Showing papers in "Current Anthropology in 1977"
TL;DR: The United States appears to have fewer alternative caretakers available, and less child caretaking, than most societies as discussed by the authors, which is related to a number of developmental areas during childhood, including mother-child relationships and attachment, conceptions and emergence of childhood stages, formation and organization of play groups, development of social responsibility, sex differences, individual differences, and cognitive style differences.
Abstract: Children often act as caretakers responsible for other children. Such child caretaking varies widely in its frequency, as well as in the degree of institutionalization, relationship to parental caretaking, degree of indulgence, and incidence at differing ages. Residence and household patterns, size of the family, and the subsistence economy, daily routines, and work load of the family are important in determining availability of child caretakers in the home. The United States appears to have fewer alternative caretakers available, and less child caretaking, than most societies. Child caretaking is related to a number of developmental areas during childhood; eight are suggestedin this review: (1) mother-child relationships and attachment; (2) conceptions and emergence of childhood stages; (3) formation and organization of play groups; (4) development of social responsibility; (5) sex differences; (6) development of individual diferences; (7) development of cognitive-style differences; and (8) motivation an...
511 citations
TL;DR: Magical thinking is an expansion of a universal disinclination of normal adults to draw correlational lessons from their experiences as discussed by the authors, which is an alternative, cognitive-processing, account of magical thinking.
Abstract: Magical thinking has perplexed anthropological theorists for nearly a century. At least three perspectives are extant: (1) Magic is a form of science, a relatively effective set of canons and procedures for acquiring knowledge and exercising control (see, e. g., Levi-Strauss 1966); (2) magic is a form of fantasy, an irrational symbolic attempt to influence uncontrollable events (see, e.g., Malinowski 1954); (3) magic is a form of rhetoric, a persuasive communication designed to arouse sentiments rather than make truth claims about what goes with what in experience (see, e.g., Tambiah 1973). This study presents an alternative, cognitive-processing, account of magical thinking. Magical thinking is an expansion of a universal disinclination of normal adults to draw correlational lessons from their experiences. Correlation and contingency are relatively complex concepts that are not spontaneously available to human thought and are not to be found in the reasoning of most normal adults in all cultures. In the ...
277 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a theory of the distancing of emotion which integrates the positive and negative orientations toward ritual is presented, which links ritual to the process of catharsis of repressed emotion and suggests that when ritual is either over- or underdistanced, it will be seen either as meaningless or tension-producing.
Abstract: There is an ambivalence toward ritual in social science. On the one hand, it is seen as immensely valuable to the individual and to society. On the other hand, there is an underlying feeling that ritual is impotent. This paper presents a theory of the distancing of emotion which integrates the positive and negative orientations toward ritual. The theory links ritual to the process of catharsis of repressed emotion, which subsumes the positive orientation. The theory also suggests that when ritual is either over- or underdistanced, it will be seen either as meaningless, in the case of overdistancing, or tension-producing, in the case of underdistancing, which subsumes the negative orientation toward ritual. The relationship between this theory and Freud and Breuer's theory of repression and catharsis is described. Finally, some evidence from ethnology is reviewed which relates sense of well-being, distancing, and catharsis in funeral rites and in curing rituals.
90 citations
TL;DR: In the last 15 years, the interest of archaeologists in the general problems of their discipline-philosophical, methodological, logical, and theoretical-and in those which link archaeology with prehistory, history, sociology, and social or cultural anthropology (ethnology or ethnography, accordingly) has greatly increased.
Abstract: Initial considerations. I the last 15 years, the interest of archaeologists in the general problems of their discipline-philosophical, methodological, logical, and theoretical-and in those which link archaeology with prehistory, history, sociology, and social or cultural anthropology (ethnology or ethnography, accordingly) has greatly increased. This intensification of interest has given rise to such a stream of literature in various languages that it has become apparent that special cumulative surveys of this literature are a necessity. The multidisciplinary nature of the subject and the need for rigorous evaluation and wide distribution make CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY the most suitable place for such surveys. The general nature, goals, and methods of such surveys are spelled out in my proposals (CA 13:346; 14:3-4) and the subsequent discussion (CA 13:348; 14:3-4, 63, 300, 335, 523; 15:3-4). I shall begin here by examining in more detail the nature of surveys on my particular theme and the current literature that surrounds it. Subject matter. Monographs systematizing a general theoretical discipline have been produced in various fields: Theoretical Biology (von Bertalanffy 1932, Bauer 1935), Theoretical Anthropology (Bidney 1953), Theoretical Geomorphology (Scheidigger 1961), Theoretical Geography (Bunge 1962), On Theoretical Sociology (Merton 1967), Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (Zvegincev 1967), and others. Surveying them, one arrives at the conclusion that specialists define their own theoretical branches differently. Some define them very broadly, including philosophical and methodological problems, on the one hand, and particular theories, on the other; others restrict them quite narrowly, limiting them to the general theory of the given science. I prefer a middle road. A complex of closely interdependent problems has become identifiable in the discipline and demands that researchers pecialize. Some definition or other is needed for this complex of problems, and it seems to me that a designation of \"theoretical archaeology\" fits better than others. In the beginning, I intended to denote this whole area of problems with the word \"methodology\" (see CA 14:4), since among Soviet philosophers the term is frequently used in this way, with ideological justification (cf. Stoff 1972; Mostepanenko 1972:18-19; Yadov 1972:29-39). In certain fields, however, this term is less convenient, as it has far too many meanings and demands such specifications as \"overall,\" \"general,\" or \"special\" (cf. Yadov 1972:30-39). In our case it is further inconvenient because of the fact that, not only in entire traditions, but in several languages, it is now construed only narrowly, with a meaning closer to \"methods\" (\"methodology\" signifying the sum of concrete, systematic rules, \"methods\" their application). In any case, in a discussion of theoretical archaeology, I have in mind that which makes up the contents of Taylor's (1948) book and which has been designated in other works (C. Hawkes 1954, Willey and Phillips 1958) by the words \"theory and method.\" Thus, I understand theoretical archaeology to be a cluster of closely interrelated problems having a general archaeological character and usually designated as philosophical, methodological, logical, and theoretical, including, in part, historiographical ones. The terms \"philosophy of science,\" \"epistemology of science,\" \"logic of science,\" \"methodology,\" \"general theory,\" and \"central theory\" have different meanings in various terminological systems, entering differently into relationships of coordination and/or subordination. The bounds of these ideas are sometimes clearly demarcated, sometimes partially coincidental, sometimes wholly coincidental (in various contexts); sometimes one merges into another, assuming the properties of a component. First one and then another of these words assumes the role of general designation for the whole group of problems (of theoretical archaeology). All of them, however, either have many more meanings than the chosen one or are too firmly fixed in a narrower sense. In any case, no one doubts the close interdependence of these problems, and I intend to cover all of them in the literature without dividing it up. Therefore, I do not feel any need to explain their interdependence or to supply definitions for all the parts of theoretical archaeology and analyze their boundaries and correlations. It is sufficient o outline the general limits of the area involved in the survey and to indicate what is not to be included. LEO S. KLEJN is Assistant of the Chair of Archaeology, Historical Faculty, University of Leningrad (Leningrad 199164, U.S.S.R.). Born in 1927, he received his education at that university, studying protohistoric archaeology mainly under M. I. Artamonov and folklore under V. Ia. Propp and graduating in 1951. He became Lecturer in 1960 and assumed his present position in 1962. He has taught the history and methods of archaeology and the archaeology of the Bronze Age and, since 1964, has led the department's Problems of Archaeology Seminar (the first volume of the papers of which appeared under the title Problems of Archaeology in 1968). He has done fieldwork primarily in the steppes (barrow excavations), but also in ancient Slavic towns and Neolithic sites. His main interests are theory and methods of archaeology, the Neolithic and Bronze Age of Central and Eastern Europe, and the archaeology of the early Slavs. He has published more than 60 articles in various scientific publications. The present paper, submitted in Russian in the spring of 1976, was translated into English by Stephen P. Dunn. Unexpected delays in the mail made it necessary to publish the edited translation without Klejn's final approval. Any additions or corrections he may wish to make will appear in the June issue.
79 citations
TL;DR: In this article, an evolutionary model of these regularities and their relation to other traditional questions of state formation is developed, and it is suggested that this entire cluster acts as some sort of evolutionary unit that certain processes of adaptation and selection operate at this supersystem level and cannot necessarily be treated at the level of the...
Abstract: Periods of intensification alternate with periods of shift of mode of production in pristine-state sequences; attendant upon these are regular shifts in sociopolitical organization. This paper develops an evolutionary model of these regularities and their relation to other traditional questions of state formation. Specifically it notes that rarely if ever do such transformations affect only a single precocious polity, at any level of sociocultural integration. Instead, a number of polities, comparable to each other in size, complexity, and thechnoeconomic structure, are involved. Essentially uniformitarian resemblances among them are enhanced by the fact that these are open systems, in at least sporadic contact (subsuming both exchange relations, however patterned, and competition/warfare). It is suggested that this entire cluster acts as some sort of evolutionary unit that certain processes of adaptation and selection operate at this supersystem level and cannot necessarily be treated at the level of the...
47 citations
TL;DR: A network model is suggested as appropriate to identifying the ways in which variation in any one part falls under some degree of control by the system represented by its complementary parts.
Abstract: Fresh theoretical perspectives are required for understanding the rapid expansion of international economic activity and especially the organization of production on a world scale through institutions of multinational enterprise. Ananthropological evolutionary approach which sees these developments as part of the generation of a new system at a supranational level of sociocultural integration seems appropiate to the task. The creation of such a new system is a matter of complex changes in the forms and relationships of many constituent subsystems, not simply a response to technoenvironmental stimuli. Among the cumulating changes are those relative to factors of production, those relative to transactions, and those relative to corporateness. Understanding of this developing supranational system requires delineation of newly emerging mechanism of control. A network model is suggested as appropriate to identifying the ways in which variation in any one part falls under some degree of control by the system re...
37 citations
TL;DR: The Cache Project as mentioned in this paper was founded on the principle that cultural resource management cannot attain its management goals without solid research effort; thus every contract project must obtain research results, and the Cache Project, an intensive survey undertaken by the Arkansas Archeological Survey in northeastern Arkansas, illustrates how management and research goals can be brought into harmony.
Abstract: Cultural resource management studies, which provide archaeological information for planning purposes, are currently burgeoning in American archaeology. A general approach is developed which aims at bringing such studies into conformity with legal requirements and the high standards of modern archaeological research. This approach is founded on the precept that cultural resource management cannot attain its management goals without solid research effort; thus every contract project must obtain research results. Discussions of the Cache Project, an intensive survey undertaken by the Arkansas Archeological Survey in northeastern Arkansas, illustrate how management and research goals can be brought into harmony. Major results of the Cache Project and research designs, as well as other recent progress in cultural resource management studies, are briefly reviewed.
36 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Ahmed's repeated mention of the importance of religious and cultural symbolism in the analysis of economic and political adaptation in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan has been pointed out.
Abstract: and popularity of Sufi leaders (p. 89). I cannot subscribe as devotedly to Talal Asad's material determinism and find more persuasive Ahmed's repeated mention of the importance of religious and cultural symbolism in the analysis of economic and political adaptation. These suggestions have been meant to complement Ahmed's very fine work. The unintentionally negative view of Pukhtuns in the social science literature has now been admirably corrected, and we can all eagerly await further illumination and insights as a product of Ahmed's field research in the NorthWest Frontier Province of Pakistan.
31 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors suggest a generally contemporaneous though largely autonomous development of agriculture, pottery, polished stone tools, and boat transport within South China, beginning in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and marked by technological continuity with gradually crystallizing local Bacsonian subcultures after ca. 8000 B.C.
Abstract: The Neolithic of South China (and of the Far East generally) has traditionally been reconstructed on nuclear-diffusionist models; chronologies and local culture sequences in South China have been related to the rise of agriculture and Neolithic technology in North China, and their subsequent spread into the South, often seen to have resulted from a movement of peoples out of the "nuclear area." Recent data now suggest a generally contemporaneous though largely autonomous development of agriculture, pottery, polished stone tools, and boat transport within South China, beginning in the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and marked by technological continuity with gradually crystallizing local "Bacsonian" subcultures after ca. 8000 B.C. The Middle Neolithic "Lungshanoid" and "Yueh" horizons of the Yangtze Delta and southern coast, respectively, are suggested to have emerged (possibly with a significant stimulus from the changing land-sea configuration in the early Holocene) by the 6th or 5th millennium B.C. and...
31 citations
TL;DR: A revised consideration of bride-price and dowry is presented in this paper, where they are viewed as status symbols and mechanisms of fluidity relating to stratification systems, and an inability to carry out exchange "in kind" appears in cases of marriage between groups of different status and is shaped by cultural principles of stratification.
Abstract: A revised consideration of bride-price and dowry is presented. Marriage payments are viewed as status symbols and mechanisms of fluidity relating to stratification systems. An inability to carry out exchange "in kind" (i.e., bride for bride) appears in cases of marriage between groups of different status and is shaped by cultural principles of stratification. The phenomena of hypergamy, hypogamy, and isogamy, along with different exchange currencies such as money, prestige, services, and patronage, stress the importance of the cultural component. All are solutions to the same structural problem. The solution characteristic of Arab Muslim society stems from the symbolic linking of the ruling hierarchy with the roles of the sexes; the male roles are the preserve of the elite, while the symbol of subjection to authority means effemination. Hypergamy implies that daughters, as representatives of lower strata, move upward. Elite groups are distinguished by the ability to do away with any payments, viz., to pro...
30 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the main data for the experiment consisted of the codings for food production from the entire sample of Murdock's Ethmographic Atlas (1967), some 1,300 cultures, most if not all the kinds of cultures on record.
Abstract: Comparative ethnology now provides the data by which all known cultures can be usefully arrayed in an evolutionary series on the basis of their subsistence systems. The isight is an old one, but the massing of evidence about expressive,as well as societal and ecological, patterns which the computer makes possible lends new weight to an evolutionary treatment of cultural variation. The main data for our experiment consisted of the codings for food production from the entire sample of Murdock's Ethmographic Atlas (1967)-some 1,300 cultures, most if not all the kinds of cultures on record. We present a parsimonious ordering of this sample by means of clustering the data on subsistence into types, thereby making a test of the energy theory of culture. The subsistence classes conform to the theoretical requirements set forth by Sahlins, Services, and others. They show, first, a stepwise set of general levels of increasing organization, productivity, and energy transformation, from Collection through Industry, ...
TL;DR: The authors reviewed the issues involved in the creation of standardized research procedures in the discipline of anthropology and explored the relationship between cross-cultural comparison and the collection of field data, and raised questions concerning the need for minimal data requirements in ethnographic inves...
Abstract: One of the major problems facing anthropology as it continues to develop as a scientific discipline is the development of standardized research approaches. This article reviews the issues involved in the creation of standardized research procedures in the discipline. The relationship between cross-cultural comparison and the collection of field data is explored. The process of standardization, incliding the operationalization of concepts, the creation of data collection techniques, and the development of mathematical measures to represent the data, is discussed. Standardizations is viewed as an endless endeavor in which the specifications and techniques used in research are points of departure, not points of arrival. Scientific description and the understanding of cultural and social phenomena are seen to advance with advances in observational specifications, data collecting procedures, and measurement techniques. Questions are raised concerning the need for minimal data requirements in ethnographic inves...
TL;DR: In this paper, a series of analogies between South Indian food offerings and a verbal language are made. But the analogies with language appear at different levels and the contrasts in some cases are brought about by phoneme-like distinctions, and food offerings often present themselves in standard combinations composed of similar or contrasting items comparables to redundant and antithetical idiomatic expressions in language.
Abstract: The paper points out a series of analogies between South Indian food offerings and a verbal language. This is in accordance with numerous other studies applying linguistic models to nonlinguistic fields and contrary to Sperber's view, which denies the usefulness of such an approach. The analogies with language appear at different levels. Offerings may function as names of deities and ceremonies or may stress oppositions between pairs of deities and ceremonies. The contrasts in some cases are brought about by phoneme-like distinctions. Besides, food offerings often present themselves in standard combinations composed of similar or contrasting items comparables to redundant and antithetical idiomatic expression in language. The redundant combinations are shown to add emphasis to the meaning of the offering, while the antithetical combinations add a meaning of totality which the constituent elements taken separately do not have.
TL;DR: The Aq Kupruk Red Streak-Burnished Ware as mentioned in this paper dates to A.D. 140-550 on the basis of radiocarbon dates and is incontrovertibly associated with the Han Dynasty mirror.
Abstract: ceramic vessel, a silver finger ring with a lapis lazuli setting, a rectanguloid lapis bead, bronze finger rings, and iron and bronze horse (?) harness trappings were also recovered. The osteology is being studied by J. Lawrence Angel, Joy Bilharz Kolb, and John Bear at the Smithsonian Institution Department of Physical Anthropology. The Aq Kupruk ceramic resembles Selucid and Parthian copies of Arretine from the European or eastern Mediterranean areas, and I believe it represents a local Central or SouthCentral Asian imitation of the Arretine. It is relatively certain that the ceramic was not manufactured in the immediate vicinity of Aq Kupruk, since that locality was merely a campsite or way-station. Petrographic thin-section studies tend to confirm that the ware was produced somewhere to the south, possibly in Baluchistan. Roman Arretine was produced at Arretium in northern Italy ca. 30 B.C.-A.D. 30 and was a highlv prized and widely exported ceramic. It was related to \"Pergameme\" pottery and \"Samian ware,\" made in the eastern Mediterranean during earlier times. Following the cessation of its manufacture in Italy, local imitations were made in Europe (Gaul, Spain, Germany, and England) and the Near East (especially Syria). Imitation and true Arretine wares reached the Indo-Roman trading station of Arikamedu (Pondicherry) on the Southeast Indian coast by sea routes between 25 and 45 A.D. (Wheeler, Gosh, and Deva 1946, Wheeler 1954). Present evidence suggests that a local imitation-Red Streak-Burnished Warewas manufactured in the Baluchistan region ca. A.D. 150-400 (Kolb 1977:29-37). Strikingly similar ceramics relatively dated to the \"Bronze Age\" were reported from Gedrosia and in collections from Sutkagen-dor, a former Harappan seaport, by Stein (1931), but the Red Streak-Burnished Ware at Aq Kupruk definitelv dates to A.D. 140-550 on the basis of radiocarbon dates and is incontrovertibly associated with the Han Dynasty mirror. It is postulated that one or more sites in Baluchistan or Gedrosia (present-day southeastern Iran and western Pakistan) received Roman material culture and/or influence. Sutkagen-dor or other sites in the region could have been the manufacturing center(s) for a local \"pseudo-Arretine\" pottery, copying or imitating true or Eastern Mediterranean forms, during late and post-Roman times. It appears that this ceramic, among others (Red/Buff), was traded northward by Kushan and/or Surashthan peoples or others into Central Asia during the first and later centuries A.D. Selucid and Parthian ceramics did not typologically or technologically conform to the Sutkagen-dor specimens. Aq Kupruk was a stopover on the north-south trade route from Baluchistan to Balkh and the Turkestan Plain and received quantities of the new ceramic. Some specimens of the ware have been found in the collections from Balkh in the Kabul Museum. The ceramic was possibly destined for Antiochia Margiana (Merv), Bokhara, etc. but is unreported from sites in northern Iran. A search of the Soviet Central Asian archaeological literature has as yet failed to uncover a similar ceramic ware. Further typological and technological studies are anticipated.
TL;DR: A two-day symposium on Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the developed nations was organized by the Indian Association of Educational and Cultural Sciences (IAES) in this paper, where the major theme was "The Challenge of Development".
Abstract: Dates: Sunday, December 10, to Thursday, December 21, 1978 (plenary session December 10-16, post-plenary sessions December 19-21), at New Delhi-Vigyan Bhawan Complexfor the plenary session and at Calcutta, Chandigarh, Ranchi, Lucknow, Bombay, New Delhi, Mysore, Madras, Hyderabad, Poona, and Bhubaneshwar for the post-plenary sessions. Deadline for papers: September 1, 1978. Deadline for abstracts: July 31, 1978. Registration fees: Delegates U.S. $30, Associate Delegates $20, Delegates from India Rs. 200/-, Student delegates Rs. 100/-. Tentative programme: 1. Anthropology and the Challenge of Development (the major theme of the Congress)-a two-day symposium on Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the developed nations. 2. Man, Ecology, and Population-symposium. 3. Biology and Culture-symposium. 4. Scientific sessions in physical anthropology: Morphology; Physiological Adaptation; Biological Variation; Evolution, Human Welfare, and Society; Comparative Primate Biology; Biology and Behaviour; Nutrition, Growth, and Development; Biochemical Genetics; Physical Anthropology and Sports; Human Cytogenetics; Forensic Anthropology; Applied Physical Anthropology; Dermatoglyphics; Genetic Counseling; Ethnogenesis. 5. Invited lectures. 6. Symposia in social anthropology: Anthropology of Highlands; Ethnicity and Ethnic Awareness among Overseas Indian Communities; Ideas and Trends in World Anthropology; The Process of Ethnic Integration-Some Theoretical and Methodological Problems; Neo-evolutionism and Marxism; Kinship Systems; Problems of Urbanisation in the Third World-An Anthropological Perspective; Nomadism; Visual Anthropology; Symbolism of Biological Reproduction and Its Correlation with Pattern of Economic Production. 7. Scientific sessions in social anthropology: The Ethnography of Invocations and Incantations-Verbal Symbolism and Ritual Structure; Political Anthropology; Economic Anthropology; Anthropology of Music; Anthropology of Traditional Performances; Anthropology of Social Movements; Psychological Anthropology; The Concept of a Tribe; Social Demography; Anthropology of Food; Scriptural Literature in Cultural Context; Problems and Methods of Mapping in Ethnography. 8. Invited lectures. 9. IUAES Commissions: Population, Urgent Anthropology, Ethnocide and Genocide, Futurology, Women, Museums, Visual Anthropology, Man and Environment. 10. Symposia in anthropological linguistics: Ethnography of Communication; Language, Planning, and National Development; Ethnicity, Identity, and Language; Literacy and Language Use. 11. Scientific sessions in anthropological linguistics: Munda Languages; Sino-Tibetan Languages; Theoretical Foundations of Linguistics; English in the Third World; Problems and Methods of Mapping Language Change. 12. Invited lectures. 13. Symposia in prehistory: Tertiary and Quaternary Climatic Changes in Arid and Semi-arid Zones; Origins of Urbanisation in South and East Asia. 14. Scientific sessions in prehistory: Lower Palaeolithic, Middle Palaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, NeolithicChalcolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, Prehistoric Technology, Indus Script. 15. Invited lectures. 16. Post-plenary sessions: a) Human Origins (Chandigarh)-contact S. R. K. Chopra, Department of AnthropoLogy, Chandigarh University b) Population Structure and Human Variation (Bombay) c) Biometrical Approach to Physical Anthropology (Calcutta)-contact L. D. Sanghvi, Cancer Research Institute, Pareley, Bombay d) Primitive World and Its Transformations: Life Styles, World Views, and Values (Ranchi)-contact L. P. Vidyarthi, Department of Anthropology, Ranchi University e) Social Anthropology of Peasantry (Lucknow)-contact K. S. Mathur, Department of Anthropology, Lucknow University f) Anthropology of Shifting Cultivation (Bhubaneshwar) contact L. K. Mahapatra, Department of Anthropology, Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar g) Hunger, Work, and the Quality of Life (Hyderabad)contact D. P. Sinha, Administrative Staff College of India, Bellavista, Hyderabad h) Folklore and Literary Anthropology (Calcutta)-contact P. K. Bhowmick, Department of Anthropology, Calcutta University i) Applied and Action Anthropology (Calcutta) j) Primitive Economic Formation (Delhi)-contact S. N. Misra, Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi k) Linguistic Anthropology (Mysore)-contact A. Aiyappan, 6 Convent Rd., Shenoy Nagar, Madras 600030 1) Social Invisibility of Women in Anthropology (New Delhi)-contact Leela Dube, ICSSR, Ring Rd., Indraprastha Estate, New Delhi m) Religion and Social Change (Madras)-N. Subha Reddi, Department of Anthropology, Madras University n) Medical Anthropology (Poona)-contact Dr. Muthatkar, Department of Anthropology, Poona University o) Problems of Multilingualism: Language Use in Education, Administration, and Mass Communication (Mysore) p) Recent Advances in India-Pacific Prehistory (Poona)contact V. N. Misra, Department of Archaeology, Poona University Information: For information on local arrangements in Delhi, write I. P. Singh, Convenor, Local Organising Committee, Department of Anthropology, Delhi University, Delhi, India. To register and to seek general information, write K. S. Singh, Executive Secretary, National Committee for the Xth ICAES, 27 Jawaharlal Nehru Rd., Calcutta, India. For information on the post-plenary sessions, write the chairmen listed above. The President of the Congress, L. P. Vidyarthi, may be reached at the Department of Anthropology, Ranchi University, Ranchi, Bihar, India. Reported by L. P. VIDYARTHI
TL;DR: The authors examined the salt and salt-containing-food taboos that were prevalent among the Indians in the southeastern United States during the early historic period and found that salt taboos existed as a means of regulating dietary sodium intake at times when such control was crucial for the restoration of biological equilibrium.
Abstract: Cultural behavior, when viewed as an extrasomatic adaptation for humans, alters previous interpretations of taboos as harmless placations of the supernatural. If the adaptive premise is true, then one may expect to find that taboos either have, or at one time had, an adaptive significance. This paper examines the salt and salt-containing-food taboos that were prevalent among the Indians in the southeastern United States during the early historic period. The analysis indicates that salt taboos existed as a means of regulating dietary sodium intake at times when such control was crucial for the restoration of biological equilibrium. Salt taboos occurred when a low-sodium diet would be physically advantageous: during menstruation, pregnancy, some diseases, and mourning. Prohibitions aloso applied where the behavior resulting from the disrupted system was considered desirable by the cultures concerned: during puberty rites and warfare.
TL;DR: The development of ethnology in Italy, from its early antecedents in past centuries to the present day, and its relation to other sciences of man as understood and organized in the country are summarized in this article.
Abstract: The paper attempts to summarize the development of ethnology in Italy, from its early antecedents in past centuries to the present day, and its relation to other sciences of man as understood and organized in the country. Since 1870, the year in which the nation's political unification was completed, the unity of anthropological disciplines has been recognized in principe and reflected in the programs of learned societies, specialized museums, scientific journals, and occasional congreses; but, as elsewhere, specialization soon led to the emergence of separate and largely independent branches-physical anthropology, prehistory, folklore, and ethnography/ethnology-while archaeology and sociology remained from the start even more distinctly autonomous. The pioneering work of explorers and other militant scientists before World War I, the limited impact of colonial administration on studies of overseas populations, the predominant influence of German "historical" trends in the period between the two wars, the...
TL;DR: Sheets et al. as mentioned in this paper measured the occlusal surface area by multiplying the mesiodistal diameter by the buccolingual diameter of each tooth and found that the maxillary C, P3, and P4 and the mandibular P3 through M3 to be significantly different at the 0.05 level of significance.
Abstract: by JOHN W. SHEETS and JAMES A. GAVAN Department of Anthropology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colo. 80309; Department of Anthropology, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Mo. 65201, U.S.A. 5 iII 77 In recent years physical anthropologists have become increasingly interested in the relationship between culture and man's biological characteristics. Brues (1959) and Washburn (1960) are early examples. More recently, Brace has drawn attention to the inverse relationship between tooth size and the development of sophisticated tools (Brace 1962, 1967a, b; Brace and Mahler 1971). This thesis postulates that as man's tools become more efficient his masticatory apparatus functions less and less in primary food preparation and thus decreases in size. Brace sees this trend not only in hominid phylogeny, but also in a comparison of contemporary peoples with primitive technology versus those with more efficient tools. With respect to the anterior dentition, Bailit and Friedlaender (1966) have challenged this idea. Homo erectus, Neanderthal, and Upper Paleolithic populations generally show reduced dentitions when compared with the australopithecines, who were using more primitive tools. The transition from H. erectus to Neanderthal, however, fails to show dental reduction, according to Brace (1967a; Brace and Mahler 1971). He insists that \"the forces of selection had remained approximately the same for about half a million years, at least as far as the teeth were concerned\" (Brace and Mahler 1971:193). Alternatively, the absence of dental reduction here could be considered as evidence contrary to his theory. The Mousterian tools of Neanderthal were probably more efficient than the tools used by H. erectus. One might therefore xpect reduction. Wolpoff (1975; Brose and Wolpoff 1971) has intimated that this may be the case. Using more data, we have reexamined the question of dental reduction from H. erectus to Neanderthal. Brace (1967a:811) used only the maxillary teeth of two fossil groups, \"Sinanthropus\" and the Krapina Neanderthals, to arrive at his conclusion of no dental reduction. In contrast, we have used the tooth measurements, both maxillary and mandibular, from as many of the reported specimens of H. erectus and Neanderthal as possible. The specimens and site, their classification as H. erectus or Neanderthal, and the dental data are recorded in Hrdlicka (1930), von Koenigswald (1953), Howell (1960), Coon (1962), Oakley (1964), Day (1965), and Wolpoff (1971). The H. erectus category includes dental data on 56 individuals from 10 sites; the Neanderthal category represents 221 individuals from 49 sites.' In this study we have duplicated the methodology used by Brace. For each tooth of each specimen, we calculated the occlusal surface area by multiplying the mesiodistal diameter by the buccolingual diameter. Area means and standard deviations were calculated for each tooth type of H. erectus and Neanderthal. The means were then graphed in a style called \"a profile of tooth sizes\" (Brace, Mahler, and Rosen 1973:53; see figs. 1 and 2). As can be seen in figures 1 and 2, the canines and more posterior dentition have a larger occlusal surface area in H. erectus than in Neanderthal. Using the t-test, we found the means for the maxillary C, P3, and P4 and the mandibular P3 through M3 to be significantly different at the 0.05 level of significance. However, an annoying caveat is necessary in any application of simple statistical tests to fossil material; there is
TL;DR: In this paper, a minimal set of desiderata for a biopsychologically sophisticated theory of theory reduction is set forth, and an alternative, extant view of reduction, called reduction by incorporation, is proposed.
Abstract: The recent discussion relating the split-brain phenomenon in man to cognitive-behavioral correlates of interest to anthropologists (CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 17 [1-3]) raises a wider issue of profound importance to the growing field of neuro-anthropology. This is the question of how to bridge levels of systemic organization. This paper provides a solution to the problem via a consideration of the constraints placed on this process by one neuroanthropological approach-biogenetic structuralism. The paper sketches a biopsychologically grounded view of science. It then sets forth a minimal set of desiderata for a biopsychologically sophisticated theory of theory reduction. The paper shows that the "received view" of theory reduction fails to meet these empirical constraints. It proposes that an alternative, extant view of reduction, called reduction by incorporation, may serve as a possible logical infrastructure for the development of a biopsychologically informed view of theory reduction.
TL;DR: In this paper, an attempt is made to show why initiation and/or puberty rites occur in so many societies and why they take the shape they do, using concepts derived from social and physical anthropology and from psychoanalysis.
Abstract: In this paper an attempt is made to show why initiation and/or puberty rites occur in so many societies and why they take the shape they do. To do this I have used concepts derived from social and physical anthropology and from psychoanalysis. The rites are seen as part of a general human concern with categorization and the attribution of power/danger to what is not classifiable. The particular problem lies in the metamorphosis from the sexual world of adulthood and the threatening nature of sex to all peoples. Sex is seen to be threatening because of the mental connection between it and death, knowledge of mortality being a unique human quality. The connection seems to be made as a result of (a) the cessation of oestrus in humans and (b) the adoption of an upright posture, necessitating anal cleansing. The nature of feces is associated with decomposition; it is also associated with the genitals. Fears about incest also encourage the idea that sex is dirty, and thus there is an association made between se...
TL;DR: For instance, this paper examined the anthropological content of the papers of the influential Scots phrenologist George Combe (1788-1858) and found a possible connection between 19th-century physical anthropology and phrenology.
Abstract: bv PAUL A. ERICKSON Department of Anthropology, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, N. S., Canada B3H 3C3. 15 vi 76 Several histories of physical anthropology (Topinard 1885, Warren 1921, Riegel 1930, Hoyme 1953, Shapiro 1959, Comas 1960, Stanton 1960, Sheldon 1963, Harris 1968, Tether 1970, Davies 1971, Bowles 1974, Erickson 1974, Kottler 1974) mention a possible connection between 19th-century physical anthropology and phrenology. During the spring of 1975, I explored this possibility by examining, for their anthropological content, the papers of the influential Scots phrenologist George Combe (1788-1858). The papers are located in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, and are a rich source of information comprising 351 volumes. Besides examining these papers I surveyed the anthropological content of the Phrenological _Journal, organ of the Edinburgh Phrenological Society, and consulted Combe's publications and rare books about phrenology in the National Library. My goal was to delineate the similarities between early anthropology and phrenology and to discover what influence, if any, phrenology exerted on anthropology. Beginning in 1859, European anthropologists formed professional societies, led by the Anthropological Society of Paris, the Anthropological Society of London, and the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory. Professional anthropologists debated questions about human evolution, the origin of races, the derivation of European ethnic groups, and the chronology of prehistory, all in the idiom of biology. Earlier, ethnologists had debated these and related questions in the idioms of history, geography, and philology, but anthropologists of the new societies, like Paul Broca in France, James Hunt in England, and Rudolph Virchow in Germany, made it clear that anthropology would be physical anthropology. They lacked a grand theoretical design to encompass these concerns, so they drew upon existing biological doctrines, some of them, like phrenology, on the biological periphery (Penniman 1936, Count 1950, Burrow 1963, Odom 1967, Haller 1971, Stocking 1973). Phrenology preceded professional anthropology. It began about 1800 and became most popular when Combe and his friends promoted it during the 1820s and 1830s. From Edinburgh, at that time a leading scientific and intellectual center, the Combe circle published books, sponsored public lectures, and travelled abroad to make converts. Phrenology flourished until the 1830s, then declined because phrenologists began to bicker among themselves, became doctrinaire, and were discredited by flirting with mesmerism and animal magnetism. A second generation of phrenologists failed to dtvelop, and because the movement had become a cult of individuals, it declined rapidly and really died with Combe in 1858 (de Giustino 1969). It left, however, a legacy to anthropology. Combe's system was founded on the belief that the human mind acts through the human brain as its instrument. This belief was controversial in 1820, but became more widely accepted and was an implicit assumption of anthropologists a half-century later. The belief that cerebral functions are localized in some 30 organs, for which phrenology is better known to historians, was a corollary of this more basic and enduring declaration. Combe considered phrenology to be a natural philosophy synthesizing anatomy and \"metaphysics\"; anatomists alone, thought Combe, described cerebral structure without function, and metaphysicians (a tag for idealist and environmentalist philosophers) speculated about cerebral function without structure. With phrenology, knowledge of brain configuration would lead to knowledge of brain function and thereafter to knowledge of human behavioral capacities. Phrenology was a biological reductionist system, which, like 19th-century anthropology as contrasted with ethnology, belonged at the nature end of the nature-nurture spectrum (Combe 1819, 1824, 1935). Combe tried to match personality with cerebral development as revealed in external skull shape, and he devised standard procedures and instruments for this purpose. Each cerebral organ was manifest in a corresponding faculty, and the organs and faculties were classed in an elaborate scheme. The techniques phrenologists used to measure cerebral development were like the techniques anthropologists used to measure skull size, shape, and, especially, capacity. The likeness can be seen by comparing the craniometric systems of Samuel George Morton and Combe, both of which appeared in Morton's Crania Americana (1839). Spreading calipers and an instrument called the craniometer, ancestor of the craniostat of today (Bowles 1974), were used to measure distances between phrenological landmarks corresponding to anthropological landmarks on the cranium. In theory, phrenology was supposed to be accurate and true to nature. In practice, phrenology was inaccurate and easily falsifiable even by its own standards, but it was not irrelevant o anthropology. Believing that differences in skull shape were clues to differences in brain shape, mental function, and therefore behavior, Combe espoused a naturalistic moral philosophy wherein educational, social, and political institutions were supposed to respond to different innate capabilities of people. This hereditarian theme was echoed later by anthropologists, who were convinced that anthropology had practical applications too (Hunt 1863). Phrenologists and anthropologists alike thought of themselves as scientists, even though today it can be said that one group succeeded at science while the other failed. Both kinds of scientists tried to divorce their sciences from Old Testament theology, and both were accused by religious leaders of being materialistic. Although Combe was interested primarily in the skulls of Western people, he did analyze \"national skulls\" of non-Westerners and take a secondary interest in the facts of prehistory and in theories of the origin of races, of evolution, and of heredity-all anthropological concerns. The most obvious similarity between phrenologists and anthropologists was their common preoccupation with the human head. The history of early anthropology can be chronicled by major publications in the craniological tradition: Crania Americana and Crania Aegyptica (Morton 1839, 1844), Crania Britannica (Davis and Thurnam 1865), and Crania ethnica (Quatrefages and Hamy 1882). These and other similarities place phrenology squarely in the paradigm of 19th-century anthropology-contrasted with ethnology-defined by Stocking (1973). There were, then, similarities between phrenology and early anthropology. There were also historical connections. Phrenology had a large constituency including a significant number of medical people with anthropological interests. In 1836 there were more than 30 phrenological societies in Europe with a combined membership exceeding 900 people of the prosperous professional classes. The proportion of physicians and surgeons was about one of three in London and Edinburgh and about one of two in Paris (Watson 1836, List of Members 1831-32). In North America there were almost as many societies, and the proportion of medical people in the prominent Boston Phrenological Society was about one of four. The profile of this phrenological minority fits the profile of the later anthropological majority, in spite of the hostility and indifference with which phrenology was greeted by established medical 1 A preliminary version of this research conclusion was presented to the History of Science Society meeting in Atlanta, Ga., December 29, 1975. A longer, documented version (Erickson 1976) is available from the author. I wish to thank the Canada Council for supporting my research with Research Grant S74-1345.
TL;DR: This article reviewed some of the approaches to the American South and pointed out some of their advantages and disadvantages, focusing on the concepts they have employed to explain social change and continuity, and suggested a direction for future research.
Abstract: Although anthropological studies in the American South have been conducted in the past few decades, we find that there is a growth of interest in this region recently. Because of the decrease in funding for anthropological research in other countries, combined with the attitudes anthropologists are more frequently encountering from peoples in other cultures, anthropological research has increasingly focused on subcultures and regions in North America. The American South provides cultural variations and similarities amenable to traditional anthropological research, and research in this region increases yearly. The purpose of this paper is first to review briefly some of the approaches to the American South and to point out some of their advantages and disadvantages. Secondly, the paper will examine some of the recent anthropological studies in the region, focusing on the concepts they have employed to explain social change and continuity. Lastly, a direction for future research is suggested, utilizing a co...
TL;DR: For instance, this article observed that even marked differences, such as skin color, hair form, and nose shape, may cease to be perceived as such with familiarity, and that those who perceive such differences as barriers to race mixture will find no support for their beliefs in the facts.
Abstract: members of any family. I have had much the same experience myself with people among whom I was not brought up and with whom I spent only a few days once a year. Years ago I used to attend an annual race institute in a Southern community. Here I spent virtually all my time with blacks, and I vividly recall how, after the first few days, I literally had to shake myself in order to make myself aware of the fact that I was supposed to be among people of a different \"race.\" Within a few days I had lost all sense that there was any difference between these people and myself. Each year I returned I had the same experience all over again. It seems evident that the readiness with which we are prepared to accept others as human beings determines how we perceive them. It would appear that, with familiarity, even marked differences, such as skin color, hair form, and nose shape, may cease to be perceived as such. Racists who perceive such differences a barriers to race mixture will find no support for their beliefs in the facts.
TL;DR: In this article, the interdependencies among family, fertility, and economics can be clarified by an alternative perspective by positing that familial patterns (family structure and patterns of reproduction) emerge in adaptation to the economic constraints and options established by technology.
Abstract: Family, fertility, and economics are inextricably intertwined. Yet despite intensive investigation, the interdependencies among these phenomena remain elusive. Expectations based on cross-cultural research and the theory of industrial society are contradicted by studies from throughout the industrial and industrializing world. Foundamental conceptual errors underlie these difficulties. This paper indicates how the interdependencies among family, fertility, and economics can be clarified by an alternative perspective. By positing that familial patterns (family structure and patterns of reproduction) emerge in adaptation to the economic constraints and options established by technology, it is possible parsimoniously to explain African urban familial patterns whose complexity has defied concise analysis for nearly half a century. The line of reasoning developed in this paper leads to conclusions about familial patterns and the interrelatedness of family, fertility, and economics that differ radically form th...
TL;DR: The early stone industries of Olduvai Gorge were investigated by Coll et al. as mentioned in this paper, who reported the discovery of a contemporary hominid mandible at Lake Baringo, Kenya.
Abstract: UISPP, Nice, Coll. 6. Les plus anciens hominide's. Pretirage, pp. 296-313. . 1976b. "The early stone industries of Olduvai Gorge." IXth Congr?s UISPP, Nice, Coll. 5. Les plus anciennes industries en Afrique. Pre'tirage, pp. 24-41. LEAKEY, M., P. V. TOBIAS, J. E. MARTYN, and R. E. F. LEAKEY. 1970. An Acheulean industry with prepared core technique and the discovery of a contemporary hominid mandible at Lake Baringo, Kenya. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 35(3):48-76. MALEZ, M. 1976. "Excavation of the Villafranchian site Sandalja I near Pula (Yugoslavia)." IXth Congres UISPP, Nice, Coll. 8. Les premieres industries de l'Europe. Pretirage, pp. 104-23. MANIA, D. L. 1976. "Altpalaolithischer Rastplatz mit hominidenresten aus dem Mittelpleistozanen Travertin Komplex von Bilzingsleben (DDR)." IXth Congres UISPP, Nice, Coll. 9. Le peuplement anteneandertalien de l'Europe. Pre'tirage, pp. 35-47. MANN, A., and E. TRINKAUS. 1973. Neandertal and Neandertal-like fossils from the Upper Pleistocene. Yearbook of Physical Anthropology 17:169-93. MAYR, E. 1963. "The taxonomic evaluation of fossil hominids," in Classification and human evolution. Edited by S. L. Washburn, pp. 332-46. Chicago: Aldine. . 1974. Populations, especes et e'volution. Paris: Hermann. MISKOVSKY, J. C. 1976. "Les changements climatiques durant le Pleistocene et l'Holocene autour de la Mediterranee (Europe)." IXth Congres UISPP, Nice, Coll. 2. Chronologie etsynchronisme dans la prihistozre circum-me'diterraneenne. Pretirage, pp. 20-49. MOHAPATRA, G. C. 1976. "Geo-tectonic developments, subHimalayan lithic complex, and post-Siwalik sediments." IXth Congres UISPP, Nice, Coll. 7. Le Paleolithique inferieur et moyen en Inde, en Asie centrale, en Chine et dans le Sud-Est asiatique. Pre'tirage, pp. 31-59. MuLLER-BECK, H. 1976. "Zum Problem der Friuhen Artefakte Mitteleuropas." IXth Congres UISPP, Nice, Coll. 8. Les premieres industries de l'Europe. 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TL;DR: According to the most plausible theory, mononorms originated biologically in the in the herd instincts of the higher animals, but took shape only under the conditions of society as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Different views exist as to the character of the social norms operating in primitive society. Marxist science defines them as moral norms, customary law, or customs. Non-Marxist science regards them for the most part as law. Theoretical analysis demonstrates, however, that these definitions are either inaccurate or insufficient. In fact, the obligatory rules of conduct in primitive society were undifferentiated; they combined features of both moral and legal regulation. Therefore, the term "mononorm" seems more appropriate. The time of appearance of mononorms remains a subject for hypothesis. According to the most plausible theory, mononorms originated biologically in the in the herd instincts of the higher animals, but took shape only under the conditions of society. In the process of their development, they were not recognized as such or validated, but appeared naturally in the course of practical activity. They spread by imitation and became fixed through biosocial selection. Only with the development ...
TL;DR: This paper found that the language of food offerings uses contrasting combinations with a meaning of totality comparable to antithetical idiomatic expressions, a stylistic feature peculiar to verbal languages and one for which Dravidian tongues have a predilection.
Abstract: languages. The most unexpected finding will be that the language of food offerings uses contrasting combinations with a meaning of totality comparable to antithetical idiomatic expressions, a stylistic feature peculiar to verbal languages and one for which Dravidian tongues have a predilection. Though the ritual of naivedya isonly an imperfect language, it cannot be denied, I think, that it uses linguistic procedures and that some of its symbols have linguistic meaning.