Showing papers on "Biological anthropology published in 1982"

Redefining Race: The Potential Demise of a Concept in Physical Anthropology [and Comments and Reply]

Abstract: Analysis of physical anthropology textbooks published in the United States in the years 1932-79 reveals a significant decline in support for the race concept, expecially in the 1970s. Before 1970 the great majority of texts expressed the view that races exist and that the race concept is a valid tool for the description and study of human variation. In the 1970s an increasing proportion of texts rejected the race concept, with the no-race view becoming the most frequent one by 1975-79. Although the accumulation of new knowledge about human variation has contributed to the dramatic shift in textbook treatments of race, we argue that changes in the social context of anthropology have also been important. The political milieu of the 1960s coupled with the rapid institutional expansion of anthropology and the changing sociocultural characteristics of anthropologists and their students have contributed to the decline of the race concept in physical anthropology textbooks.

On Middle-aged Women

Abstract: (Mammalia, Primates) from Olduvai and Olorgesailie," in Fossil vertebrates of Africa, vol. 4. Edited by L. S. B. Leakey, R. H. G. Savage, and S. C. Coryndon, pp. 101-20. London and New York: Academic Press. MORRIS, P. 1972. A review of mammalian age determination methods. Mammal Review 2:69-104. SCHULTZ, A. H. 1935. Eruption and decay of the permanent teeth in primates. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 19:489-581. SPINAGE, C. A. 1973. A review of the age determination of mammals by means of teeth, with especial reference to Africa. East African Wildlife Journal 11: 165-87. VOORHIES, MICHAEL R. 1969. Taphonomy and population dynamics of an Early Pliocene vertebrate fauna, Knox County, Nebraska. Contributions in Geology Special Paper 1. VRBA, ELIZABETH. 1980. "The significance of bovid remains as indicators of environment and predation patterns," in Fossils in the making. Edited by Anna K. Behrensmeyer and Andrew P. Hill, pp. 247-71. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

The Hadza and the Iraqw in northern Tanzania: Dermatographical, Anthropological, Odontometrical and Osteological Approaches

Abstract: The dermatoglyphics, physical measurements, tooth size and dental arch measurements of 4 populations of Mangola are analyzed and the racial affinities of earlier inhabitants are discussed based on the human remains excavated from Gishimangeda cave and Sechikuencho cairns. The Iraqw, Datoga and the Hadza were investigated as representing the Hamitic, Nilotic and the Khoisan speaking people. The Iraqw and Datoga bear a close resemblance in physical features to the other members of the Hamitic or Caucasians as well as the Bantu speakers, while the Datoga are closer to the Bantu than the Iraqw do. On the other hand, the Hadza are quite different from the Iraqw and Datoga, and approach mostly to the North Bushmen and fairly resemble the neighbouring Bantu tribes. The Gishimangeda and Sechikuencho skeletal series can be dated to probably the 13th or 14th century and 18th or 19th century respectively. They are in most essencials hybrid population between the Medi terraneans and the Negroes, but are closer to the latter. The living Mangola peoples with such mixed physical trai ts are the Iraqw or Datoga among 4 populations examined by us. The occupant of Mangola during several centuries ago. therefore, can be suggested as the Nilotic or the Hamitic peoples, probably the former. The Hadza has not been attached linguistically and physically to any definite people. There are no trace of early Khoisanoid in this region.

On Oceanic Prehistory and Physical Anthropology

Abstract: by MICHAEL PIETRUSEWSKY Department of Anthropology, University of Hawaii-Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, U.S.A. 4 v 81 The latest installment in what seems to be a steady stream of articles on dental reduction vis-a-vis the probable mutation effect and the onset of advanced food-processing technology (Brace and Hinton, CA 22:549-69) purports to sort out, at least in broad outline, the events associated with the peopling of the Pacific, events which roughly occupy the last 40,00050,000 years of Oceanic prehistory. As a serious student of Oceanic physical anthropology, I welcome it. My comments will focus on its conclusions on Oceanic prehistory and physical anthropology, steering clear of such controversial issues as the probable mutation effect, the use of a single trait (tooth size), the latter's supposed evolutionary significance, tc. I must again (see Pietrusewsky 1980) criticize the authors for inadequate and incomplete documentation. One is at a loss, for example, to know whether the sample from Tonga represents the prehistoric remains excavated at the A'tele mounds on the island of Tongatapu (described in detail by Pietrusewsky 1969), currently preserved in the Auckland Institute and Museum, or consists of dental measurements recorded by the senior author on material preserved in the various museums he visited in the Pacific, Europe, and the Far East. Further amplification of this sample's provenance might be useful in explaining the unusual and unexpected tooth-size measurements commented on by the authors. Other samples (e.g., Bronze Age Thai, Neolithic Thai, etc.) not only are of unclear provenance, but are not specifically mentioned anywhere in the text. Furthermore, one suspects that there has been a considerable amount of (conscious and unconscious) pooling of data to form such samples as Japan, Java, China, etc., which deserve further explanation. The authors appear to have exercised some a priori judgment in approaching their major objectives. The main conclusions parallel to a startling degree some of the prevailing scholarly interpretations of the peopling of Oceania provided by archaeology, linguistics, and physical anthropology. Contrary to their opinion that recent work in physical anthropology provides less than satisfying results, I find many similarities between the results of the present paper and previously published research (e.g., Howells, 1970, 1973; Pietrusewsky 1977). In fact, the paper's main conclusions would seem to add little to what is already known. One final comment addresses the authors' designation of China as an important center for the elaboration of culinary innovations: recent archaeological evidence (Solheim 1972; Bayard 1975; Gorman 1973, 1977; Higham and Leach 1971) suggests that Southeast Asia was an earlier locus of animal and plant domestication and metallurgy. In conclusion, while Brace and Hinton's paper sometimes runs the risk of overgeneralizing from a limited data base, the results are nonetheless provocative and surprisingly supportive of other lines of inquiry currently being pursued in Oceanic physical anthropology.