth.  When my mother learned that I liked a Hindu boy she made remarks to my younger brother about maybe having to learn about a whole different religion in a tone that seemed open and accepting.  From many places, I got the sense that Christianity was local and practical.

Perhaps I will revisit this later?  My community service was canceled for tonight, but still I’m writing to you late in the day.  I’ve actually been more efficient this week, but my efforts have been spread across a wider variety of tasks.  I don’t care much for strict schedules generally speaking, but it seems having regularly scheduled chunks helps me get more done during “free” times.  I hope this is true.

Yours faithfully,
S.

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

I finally came up with a list of the next five reviews that I plan to read.  I despair at being behind, but I think that can’t be helped at the moment or in the very near future.  Back in November I started a new type of freelance work and then yet another related type of work in the past couple of weeks.  It’s taking longer than first expected to settle into an efficient and productive schedule.  Though I have been able to maintain my stated minimum of reading one article a week and writing “something” about it, I feel increasingly disappointed with that.

So often it’s difficult to be reasonable with oneself… this is perhaps the hardest part of self-study.  Should I work harder at sucking out a sense of satisfaction from keeping up with reasonable goals?  I think the real answer is that I need to be that much more fearless about saying silly things and wrong things and embarrassing things.  At any rate, here are my next five articles:

Ethnographic Writing about American Culture
Michael Moffatt
Regional Studies
1992

The Changing Role of Women in Models of Human Evolution
Linda Marie Fedigan
Biological Anthropology
1986

Functional Anyalysis in Anthropology and Sociology:  An Interpretive Essay
S. N. Eisenstadt
Cultural and Social Anthropology
1990

The Emerging Picture of Prehistoric Arabia
Maurizio Tosi
Archaeology
1986

Marxist Approaches in Anthropology
Bridget O’Laughlin
Cultural and Social Anthropology
1975

I will also revisit a couple of my anthropology textbooks over the coming weeks to touch base with a more structured overview.  I’ve known this to be a good idea for some time, but I’ve failed to implement it.

Warmest Regards,
Myself