hey you two, you’ve been up to something.
so many of the posted pics tagged as “anthropology” present images that are “exotic” to western culture. fact is almost any pic posted could be tagged “anthropology” which is what is so cool about the discipline. repeatedly selecting that which is “exotic” to western culture to represent anthropology is an example of a rudimentary understanding of anthropological principles. papa boas didn’t just post a pic and slap a tag on it. there is a lot more to anthropology than that. if one is going to post a pic of a mobali woman or a lakota dancer and add #anthropology be honest and replace it with #novelty, cause thats the extent of it. if you post a pic and tag it “anthropology” one should provide some context, add a caption, provide a link, ask yourself “why the hell am i posting this?” and then explain. put forth some effort for the respect of the people presented and the discipline itself.
done ranting, now i’m going to search my archive to make sure i’m not a hypocrite…
aborignal genome rewrites history of human migration.
Genetic information extracted from the lock of hair, which was donated by a young Aboriginal man to a British anthropologist in the 1920s, suggests that instead of leaving Africa in one single migratory movement, humans departed in two separate waves.
An international team of scientists used DNA within the hair to sequence the Aboriginal genome for the first time.
Their results revealed that the man was directly descended from a migration out of Africa into Asia that took place about 70,000 years ago.
The researchers believe this proves that Aborigines were the first group to separate from other modern humans.
Their remarkable findings, published in the journal Science, suggest that modern Aborigines moved out of Africa 24,000 years earlier than the humans who went on to form the populations of Asia and Europe, challenging current theories of a single phase of dispersal from Africa.
posted in the telegraph
african and non-african populations intermixed well after migration out of africa 60,000 years ago, genome studies show
Researchers have probed deeper into human evolution by developing an elegant new technique to analyse whole genomes from different populations. One key finding from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s study is that African and non-African populations continued to exchange genetic material well after migration out-of-Africa 60,000 years ago. This shows that interbreeding between these groups continued long after the original exodus.
For the first time genomic archaeologists are able to infer population size and history using single genomes, a technique that makes fewer assumptions than existing methods, allowing for more detailed insights. It provides a fresh view of the history of humankind from 10,000 to one million years ago.
posted in science daily
Canadian photographer and filmmaker Devin Tepleski was working on an archaeology dig in Ghana when he was asked by villagers, 2,700 of whom would soon to be displaced by the Bui Hydroelectric Dam, to tell their story, which they felt was being ignored by the government and media. The result is a surreal series of portraits of men, women and children standing knee-deep in the Black Volta river taken in 2009, before the river was dammed to flood a 440-square-kilometer gorge.
A student in his last year of a degree in visual anthropology—think Margaret Mead’s films—at the University of Victoria, Tepleski was drawn to photography after seeing Masahisa Fukase’s Solitude of Ravens. Tepleski initially struggled to find a way to combine the two passions. “Anthropology has an appalling history when it comes to representing people from far away places,” says Tepleski. “And anyone working in photography would be keenly aware of the representational issues that have plagued that form as well.” But Tepleski realized as an anthropologist he had the potential, unlike photojournalists, to make a long term commitment to a community, and take a more collaborative approach.
posted in time
ancient clicks hint language is african-born.
A researcher analyzing the sounds in languages spoken around the world has detected an ancient signal that points to southern Africa as the place where modern human language originated.
The finding fits well with the evidence from fossil skulls and DNA that modern humans originated in Africa. It also implies, though does not prove, that modern language originated only once, an issue of considerable controversy among linguists. The detection of such an ancient signal in language is surprising. Because words change so rapidly, many linguists think that languages cannot be traced very far back in time. The oldest language tree so far reconstructed, that of the Indo-European family, which includes English, goes back 9,000 years at most. Quentin D. Atkinson, a biologist at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, has shattered this time barrier, if his claim is correct, by looking not at words but at phonemes — the consonants, vowels and tones that are the simplest elements of language. Dr. Atkinson, an expert at applying mathematical methods to linguistics, has found a simple but striking pattern in some 500 languages spoken throughout the world: A language area uses fewer phonemes the farther that early humans had to travel from Africa to reach it.
posted in the new york times
how did women in this small s. african country gain such autonomy?
“Lesotho is ranked eighth in the world by the World Economic Forum (WEF) when it comes to bridging the gap between the sexes. The reasons are cultural, political and economic, but one explanation keeps being repeated when you probe the gender issue, and it relates to Lesotho’s recent past.”
“Historically, large numbers of men from Lesotho crossed the border to work in South Africa’s mines, forcing women to step into their shoes and take up school places and jobs. Many of the men have now come back, having been retrenched from the mines, and they face a more female-focused world.”
posted by karen allen in the bbc
“Across Africa and the developing world, a new global land rush is gobbling up large expanses of arable land. Despite their ageless traditions, stunned villagers are discovering that African governments typically own their land and have been leasing it, often at bargain prices, to private investors and foreign governments for decades to come.” posted by neil macfarquhar in the new york times
voluntourism in s. africa's orphanages, is doing good really bad?
“But in South Africa, some researchers now claim that foreign visitors aren’t actually helping the children they work with. In fact, they might be harming them. The South African government has expressed concern about so-called AIDS orphan tourism, and the Department of Social Development recently said that it will study the issue.” anders kelto for npr.
This morning at the museum, it was just me and the director at the lab today since there weren’t a lot of visitors. Anyways, we got into this really intense discussion that I’d really like to carry on over here. In some remote places in Tanzania and Burundi, there are have been a wave of albino killings. Witch doctors use the limbs, organs, and genitals of albinos for magic potions, which they then sell to people, mainly fisherman for good luck.
In most cases, when the limbs are removed, the victim is hacked with a machete alive, because it is believed the screams of agony contribute to the potency of the magic potion. The wounds usually lead to death.
Approaching this matter in a non-Eurocentric perspective, how does one begin to address this? We got into a discussion on cultural anthropology and how cultural standards are set by the West, as seen through the establishment of the Human Rights Act. In my opinion, just convicting the killers is not enough. Since fisherman are experiencing a boom in business, they have attributed it to the magic potions. Police have begun to crack down on the selling of the potions and those responsible for killing the victims, but it has only lead to the increase in price for the potions. I say, go to the source. While it is imperative to respect cultures and make an exerted effort to understanding them, it is my personal opinion that anything that results in the neglect of the basic right to live ought to be stopped.
My parents are from Morocco, which is in Africa, and I was born in Washington D.C. But Morocco shares the culture of a majority of the Middle East. Morocco has also adapted European tendencies. I see how my American culture and Arab/African culture often clash, and I think it has put me in a position to be more tolerant and open-minded to understanding other cultures. My question is, how should a culture be addressed if in some extreme cases, condones the killing of innocent people? Or is it any of our business?
i blog about anthropology, with a few personal opinions and anecdotes thrown in. i try not to make posts about subjects that are already trending on tumblr. i make an effort to share information that may be of interest but has been missed by the radar. dig my archives like an archaeologist with a new trowel. i do this because i have anthropological super powers bestowed upon me by the gods of academia. none of which are that powerful, aside from the mind bullets.
