明けましておめでとうございます。今年もよろしくお願いします。Happy New Year 2013 from VAOJ! For the last few years my hatsumode (first visit to a shrine or temple at new year's time) has been to my local shinto shrine - New Year's greetings to my neighbors have become increasingly important as I have become more active in my local community. Equally important spiritually and anthropologically is my annual new year's pilgrimage to Hozanji temple in Ikoma, Nara. I have probably been to this temple over 100 times and have taken thousands of photos there. But there is always something that captures my eye and needs to be recorded. Here is the latest batch.
Here's hoping for a peaceful, happy and successful 2013.
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Visual Anthropology of Japan: New Year 2013 Hozanji Pilgrimage
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Ethno::log: "Kultur der Gewalt" gegen Frauen in Indien?
Ulrich Demmer im Gespräch mit dem Deutschlandfunk (MP3, 25min).
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tabsir.net: Yemen in Transition: Challenges & Opportunities
Professor Caton at the Harvard conference
Videos of the presentations at the Harvard conference “Yemen in Transition: Challenges & Opportunities”, organized by Professor Steven C. Caton last October 19-20 are now available for viewing online. To access the videos online, click here.
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Language Log: Language change across the lifespan
One theory, anyhow:
This is an old SMBC comic, now available as a poster.
There are other developmental trajectories, several of which were discussed in Gillian Sankoff's plenary lecture at the recent LSA meeting:
I should note that Zach Weiner calls his strip "The Life of Thought", which is a broader topic.
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Discard Studies: CFP: Slum Clearance, Progressive Era (deadline 1 Feb.)
From: John McCarthy I’m in the process of creating a panel for the SACRPH meeting this fall 2013 that treats major downtown rebuilding projects (such as City Beautiful civic projects, union stations, and others) that occurred prior to the postwar “urban renewal” era as slum clearance. I’m currently researching the construction of Cleveland’s Union Terminal, … Continue reading »
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Language Log: Dramatic reading of ASR voicemail transcription
Following up on the recent post about ASR error rates, here's Mary Robinette Kowal doing a dramatic reading of the Google Voice transcript of three phone calls (voicemail messages?) from John Scalzi:
John Scalzi's reaction:
All of the human experience is in there. All in one minute and eight seconds.
It. Is. Magic.
I've never tried getting Google Voice transcripts of voicemail, because I've been trying to ignore voicemail entirely for many years, every since my university's hospital circulated my office phone number as the fax number for submitting applications for new radiation safety badges. My voice mail filled up with hundreds of recordings of plaintive fax-machine noises, and thus became even more useless as a communications medium than voicemail normally is. I no longer even have an office phone (why pay for something I don't use?), but the habit of ignoring voicemail has stuck with me.
However, I make extensive use of the the ASR "note to self" feature on my Android cell phone, and it generally works pretty well. For example, my email inbox now contains this dictated "note to self":
Language Log post about dramatization of John Scalzi is voicemail messages
which has got one substitution (is for 's) in 11 words, for a "word error rate" of 1/11 = 9%.
[I presume that] Google's ASR system can do this sort of thing so well because Google knows a great deal about me, including my relationship to Language Log, and (probably) the fact that I recently visited John Scalzi's web site. The system is using an adaptive language model, for which the perplexity of what I said is radically lower than it would be in the case of a model of the English language at large. [Update — No, it ISN'T using a personally-adapted language model, according to a comment by Vincent Vanhoucke, who should know. That makes the performance all the more impressive, since the effective perplexity will obviously be much higher than if it were able to make use of what Google knows about me.]
It doesn't always work so well — another dictated note in my email inbox reads
Language Log post about the relationship between perplexity and we're there a
which amusingly substitutes "we're there a" for "word error", yielding a WER more like 30%.
But usually, 10% WER is about what I see, which I think is pretty good for material dictated into a cell phone in a restaurant, on a street corner, or in a moving train — and even the more spectacular errors, like that last one, generally leave the overall message interpretable (at least to me).
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Dynamic Relations: Tick-tock
I posted on my Facebook page that my New Year's resolution is to complete my data collection within the scheduled timeframe. I have until November. And I was only half joking.In one week I'll hit the 2-month mark. That leaves 10 more months here in Burkina. After adjusting my research design two weeks ago to reflect the particulars on the ground (and to apply for some National Science Foundation money), I'm beginning to think I've bitten off more than I can chew.In a nutshell, my aim here is to understand how knowledge about the environment (particularly in relation to climate change and water resources) moves up and down the development chain during a water management project. I'm hooked up with the USAID program WA-WASH (West Africa-Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), so by "development chain," I mean this program, the local partner organization that is actually implementing the project, and the local community. I'm also considering USAID WA-WASH's ties to the larger USAID structure, and the US and Burkina governments. The schematic looks something like this:I'm focusing my research on the relationships between USAID WA-WASH and the community of Weglega. I'm using data collection in the village of Tama as something like a control. It has the same demographics and natural resource conditions as Weglega but there is currently no development project there.My main method, apart from classic participant observation, is cultural model analysis. This is a systematic way to uncover the cognitive structures people carry around with them that condition opinions about and behavior towards a particular topic. In this case, the cognitive structure is how people think the environment works. As a method, it also lends itself to verification since cultural models often can't be explicitly articulated.I want to see if the cultural models held by development agents are different than those held by community members. Because a year is far too little time to see if any knowledge exchange happens between organizations and communities, I've decided to look into the cultural model(s) of Tama residents. This comparison won't lead to definitive conclusions but would allow speculation and questions for future research.The only problem is that cultural model analysis takes a lot of time. After many many informational interviews you set up 10 key informants for each group. These groups are either entire populations are divisions within populations depending on your scale.Fortunately, there's likely to be one single cultural model of the environment held by WA-WASH and Winrock employees (there aren't too many employees to begin with). But there may be multiple models within Weglega and Tama. Both communities divide themselves similarly: Muslim men, non-Muslim men, and women (of all religions). My advisor wants me to additionally divide the communities by wealth. Because this is a sensitive subject I may use education level instead.Nonetheless, the key informant interviews have to be transcribed and you then comb through what the interviewee says, pulling out the basic components of the cultural model. This is done through inductive reasoning and takes many hours of combing, re-combing, and comparing transcripts from previous interviews and other interviewees within the same group.I'm combining this method with participant observation in order to see how knowledge between and within groups comes into contact in social settings, and what power dynamics are involved.Tick-tock, tick-tock!So, I have 10 months to get all this done while still studying Moore, collecting overarching information on climate change in Burkina Faso and West Africa, keeping up with my fieldnotes and journal, general analysis, and running basic errands that always seem to pop up (getting my oil changed, paying the electric bill--which takes ALL day, food shopping, etc). Life fills up pretty quick.I enjoy being busy and I enjoy this research, so I probably don't need to be too stressed. As another silver lining, I've found a couple of local research assistants that can help with my community survey and questionnaire work, translations, and some analysis. Maybe I don't have reason to stress but I can't help feeling the pressure.
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The Immanent Frame: Traditional, African, religious, freedom?
Having returned from Uganda within the last few months, it might be expected that I would address the internationally infamous Anti-Homosexuality Bill that has reared its head again, supported more openly this time by Christian leaders. Or that I would discuss the misguided and insensitive KONY 2012 campaign. Both of these are predicated on the demonization of a feared other, but it is rather the campaign to limit, if not eradicate, “traditional” forms of belief and practice in many parts of Africa that interests me in the present context.
I have been observing and analyzing religious trends in various parts of sub-Saharan Africa for several decades, with a particular focus on new religious movements, variously termed “minority religious groups,” “sects,” or “unconventional religious groups.” My years of living in southern Nigerian cities afforded me valuable insights into the workings of complex religious landscapes. As democratization, neoliberalism, media deregulation, and global religious activism increasingly change the stakes of coexistence between religious groups, and between such groups and the state, the management of Africa’s increasingly competitive religious public spheres has become a more compelling area of investigation. How do state and non-state agents act to facilitate or limit the public functioning and recognition of some or all religious organizations? How do the resources on which they draw, such as globally circulating ideas about “international religious freedom,” serve to frame what counts as (good or bad) religion? Which constitutional or statutory provisions are they informed or bound by in negotiating religious diversity? How much do local histories, politics, and demographics continue to influence the balancing of majoritarian and minoritarian religious interests?
In a recent article on “Regulating Religious Freedom in Africa” I explore the legal and non-legal strategies of keeping religious groups in check and note that African states frequently invoke limitations on religious practice and association in the name of public interest. Elsewhere I have also paid some attention to the growth of mass-mediated forms of religious expression in Africa and their capacity to open up new possibilities for religious communication, often providing increased visibility and audibility for minority religious groups. Yet this recent liberalization of the media sector across Africa also replicates or generates patterns of exclusion and discrimination through the granting of licenses, transmission power, broadcasting access, and program content.
The angle I will pursue here is the treatment of indigenous forms of African belief and practice in light of these post-colonial reconfigurations, or what Jean and John Comaroff term the Age of Millennial Capitalism. African traditional religions were particularly vulnerable during the earlier phases of Christian and Muslim missionary activity and colonization. The current dominance of Christianity and Islam is well evidenced by the Pew Forum project on religion in Africa. Indigenous religions are still largely perceived as pre-modern with ambiguous status as either religion or culture; they struggle for public recognition and equal treatment under the law. Moreover, they are hampered by being part of a generalized and heterogeneous category, with no clear designation or centralized leadership. This recalls some of the legal battles that American Indians faced in trying to prove that their traditions are “religious” so that they could enjoy constitutional protection, as Tisa Wenger discusses in her appositely titled book on the 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy, We Have a Religion.
So while it is Muslim-Christian relations in Africa that command current geopolitical attention, we should not overlook the fact that sub-Saharan Africa provides some of the most instructive examples of how indigenous religions are still religious freedom misfits. Kenyan legal scholar Makau Mutua has made the most forceful case that local forms of religious belief and practice have been subject to ongoing delegitimization by the state in collusion with missionary religions and post-colonial elites. He writes pointedly of a “constitutional silence” and an “absolute refusal to acknowledge the existence of African religions or cultures” in the country of his birth. Moreover, Mutua contends that the “liberal generic protection of religious freedoms,” with its guarantees of the right to manifest, propagate, and change one’s religion, favors mission-related religions and is ultimately inimical to indigenous African religions and lifestyles (Wole Soyinka makes similar arguments about the aggressivity of the so-called world religions in his latest book, Of Africa).
Furthermore, Mutua argues, limitations on religious freedom for reasons of “public morality” and “public health” target the elements of traditional religious practice that many colonial states found problematic, even abominable. Such fears and statutory tests perdure in modern times (see Enyinna S. Nwauche on Nigeria, E. K. Quashigah on Ghana). In his research on restrictions on religion worldwide from 2006-9, Brian Grim notes that, after Christians and Muslims, members of “tribal or folk” religious groups are the most commonly harassed group in Africa (in twenty-three countries). In sub-Saharan Africa, the harassment is generally linked to accusations of witchcraft, ritual sacrifice, and charlatanistic healing practices. Nigeria’s booming video-film market, known as Nollywood, has helped perpetuate negative stereotypes across Africa about traditional cultural practices. So, too, has the sensationalist media coverage in Africa and the diaspora of purported ritual abuse of African children suspected of witchcraft. Evangelical and Pentecostal movements generally lead the fray in demonizing indigenous religious and cultural practices.
South Africa is one of the optimal places to explore current debates over the status of traditional African religion(s) in a modern post-colonial state. The radical transformation from apartheid to democracy generated a wealth of public debates, policy initiatives, and scholarship on matters pertaining to discrimination and self-determination. On the face of it, traditional forms of religious belief and practice appear to be almost nonexistent (0.3%), according to the country’s 2001 census. Nearly 80% of the population identify as Christian. But as the contributors (mainly legal experts) to a most valuable 2011 book, Traditional African Religions in South African Law, underscore, the defining and classifying of these religions is still a live issue. These contributors discuss a number of recent legal cases that have tested the even-handed treatment of traditional religions under the new constitutional protections for religious freedom. The conflation of traditional religion and culture, and an emphasis on communal identity, proved problematic in some human rights cases, as exemplified in the public outcry and lawsuit (the Smit case, 2009) over a ritual bull slaughtering in a revived Zulu First Fruits Festival. While the case brought by animal rights activists was eventually dismissed for want of factual evidence, Christa Rautenbach argues that demonstrating that the festival was “religious” and not “cultural” in nature (despite the interdependency in practice of religion and culture) would have afforded greater protection from the judiciary. Similarly, Jewel Amoah and Tom Bennett note the surprising lack of reference to religious beliefs in legislative efforts to reform the laws of African customary marriage. They see this as ongoing evidence of the way that indigenous African religions are being treated as “incidents of African culture,” and the effect of this in depriving practitioners of the legal deference shown to other religious communities.
Another critical and contentious issue, ably discussed by Nelson Tebbe, is the outlawing of witchcraft by the government and human rights organizations. While the practice of naming witches may be permitted under free speech and religious freedom, so too limits on the practice may be allowed because of its often violent consequences. This has resulted in backlash from South Africa’s pagan and Wiccan communities, such as the South African Pagan Rights Alliance. Furthermore, the problems of trying witches in state courts and allowing religious experts to give evidence would compromise constitutional prohibitions on government involvement in religious affairs.
Because of her background in politics, broadcasting, and higher education, Nokuzola Mndende, one of the leading advocates of African traditional religion (ATR) in South Africa today, is highly critical of the ways her religious heritage continues to be misrepresented or underrepresented by media organizations. As conveyed by the title of her 2009 book, Tears of Distress: Voices of Denied Spirituality in a Democratic South Africa, she finds it problematic that traditional religion is often represented in the public sphere by “white reverend gentlemen,” African Christian converts, and syncretistic diviners, or that it only gains legitimacy as an appendage to Abrahamic religions or as a secularized form of traditional healing. Mndende therefore calls for “affirmative action” by the South African government to redress the fate of “disadvantaged religious communities.” It remains to be seen if the proposed South African Charter of Religious Rights and Freedoms (in whose drafting Mndende has participated) will provide any such benefits.
Marleen de Witte’s insightful work on the neo-traditionalist Afrikania Mission in Ghana also addresses the challenges facing such revivalist political-religious movements as they seek to be modern and African. These local struggles are bound up in decades of subjugating encounters with missionaries, colonialists, and scholars (whether of anthropology or comparative religion). Witte provides a rich discussion of how Afrikania seeks to negotiate the new media opportunities and constraints, knowing that how it represents its “traditions” and “spiritual power” to the predominantly (Pentecostal) Christian Ghanaian public is critical to its survival as the principal face of ATR in Ghana. She argues that this overly intellectualist focus on “representation” comes at the expense of the shrine practitioners’ practices and concerns. Some of the latter feel that traditions of secrecy have been sacrificed in the quest to produce a modernized, “world religion.” Furthermore, Witte describes Afrikania’s position as “difficult and ambiguous” as it seeks to defend “superstitious” religious practices, such as libation, as part of its nationalist heritage project, even when these run afoul of “universal” human rights norms embedded in the Ghanaian constitution.
David Chidester has long claimed that the “inventory” of religious elements that have come to characterize African traditional religion (belief in God, veneration of ancestors, sacrifice, initiation, divination, and healing rituals) are products of “colonial containment” and “Christian theological appropriations.” This recalls Birgit Meyer’s observation that Protestant missionaries in colonial Ghana attempted to “lock” people up in their own culture to prevent the development of syncretistic beliefs that might threaten the colonialist and nationalist project. In his latest book on the wild and surprising religious creativity of South Africa, Chidester discusses how, under the post-apartheid national motto, “Unity in Diversity,” political leaders have drawn on indigenous religion as a national resource, whether as the spiritual dimension of heritage projects or through rituals at key national and international events, such as the World Cup in 2010. Chidester also considers how traditional religion finds its way into religious tourism, school syllabi, global Zulu spirituality, New Age neo-shamanism, and traditional sovereignty. Facilitated by South Africa’s new democratic dispensation, these “transactions,” as he terms them, are often contested by those seeking to protect their sense of religious integrity, whether African traditionalists or devout Christians.
While the government of South Sudan is taking encouraging steps to include traditional religions in its new political dispensation, as noted by Noah Salomon in an earlier posting, the reality is that only one African state, the People’s Republic of Benin, officially recognizes traditional religion in its constitution, granting it a national public holiday. In Nigeria, the International Congress of Traditional Religion and Culture has advocated (unsuccessfully) for similar state recognition. This may account for why some movements such as Godianism—a traditional religious expression of Nigerian nationalism at the dawn of independence, now known as the Global Faith Ministries of Chiism—reinvent themselves as modern and family- and heritage-oriented. Cultural tourism, especially if it receives the UNESCO World Heritage imprimatur, is a way to attract state support for traditional religious festivals, as evidenced by the internationally renowned Osun festival in Nigeria’s Osun State. Another strategy is for traditional religious practitioners, especially healers, to create associations that promote their interests in the public sphere. The Zimbabwean National Traditional Healers Association (ZINATHA) and OrisaWorld, a global association to promote Yoruba religion, are cases in point. The latter is a vivid example of the strategic role that diasporic communities can play in the promotion and protection of traditional religious practices in their home countries. We should not neglect to mention the capacity of academic publications to legitimate the category of traditional religions for wider audiences, from the landmark works of John Mbiti beginning in 1969 through to recent texts such as Orisa Devotion as World Religion. Ugandan scholar Okot p’Bitek had already signaled the delegitmating power of the Western scholarly lens in his 1970 classic, African Religions in Western Scholarship.
While indigeneity is arguably more strategic than ethnicity in protecting the rights of traditional African religions, the indigenous rights option as a tool for social and political mobilization turns out to be a less viable alternative. In the view of Dorothy Hodgson, the criteria in Africa for deciding who is indigenous are far “murkier” than those used to identify first peoples of the Americas. A la Cultural Survival, indigeneity tends to be used to refer to those with distinctive lifestyles, such as pastoralists and hunter-gatherers. In contrast, others would claim that all Africans are indigenous.
Moreover, Ronald Niezen’s trenchant discussion of the ambiguity and paradoxes surrounding the concept of “indigenous religion” leaves us in no doubt about the effects of human rights activism and public and popular mediations of human difference in a globalizing era (see also Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa). Recent moves to grant institutional, protective space to indigenous expressions of “spirituality” not only essentialize and objectify traditional forms of belief and practice but also translate and recast them to appeal to cultural outsiders who formally or informally adjudge these rights claims.
Despite the undermining of African states by neoliberal policies and unreliable governance, the national level remains strategic for thrashing out respect for what du Plessis terms a “jurisprudence of difference.” The interpretation of the relationship between religion and culture is currently more consequential for traditional African religions than individualized notions of religious freedom in relation to a secular state. That notwithstanding, the local and global debates over what counts as “African,” “traditional,” “indigenous,” “religious,” and “freedom” are all grist for the religious freedom analytical mill.
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CONNECTED in CAIRO: Rethinking Sexual Politics in Egypt
In 2011 Paul Amer published an article entitled “Turning the Gendered Politics of the Security State Inside Out: Charging the Police With Sexual Harassment in Egypt” in the International Feminist Journal of Politics. In their final issue of 2012, the same journal has published a “conversation” between Paul and three other significant scholars of gender, [...]
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anthropologyworks: Anthro in the news 1/7/13
• On gang rape in the U.S.
Peggy R. Sanday, professor emeritus of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, published an article on CNN about gang rape in the U.S. with reference to the gang rape in Steubenville, Ohio, in August 2012. Some young men continue to believe that when a girl gets drunk, staging a sexual spectacle for their mates is part of a night’s fun. They don’t think of it as rape. Some of their buddies, however, disagree. In their transition to manhood, they are able to name rape when they see it. This split opinion is illustrated in the video posted a few days ago by Anonymous showing a young man — presumably an eyewitness — egged on by others, telling his version of what happened. The video footage is disturbing, to say the least. Sanday is the author of the book Fraternity Gang Rape: Sex, Brotherhood, and Privilege on Campus and A Woman Scorned: Acquaintance Rape on Trial. This important book documents how privileged, but perhaps nonetheless insecure, young men forge bonds with each other through gang rape and abuse of “outsider” women at a fraternity house in a major U.S. university.
• On gang rape in India
Two cultural anthropologists published a “letter to the editor” of the New York Times concerning the December gang rape and murder of a young woman in New Delhi, in response to an op-ed by Sonia Faleiro called “The Unspeakable Truth about Rape in India.” Carol Delaney, professor emerita of Stanford University, commented, “Finally, women are speaking out. The highly publicized violent acts of rape against two young Indian women in the last two weeks have drawn the sympathy and attention of the world. That the police suggested marriage to one of the rapists as the solution rather than prison for the perpetrators is simply outrageous. Lawrence Rosen of Princeton University said, “Sonia Faleiro’s courageous statement about violence to Indian women…, like the actions of those who have taken to the streets, is indeed heartening. But are we missing the larger protest against corruption, a police force that is tone-deaf to popular needs and an elitist government that ignores many of its less fortunate citizens? All of these were also true in the period before the Arab Spring. If so, the consequences of the present demonstrations may — and perhaps should — go far beyond the requisite justice for rape victims.”
• Indigenous knowledge and biodiversity protection
The Jakarta Post carried an article arguing for the importance of indigenous knowledge about the environment and anthropological studies documenting the relationship between indigenous peoples’ survival and biodiversity: “Anthropological studies indicate that hot spots of high biodiversity are associated with regions where traditional societies are frequently found. In this circumstance, indigenous groups offer alternative knowledge and perspectives based on their own locally developed practices of resource use (Berkes et al, 2000)…studies show that indigenous knowledge of ecological zones, natural resources, agriculture, aquaculture, forest and game management, to be far more sophisticated than previously assumed. Furthermore, this knowledge offers new models for development that are both “ecologically and socially sound” (Posey 1985:139-140).
• “Universal” personality traits in question
Long-term anthropological research among the Tsimane people of the Bolivian Amazon indicates that five personality traits psychologists say are universal across cultures are not characteristic among the Tsimane (pronounced see-may-nay). Researchers who spent two years studying over 1,000 members of the Tsimane culture found that they did not exhibit the five dimensions of personality — openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism — also known as the “Big Five.” The study is published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Researchers discovered evidence of a Tsimane “Big Two:” socially beneficial behavior, also known as prosociality, and industriousness. The study’s leader author is evolutionary anthropologist of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Michael Gurven.
• Cultural anthropology “most downtrodden” of the social sciences
An article in the Harvard Business Review starts with the statement that, “By almost any market test, economics is the premier social science,” as noted by Stanford University economist Edward Lazear a decade ago: “The field attracts the most students, enjoys the attention of policy-makers and journalists, and gains notice, both positive and negative, from other scientists.” Lazear went on to describe how economists have been using economic tools to study crime, the family, accounting, corporate management, and other topics in what is called “economic imperialism.” The article goes on to say, however, that economists met with “a dent in credibility” with the recent financial crisis, suggesting a need for radical rethinking of macro-economics. At the same time, “Even anthropology, that most downtrodden of the social sciences, has been encroaching on economists’ turf. When a top executive at the world’s largest asset manager (Peter Fisher of BlackRock) lists Debt: The First 5,000 Years by anthropologist (and Occupy Wall Streeter) David Graeber as one of his top reads of 2012, you know something’s going on. What’s going on is probably not the incipient overthrow of economics.” [Blogger's two notes: (1) empires do not last forever, and one of their failings is over-reach and (2) anthropologists have been studying "economic" topics since the beginning of the discipline].
• A child is born
An article in the Long Island Business News mentioned the author’s reading, during his college years, of the work of cultural anthropologist, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, who wrote that “the love for a child is a learned behavior, at least in countries like Brazil where most children living in shantytowns die before the age of 5 due to malnourishment. Parents there don’t even give their child a name until it proves it can live past 5.” The author goes on to say that the birth of his son was not something that could put love on hold.
• Filming Django Unchained
According to an article in the LA Times, Kerry Washington says scenes for Django Unchained shot at a Louisiana plantation with slave-era history left her concerned about her sanity. She is quoted as saying: “We’ve had a tradition of romanticizing slavery in film, and I thought this was a phenomenal opportunity to go into a creative exploration of this violent, awful, evil, sinful time period with a director who is not intimidated by violence and gore and exploring the evil side of the human spirit.” She sought to bring authenticity to her performance in several ways. The actor playing her overseer used a fake whip, but Washington insisted the lashings really hit her back. And to dramatize her punishment inside an underground, coffin-size metal container, she and Tarantino agreed she would spend time barely clothed in the “hot box” before the filming began so the feeling of confinement would be as realistic as possible. [Blogger's note: aitn includes this piece because Kerry Washington received a multidisciplinary B.A. that included cultural anthropology].
• End of a feud
Region of Hatfield-McCoy feud
According to CBS News, artifacts pinpoint the site of a Hatfield-McCoy battle in eastern Kentucky on New Year’s Day that marked a turning point in America’s most famous feud. The homestead was set ablaze and two McCoys were gunned down. Hatfield family members and supporters were soon thrown in jail. Excavators found bullets believed to have been fired by the McCoys in self-defense, along with fragments of windows and ceramics from the family’s cabin. An archaeological team led by Kim McBride, co-director of the Kentucky Archaeological Survey, confirmed the location of the McCoy cabin. The discoveries come amid a surge of interest in the feud that spanned much of the latter half of the 19th century. The fighting had claimed at least a dozen lives by 1888 and catapulted both families into the American vernacular, becoming shorthand to describe bitter rivalries. The New Year’s attack was one of the bloodiest episodes in the feud.
• Hopi artifacts returned
USA Today carried an article about the return “…on an unknown date at an unidentified location” of a collection of artifacts to anonymous members of the Hopi Tribe. The transacation appears to be clouded in non-disclosures. Officials at the Museum of Northern Arizona, which some of the bones and artifacts returned to the Hopis, declined to discuss the matter. The article quoted Kelley Hays-Gilpin, anthropology curator, as saying that the repatriation involved only a fraction of the museum’s collection.
• BBC documentary about Elaine Morgan
According to Wales Online, Elaine Morgan is to feature in a BBC documentary series to be broadcast this spring. The Western Mail columnist and author of several books on evolutionary anthropology will appear in one episode of a series called Great Welsh Writers. She is best known for her books including The Descent Of Woman and The Aquatic Ape. A spokesman for the BBC said: “The documentary will showcase Elaine’s life and will visit the people and places that have shaped and influenced her through her extraordinary career.”
• Famous Greek shipwreck reconsidered
USA Today reported on new findings about Greece’s famed Antikythera island shipwreck. At a recent meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, marine archaeologist Brendan Foley of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution reported on the first survey of since 1976 and noted that the ship was more than 160 feet long, twice as long as previously thought. According to marine archaeologist Theotokis Theodoulou of Greece’s Ephorate (Department) of Underwater Antiquities, the new survey shows that the ship likely sank unexpectedly when a storm blew it against an underwater cliff.
• Rich data on burials and human sacrifice
Computers provide researchers new insights, as shown by analysis of just one mass grave discovered near Dickson Mounds Museum in Illinois. Assistant Curator of Anthropology Alan Harn was called to a grave near Cahokia where 52 or 53 young females were sacrificed. According to Harn, what seems cruel – even to Spanish conquistadors – was just part of life on the Cahokia Mississippi frontier: “They were probably volunteers, and happy to go along for the prestige,” he says. Harn is excited about the new computerized abilities to process information on the graves and notes that, age 72 years, he is at the most point of his career: “Nobody has the kind of information we have…We have such incredible information. And we have so much of it.”
• It’s the climb
Science Daily reported on research showing that contemporary humans, in several groups, are adept tree climbers. Nathaniel Dominy and several colleagues carried out fieldwork and learned that modern humans who are adapted to terrestrial bipedalism can also be effective tree climbers. Findings are published in the PNAS. The studies in Uganda compared Twa hunter-gatherers to their agriculturalist neighbors, the Bakiga. In the Philippines, the researchers studied Agta hunter-gatherers and Manobo agriculturalists. Both the Twa and the Agta habitually climb trees in pursuit of honey. They climb in a fashion that has been described as “walking” up small-diameter trees. The climbers apply the soles of their feet directly to the trunk and “walk” upward, with their arms and legs advancing alternately. Among the climbers, Dominy and his team documented extreme dorsiflexion — bending the foot upward toward the shin to an extraordinary degree — beyond the range of “industrialized” humans.
• Run, eat, think…mate
It’s New Year’s and time to make resolutions. The media, from Sacramento to Sydney, picked up on the seasonal interest among many Westerners, at least, in exercising more. The message from biological anthropologists is that exercise, particularly jogging, is not only good for the body. It’s good for the brain…and more! The two articles mentioned work of anthropologists Daniel E. Lieberman, David Raichlen of the University of Arizona, and John D. Polk. Raichlen and Polk are co-authors of a new article in Proceedings of the Royal Society about the evolution of human brains and how physical activity may have helped to make the early humans smarter. [Blogger's note: you can figure out bio evo link between running, eating, thinking...and mating...and then see if it works for you...if it doesn't: go for a run!] .
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tabsir.net: Arab Constitutions and American Freedoms
Virginia Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom; source, Library of Congress
By Anouar Majid, Tingis Redux, January 8th, 2013
The deeply contentious referendum on Egypt’s new constitution last December 2012 gave me some hope that not all is lost to Arabs and Muslims in the aftermath of the revolutions that toppled dictators in the last two years. Given the rapid Islamization of the public sphere in much of the Arab world in the last few decades, I was expecting something close to a landslide, not a small voter turnout and a modest 63.8 percent in favor of the charter. As it turns out, there are still pockets of resistance that oppose the Muslim Brothers and their agenda, even though, as the New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman noted at that time, the divisions are not necessarily between Islamists and secular liberals. The fault lines in Egypt seem to be more varied than what is broadcast in the United States.
Be that as it may, the thing that concerns me the most is what the Western media is talking about, i.e., the clash between those who want a nation governed by divine law and those who don’t want religion to be the absolute reference in legislation. In November 2012, I had the opportunity to make the case for the separation of state and religion to people who participated or are actually participating in the drafting of constitutions in Morocco and Tunisia, a person who ran in the last presidential race in Egypt, members of the Tunisian parliament, a leader of a major Egyptian political party, and many others who are playing some role in the future of North Africa and the Middle East. I also explained why, at this crucial juncture in the region, Arabs and Muslims can’t do better than learn from the American constitutional process and especially the reasons for separating state and religion.
Fewer documents explain more powerfully the reasons for doing so than the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, first written by Thomas Jefferson in 1777–only a year after he drafted the Declaration of Independence–and enacted into law in January 1786, with the crucial help of James Madison. Jefferson was so proud of Virginia’s Religious Act that he wanted it noted on his epitaph. (more…)
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Arctic anthropology: New intern at the Anthropology Research Team
My name is Berit Wahlers and this is the first day of my internship at the Arctic Center in Rovaniemi. I will be spending two month at the Anthropology research team and during this period I will assist the team in their … Continue reading →
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Erkan in the Army now...: Sinan Kızılkaya (@sinankizilkaya): Müzakere Süreci Karşısında İyimser ve İhtiyatlı Yazar Tipleri
Müzakere Süreci Karşısında İyimser ve İhtiyatlı Yazar Tipleri
Yeniden ön-müzakere sürecine şahit olduğumuz bugünlerde bir grup gazete yazarı arasında ilginç bir damgalama yarışı göze çarpıyor. Buna damgalama demek yadırganabilir, fakat karşıtını tanımlamanın sakınılmayan politik şehveti bu yargıyı bildirme hakkını bize veriyor.
Geçmişte yaşanan müzakere süreçleri karşısında taraflardan herhangi birinin haklılığına argümanlarını yatıran yazarlar, konumlarının gerektirdiği temkinlilik veya coşkuyu belli ediyorlar şu anda. Bunda garipsenecek bir şey yok. Fakat bu temkinlilik ya da coşkuların müzakere sürecini belirleme riski karşısında en azından bir teorik uyanıklığa baştan sahip olmamız gerekiyor.
Bugünkü tartışmalarda, iyimserlik-ihtiyatlılık karşıtlığında süren gerilimi/atışmayı birazda, söz sözleme ehliyetinin tasdik talebi-arzusu bağlamında düşünmek gerekiyor. Oysa atışmalar nedeniyle her an harcanacakmış gibi görünen bu iki kavramın da eşlik ettiği duyarlılıkların yokluğunda, sürecin gerilimini hiç kimse taşıyabilecek güce sahip değil.
Bütün müzakere ve müzakereye bağlı değişim süreçlerinde olduğu gibi, tarafların ya da taraflar içinde alt-grupların en azından verili sembolik-sosyal sermayelerini kaybetmeleri riski karşısında takınacakları tavırlara dair düşünmek bile, tek başına, ihtiyatlı hareketi ve yaklaşımı yedekte tutmamızı gerektiriyor. Buna karşın, her türlü gerilim ve risk karşısında, tıkanmayı aşmayı sağlayacak siyasal iradelerin yanı başımızda bulunacağına dair bir umut ve iyimserlik olmadan, takatimizin bu gerilimleri sırtlanmaya yeterli olmayacağını da bilmeliyiz.
Burada dikkatimizi çeken ihtiyatlılık – iyimserlik geriliminin açığa çıktığı yazılara bakarken bir şeyi rahatlıkla görebiliyoruz. Kamusal alanda ana-akım medya kanallarında kredibilitesi geçmiş dönemde ya da hâlihazırda yüksek olan isimler arasında görülen ayrışmanın da kısmen eşlik ettiği bir saflaşma, müzakere sürecine Kürt Meselesi dışından bazı gerilimleri de taşıyacaktır. Aynı zamanda eski-yeni seçkinler arası çatışmanın izlerini de gösteren bu konumlanmalardan çıkan argümanlar, çoğunlukla bloklaşma sonucu oluşan duygusal angajmanların izini taşıyor. Fakat bu izler/tortular bir kere yetkinlikle ifşa edilse bile silinmeyecektir, aksine herkes mevzisinin gerekliliğini yeniden kanıtlama çabasına meyledecektir en azından.
Siyasi iktidarın, ulusal sınırlarının çeperinde gelişen krizin içine sürüklenme riskinin yükseldiği bir dönemde Kürt Meselesinde yeniden müzakere kapısına dönmesi elbette ki benim için de bir umudun diri tutulması hatta iyimserliğe kapılanmak için tek başına yeterli bir neden. Fakat Hükümetle kader ortaklığına giren -ya da daha nötr bir tanımlamayla; siyasi krizlerin çözümü için Akpartinin geçmiş dönem performansından dolayı duygusal angajmanını devam ettiren- yazarlar grubu halihazırda kendilerinin umuduna eş bir umudu taşımayan ve ihtiyatlı olunması gerektiğini belirten karşı gruba yönelik ciddi bir suçlama eğilimi içine girmiş durumda. Bu eğilim aynı zamanda hükümetin gecikmiş ama beklenen atılımı karşısında ciddi şekilde rahatlayan, enerjisini son birkaç yıldır Akpartinin Ankaralılaşmadığını anlatabilmeye ayıran yazarların; karşı gruba, kendini haklılaştırmış bir öfkeyle yönelmesi olarak da tercüme edilebilecek bir içerik taşıyor. Burada kritik olan rahatlamaya eşlik eden öfke tonudur. Çünkü bu ton karşısında ki grubu damgalamaya yönelirken (“vijdan kuaförleri” damgası örneğinde görüleceği gibi – haklılığı bir tarafa) bir siyasi –medyatik tasfiye operasyonuna da malzeme taşıyor. Bizim için şimdiden dikkat edilmesi gereken bu operasyonun karşı kutbunu ne denli tahrik etmeye yönelebileceğidir. Savunmaya kışkırtılan kişiler, takipçi kitleleri nezdinde taşıdıkları güvenirlilik sermayesini, ilk tökezleme ya da duraksamada müzakere sürecinin aleyhine kullanmaya meylederlerse n’olacak? Kendini gerçekleştiren kehanete varmaya niyetli bir hamle sadece kahinin siyasi güvenirliliğini mi riske sokacak yoksa bütün süreci mi? ( Kaldı ki Ergenekon davası süreci ile başlayan bloklaşma, siyaset-bürokrasi içinde ki ayaklarından ayrıca Türkiye toplumu içinde de bir temsiliyete tekabül ediyor ve blokun zaman zaman kürt siyasetinden de müttefik bulabildiğini unutmamak gerekiyor. Hatta Erdoğan’ın kindarlık aşılayan bazı söylemleri bu bloğa kürt aşısının yapılmasına da bizzat imkan hazırlamıştı. Tam da bundan dolayı, kronikleşen Akparti karşıtlığı ile kürt meselesinde ki iyimserlik karşıtlığının bileşiminden şüphe etmenin gerekli ihtiyatın bir parçası olduğunu akılda tutarak bunları söylediğimi de hatırlatmalıyım.)
Bu yazıda ihtiyatlılık karşıtlarına yönelen üslubun nedeni, aslında siyasi akıllarını liderin karizmasına devreden, umudunu siyasi liderin aksiyonerliğine bağlayan yazar tavrının bugüne kadarki maliyetinin ağırlığı. Çünkü ihtiyatın elden bırakılmasının, Hükümetin angaje yazarlarını daha önce ne tür bir kindarlığa sürüklediğini görmüştük. (Elbette ki burada angajmandan bahsederken bir siyasi ya da iktisadi rant beklentisi ile angaje olanları kastetmediğimi belirtmeliyim. Burada, daha ziyade memleketin meselelerine ilişkin düşünmüş, çıkarımları doğrultusunda umudunu yatıracağı siyasi bir partneri tercih etmiş, fakat zamanla eleştirel mesafesini kaybederek angaje olmuş bir yazar tavrına dikkat çekmeye çalışıyorum.) İyi işler olacağını ve sorunların iyileştirileceğini umut eden, bu doğrultuda umut yatırdığı siyasi bloğun sorun çözmeye aday eylemi ile coşkuya kapılan bir iyimser-yazar tipi, daha önce örneğini gördüğümüz gibi, iyi işe karşılık vermediğini düşündüğü karşı siyasi bloktan ve o blokun kanaat üreticilerinden zamanla nefret etmeye başlarsa ne olur? İyimser yazarın bu süreçte büyüyen hınç ve öfkesi, zamanla körleşen siyasi angajmanı eşliğinde onun eleştirel mesafesini tüketiyorsa, burada artık kaybeden yalnızca bir yazarın kişisel güvenirlilik sermayesi değil, memleketin siyasi akıl bakiyesidir. Çünkü neredeyse her yazar tipinde biz bu eğilimin tekrarlandığını görebiliyoruz. Kanaat üretmeye aday olup, söz söyleme ehliyetine sahip olduğunu iddia ederek pazara giren Yazar, liderin tasdikçisi olup muhkem bir mevzi edinerek macerasına devam etmeye niyetleniyor. Maalesef her seferinde yenilenen bu macera Yazarın basiret kaybına uğramasına neden olurken; eleştirel mesafenin istikrarsızlığına dayalı güvenirlilik eksikliği nedeniyle, biz bu ülkede siyasi aktörler üzerinde baskı kurabilecek yazı kaynaklı bir moral güce de rastlayamıyoruz. Belki de bu yüzden bu ülkede sivil alanı kuşatan bir siyasal aktör tahakkümünden ziyade, tükenen ve kendini siyasi aktöre iliştiren Yazar becerisinden bahsetmeliyiz.
Umut edelim ki halkın basireti Yazar-ın basiretinden daha sahicidir.
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trinketization: Cotton For My Shroud – screening with the directors, 6pm 16.1.2013
Screening with the filmmakers Nandan Saxena & Kavita Bahl - 6pm Lauri Grove Baths, Council Room, Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths As Multinational Corporations that produced poisons for biological warfare during the cold war positioned their deadly wares as agricultural inputs, the last few decades have seen humans waging war upon themselves. Vidarbha, in the Indian state [...]
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AAA blog: New AAA Anthropology in Public Policy Award
The American Anthropological Association (AAA) Committee on Public Policy (CoPP) has established a biennial award, the AAA Anthropology in Public Policy Award, to honor anthropologists whose work has had a significant, positive influence on the course of government decision-making and action. Public policy is broadly defined to include measures created by any level of government [...]
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media/anthropology: Spain’s Partido X: a new political party steeped in digital culture
via Spanish Wikipedia (Google translation) Jump to: navigation , search The X Party, Party of the Future Founded December 17, 2012 Country Spain Website [partidodelfuturo.net] , [partidox.org] The X Party (El Partido X), also known as the Future Party, is a political party appeared publicly in early 2013 . It was submitted by online 8 [...]
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Shenzhen Noted: border theory
End of last semester, I attended the review for MArch 1 studio: Inbetweeners taught by Joshua Bolchover, The Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong. Six teams offered analysis … Continue reading →
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Ethnography Matters: On Teaching Social Media to Undergraduates [Syllabus As Essay]
Editor’s Note: We are very happy to feature Ethnography Matter’s first Syllabus as Essay post for 2013 from Alice Marwick, a researcher who conducted pioneering ethnographic fieldwork on the world of social media use. Simply titled, “Social Media,” the syllabus that she created for undergraduate students at Fordham University is breathtaking and groundbreaking. Not only [...]
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The Subversive Archaeologist: I Have A *cough* Bone To Pick with the Neandertal Interbreeding Advocates
Since the Very Serious Anthropologists and Geneticists don't seem to get it, let me try another way. Those estimable scientists believe that they have more-or-less irrefutable evidence that people like you and I, upon entering Europe around 40,000 years ago encountered the Neanderthals and, in true human fashion saw no reason to avoid having sex with them.First let me remind you that, even without the recently acquired ability to sequence entire genomes, it's intuitively obvious that the modern human and Neanderthal genomes would share a large number of genes of all kinds by virtue of a common ancestry reaching all the way back to the first DNA molecule. In like fashion, we share a slightly smaller number of genes with gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos. Less still with gibbons, siamangs, and orangutans. And it's equally logical that we share fewer DNA segments with the other mammals, fewer with the fish, and so on. I can say this even without knowledge of a single genome.A Neanderthal genome has been published. Likewise a Denisovan. And fine-grained comparisons have been made between those observations and those on about two-and-a-half thousand people alive today. As yet, we have no clue as to the genome of Homo erectus / H. ergaster. Svante Pääbo and colleagues, and biological anthropologist John Hawks, among many others, want to persuade us that their data reveal interbreeding between people like us and the Neanderthals.At times over the past year I've made great fun of the notion. That's primarily because, in my view there's no evidence that the Neanderthals could communicate in the way I am with you at this moment. Most anthropologists would probably concede that absence of language in the Neanderthal species would pretty much rule out what has historically been called human culture, and thus would likely render any modern human impression of the Neanderthals on a par with our impressions of gorillas and chimps. If, and I must [alas] emphasize, if the Neanderthals and their contemporaries were bereft of language, it would be highly unlikely that you or I or an Aurignacian or even a present-day member of the American Republican Party would think that it was a high-percentage move to mate with one. My guess is that it would be tantamount to the tongue-in-cheek proverbial shepherd and his fearful sheep.[Admittedly, animal behaviorists and primatologists who study living anthropoid primates will tell you that most of them evince something like a 'culture,' in that they learn through species-specific social behaviour--i.e. learning. Some primatologists will also want to tell you that the African great apes are capable of language. To date, however, not a single chimp, bonobo, or gorilla have come forward with evidence that they are capable of even one Nth of what you and I can can accomplish with our minds.]In undertaking anew my effort to scrutinize the data underlying claims for interbreeding, I'm undaunted by the reality--that most of us would have to go back to school to understand the even-more-sophisticated analyses of the genome data acquired by the ultra-sophisticated techniques upon which the 1000-genome project folks and the Neanderthals-R-Us crowd base their claims for interbreeding between the Neanderthals and modern people like you and me. Notwithstanding my staggering naiveté with regard to genomics, I still think it's possible to focus the spotlight on a methodological problem in the prodigious dataset thus far compiled. That problem resides in the choice of populations sampled.At its heart, my complaint about the 1000-genome sample is simple, but fundamental. It's so fundamental, and I'm at such a loss to explain how the project leaders allowed it to be the case, that when I imagine the interbreeding advocates coming face to face with my argument I can't help but recall the image of cartoon character Wile E. Coyote the instant he looks down and realizes that he's no longer standing on solid ground. If the 1000-genome project-affiliated biological anthropologists were to 'look down' at their data for a moment they'd prolly realize that they weren't, any longer, on a solid theoretical footing, and will ultimately stand or fall on the implications of their flawed data.The shortcoming that I see lies in what they term "the African" populations, and the conclusion that there's a distinct difference between the degree of genetic material shared amongst Neanderthals, modern Europeans, and modern Asians and the degree of genetic material shared between the Neanderthals and present-day African populations. It's assumed [or presumed] that a few hundred African genomes are at least as representative of the genetic diversity of Africa--as a whole--as are those of Europeans and Asians in the sample. As you'll see, this doesn't accord with the facts.The table below shows the African and African-related portion of the 1000-genome project's data. You can see that the present-day African groups represented are the Yoruba, Luhya, Gambia, Mende, and Esan. I'll come back to the American genomes in a moment.The 1000-genome project, in attempting to characterize the range of variability in modern Africans, has sampled a very few groups from the west coast of central Africa and one from inland East Africa. That's a piddling sample given that the African continent gave rise to the species and presumably comprises the greatest range of variation of any similar segment of the species elsewhere in the world. But that's not all. They might just as well have called their African sample the Bantu sample. Indeed, 80% of the Africans sampled [thus far] in the project traces their ancestry to a Bantu homeland in west Central Africa near the borders of Nigeria and Cameroon. This historical picture resembles most closely that of the Indo-European speakers that, around the same time, spread their language and culture, and their genes, from a point in southwestern Asia across Europe.The map at left depicts the relative time-depth and geographic extent of the Bantu expansion I've just mentioned, which appears to have occurred in two stages, and which profoundly changed the demographics of Africa south of the Sahara Desert beginning about 4,000 years ago. The problem this presents to the 1000-genome project is enormous. While maintaining that they've got a representative sample of Africa-wide populations, they've very likely drawn from a single, widespread population that has a relatively small degree of genetic diversity. [Which, I might add, may be the reason that some of the 1000-genome data are seen to suggest a population 'bottleneck' in Africa at some time in the past.] Let's face it, at a minimum these African results should be approached with caution. I mentioned that the project also sampled Americans of African ancestry. The same problem arises. The African slave trade grew up in coastal regions, as you can see in the map of the diaspora that is shown below. All those purple arrows aiming at the Americas originate on Africa's west coast, the southern portion of which is, again, Bantu. And, even though some Africans from further north did make it to the Americas, as can be seen by reference to the inset pie chart, 52% came from Bantu speaking populations. Another 23% came from the Bight of Benin, which is the northern region most proximal to the Bantu homeland, and which therefore might be expected to evince a substantial genetic similarity to that of the Bantu peoples who were uprooted and transported to the Americas. Taken together, the 1000-genome project's African sample may in fact be sampling a very narrow portion of the original, ancestral African, genetic diversity. Unfortunately for the project, when you include the modern African Americans that comprise a portion of the sample, another 150 or so, almost 75% of the entire sample representing Africa could be seen to derive from a single, geographically circumscribed ancestral population in western Africa. I can't even begin to calculate the effect this would have on the claims made so far for African input into the parts of the genomes shared between modern humans outside of Africa and those darned Neanderthals. At a minimum, the proponents of the interbreeding hypothesis might want to examine their methods more closely, so as to redress this quite obvious shortcoming of the sampling strategy.The fundamental question posed by the 1000-genome project was what proportion of ancestral African populations share any part of their genome with those of the Neanderthals? I'd have to say that the jury's still out, regardless of what the project mavens would have us believe.SA announces new posts on the Subversive Archaeologist's facebook page (mirrored on Rob Gargett's news feed), on Robert H. Gargett's Academia.edu page, Rob Gargett's twitter account, and his Google+ page. A few of you have already signed up to receive email when I post. Others have subscribed to the blog's RSS feeds. You can also become a 'member' of the blog through Google Friend Connect. Thank you for your continued patronage. You're the reason I do this.
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Shenzhen Noted: more evidence that china and the usa really are the same country
Back in the day — and a good fifteen years ago it was — Shenzhen University gave me toilet paper and toothpaste, economy sized bottles of shampoo and other necessities … Continue reading →
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