Showing papers on "Biological anthropology published in 2017"

Hard times for the Brazilian environment.

Abstract: To the Editor — In the midst of a severe political and ethical crisis, Brazil has suffered several setbacks for environmental conservation. Over the past few months, eagerness to climb out of recession through short-term economic gains combined with the political need to accommodate the powerful Agribusiness Parliamentary Front (40% of the Brazilian Congress) has resulted in a set of bills that will soften environmental licensing1, suspend the ratification of indigenous lands2, and reduce protection of 600,000 ha of Amazon and Atlantic Forest3. Additionally, on 11 July, President Michel Temer passed a law that permits ‘land thieves’ to legalize their land holdings easily and cheaply4. These changes could not come at a worse time. Data produced in the past two months show that Brazil has experienced an alarming increase in annual deforestation rates. Despite efforts in the past decade to reduce deforestation, high-resolution remote-sensing-derived land-cover classifications5 estimate that between 2006 and 2015 Brazil has lost 30 Mha of natural vegetation — aggregation of 13 land cover classes of forests, savannahs, native grasslands and wet ecosystems, covering all six Brazilian biomes. Between 2015 and 2016 deforestation in the Atlantic Forest biodiversity hotspot, already 88% deforested, reached the highest level in 10 years (29,100 ha), an increase of 60% over the last year6, while in the Amazon it increased 29% (789,800 ha), the highest in the past eight years7. This picture is even worse within the other Brazilian biodiversity hotspot, the Cerrado tropical savannah, which has already lost 88 Mha (46%) of its native vegetation. On 25 July, the government quietly announced that the Cerrado lost 948,300 ha of native vegetation in 2015, which was 52% higher than the Amazon deforestation for the same year8. If deforestation maintains the same rate (~1% per year), the Cerrado could lose 1,140 plant species in the next 30 years, a number eight times more species than the number known to have gone extinct worldwide since 15009. These alarming deforestation rates across Brazilian biomes have generated consequences that go beyond biodiversity loss and reduction in the provision of ecosystem services, such as carbon storage. On 22 June, the Norwegian Government, the major financier of the Amazon Fund, which is the main funder of actions to prevent, monitor, and combat deforestation in the Amazon, officially informed Brazil that they will halve investment in 2017 or even suspend financial assistance if the new upward trend of deforestation is confirmed in the coming months10. Now that the US has announced it will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, Brazil is expected to play a leading role in environmental negotiations, together with China, South Africa and India. However, while Brazil is starting to build policies to implement its climate commitments, such as recovering 12 Mha of native vegetation11, these recent environmental setbacks go against global environmental policies Brazil ratified and puts its chances of combatting deforestation at risk. Brazil will only overcome these hard times when environmental conservation becomes a public policy priority again.

The diet and health status of the early neolitihic communities of the Central Balkans (6200-5200 BC)

Abstract: With climatic improvement at the beginning of the Holocene, small human groups across the world experienced important changes that over the following several millennia significantly impacted their lifestyles. The process began of the transition from mobile foragers to sedentary agro-pastoralists and, in a few thousand years, the world population increased. This process is known as the Neolithic Demographic Transition and represents one of the major events in human prehistory which significantly influenced human biology, dietary choices and health patterns. The new, Neolithic way of life spread from the Near East through western Anatolia to central Europe. The Balkans represents one of the key areas for studying the process of Neolithisation, as it is located at the crossroad between the Near East and central Europe. However, biological and cultural mechanisms behind the process of Neolithisation in the central Balkans are poorly understood. This thesis gives the first direct insights into how the process of Neolithisation in the Central Balkans influenced human lifestyle, particularly the diet and health. For the first time, the data from the Central Balkans and from Europe are compared, which helps better understand the dynamics of the Neolithisation process across the continent. This research focuses on examination of the diet and health status of 267 humans whose skeletal remains were recovered from 14 Mesolithic and Neolithic sites across the Central Balkans. The study focuses on two geographic regions: 1) the Danube Gorges (sites Padina, Lepenski Vir, Vlasac, Hajdučka Vodenica and Ajmana), where Mesolithic-Neolithic continuity of occupation has been attested for the period 95005500 cal BC; and 2) the regions to the west from the Danube Gorges, the territory of the Central Balkans (Golokut-Vizić, Klisa, Sremski Karlovci, Perlez-Batka, Obreţ-Baštine and Starčevo) and the southern part of the Great Pannonian Plain (Vinča-Belo Brdo, Grivac and Rudnik Kosovski) where Early Neolithic period lasted from 6200 to 5200 cal BC. Over this period, the inhabitants of these areas underwent Neolithic transformations which included major changes in the lifestyle. The changes included the beginning of a fully sedentary way of life, cultivation of domestic plants and breeding of animals. Many scholars hypothesized that these changes, seen not only in the Central Balkan region but also across whole Europe, had a positive effect on female reproductive system and that, as a result, within few thousand years the world population significantly increased. In fact, one of the key explanations for the causes of Neolithic Demographic Transition emphasises the changes in female nutrition – from protein-based diet to diet dominated by carbohydrates. Thus the aim of this thesis was to determine whether the Early Neolithic in the Central Balkans saw changes in human diet which could have had impact on fertility rates and the overall population health. Therefore, the first hypothesis underlying the study is that Neolithic people in the study region had less protein and more carbohydrates in their diet. This assumption is tested through the stable isotope and starch grain analysis, as well as through macroscopic examination of dental caries and calculus deposits. The rise in fertility was also followed by a general decline in health status in the Neolithic which is reflected in the higher occurrence of various skeletal and dental pathological conditions. Thus, the second hypothesis is that the transition to food production resulted in the overall health decline. This is tested through macroscopic analysis of non-specific stress indicators (cribra orbitalia, porotic hyperostosis, dental enamel hypoplasia), as well as through the analysis of ante mortem tooth loss and the presence of caries and dental calculus. Since this study focuses on two geographic regions that differ in subsistence economy, the third hypothesis is that the Neolithic groups occupying the Gorges and the groups who lived to the west from the Gorges differed in their dietary choices and health patterns. The stable isotope analysis showed that, at the beginning of 7 th millennium, the Danube Gorges hunter-fisher-gatherers, which were strongly reliant on aquatic resources and wild game, experienced a change seen in the increase in consumption of terrestrial resources (which entailed smaller intake of aquatic proteins and possibly more carbohydrates in the diet); this was noted at some sites from the Neolithic period. However, in the Danube Gorges, this was a gradual process since many Neolithic individuals remained reliant on aquatic products. In contrast, the stable isotope values of the Neolithic communities outside the Gorges, as well of the Early Neolithic groups in Europe, point at a predominantly terrestrial diet with only a little input of aquatic resources. Overall, the results for the study region show that the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition was not a simple linear process, but that it encompassed significant regional differences related to environmental factors, cultural traditions, and/or the dietary habits of the Neolithic newcomers. The results of starch grain analysis lend weight to the argument that Neolithic people based their diet on terrestrial resources and probably consumed significant amounts of carbohydrates. The appearance of new foods (cereals and milk), combined with novel food preparation techniques (cooking in pots), enabled central Balkans Neolithic mothers to reduce the length of the period during which they breastfed their children since they had a good replacement for their own milk and a possibility to make porridges. This could have positively affected female fertility rates and, together with the increase in the energy-rich food intake and decreased sedentism, may have allowed women to have more children and stay pregnant more often; the consequence of this was the increase in the number of people on Earth. Concerning the assessment of the macroscopic dietary indicators, the results are different for the two study regions. Although slight changes in the diet toward greater consumption of carbohydrates left evidence on the teeth of the Danube Gorges people, detected as the higher occurrence of caries in the Neolithic compared to the Mesolithic, this rate of occurrence here is still lower than in other Early Neolithic populations, including the Neolithic communities from outside the Gorges. The diet rich in animal proteins served as a buffered whilst, in contrast, the higher consumption of terrestrial food by the Neolithic groups outside the Gorges led to, in their case, the higher frequency of caries. However, although more common in the Mesolithic due to the protein-based diet, dental calculus was also frequent in the Neolithic groups in both of the studied regions, but had a different aetiology, probably linked to the introduction of dense, sticky, cooked carbohydrate-rich food. Furthermore, the highest record of premortem tooth loss was observed in the Neolithic humans from outside the Danube Gorges, which is in accordance with the prevalence of caries rates, suggesting that the presence of caries was the probable cause of the tooth loss. Although the high occurrence of ante mortem tooth loss was also noticed in the Mesolithic, the causal factors are different and probably connected with severe attrition and high calculus deposits. Regarding the evidence of non-specific stress indictors, there are also some regional differences. The distribution of cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasia is similar in the Mesolithic and the Neolithic sequence of the Danube Gorges, albeit more stress episodes of linear enamel hypoplasia were observed in the Neolithic. In human groups outside the Gorges, these two stress indicators are much more common, similar to the other European Mesolithic-Neolithic transitional populations. Concerning the presence of cribra orbitalia and porotic hyperostosis, the main difference between the periods, and in both study areas, is in the activity of lesions which show that many Neolithic people failed to heal. Overall, the result suggests different origins of these non-specific stress indicators. While the causes for cribra orbitalia and enamel hypoplasia could, inter alia, lie in the nutritional imbalance, reduced food diversity and the low food quality, the extremely high percentages of porotic hyperostosis were more likely caused by infectious diseases (e.g. treponemal infections were detected in the Danube Gorges) or cultural habits (e.g. making hairstyles with intensive use of comb or wearing ribbons around head can form lesions). Various diseases coupled with the shorter breastfeeding period and the consumption of new food that had negative effects left multiple consequences for human health. This is also evident in the decrease in the average stature and body mass in the Danube Gorges Neolithic human groups compared to the Mesolithic. This could also have been influenced by the arrival of non-local people with small body proportions. However, the decrease seen in the Gorges was not as dramatic as that documented in other Early Neolithic populations in Europe. Although humans in the Gorges were more affected by physiological stress and were less mobile than the Mesolithic groups, their diet rich in aquatic resources could have had positive effect and precluded a significant decrease in the stature characteristic of other Early Neolithic populations. Further, in the Danube Gorges there was no sex-specific trend toward greater decrease in the female stature compared to males – contrary to was observed in other Early Neolithic populations in Europe. The females from outside the Danube Gorges were short and small in comparison to females in the Gorges and they resemble Early Neolithic women from Europe. For these females it is impossible to suggest whether their stature and weight decreased over time, since their geneti

The Old Physical Anthropology and the New World: A Look at the Accomplishments of an Antiquated Paradigm

Abstract: Craniology in the work of the 18th-and 19th-century anthropologistphysicians Blumenbach, Morton, and Warren serves largely as a descriptive tool, and analysis for these early typologists was confined to evaluating individual specimens. Variability was unimportant, and the approach is primarily one of classification. The typological study of Indian and Eskimo crania became the dominant enterprise as American physical anthropology emerged as a profession around 1900. The contributions of Hooton, HrdliCka, Rivet, Oetteking, and Neumann are reviewed. Among these, HrdliCka and Rivet built on the19th-century French school that begins with the work of Paul Broca. Oetteking and Neumann built on the Boasian school, and through it as well as independently on the German school. American craniology is distinct from similar work in Europe in the degree to which these researchers interacted with archaeologists, in part because the Boasian race-language-culture model encouraged such interaction. The cultural and historical questions that motivated the typologists remain with us today.

Population history and dispersal of Taiwanese Indigenous people

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to present the biological affinity of four Taiwanese Indigenous groups. Previous studies based on linguistics and ethnography had shown that there are differences between the indigenous groups in Taiwan (Ferrell 1969; Utsurikawa et al. 1935). Archaeological remains also indicate that there was a wide variety of groups (Tsang 1995). In order to provide some biological evidence for this issue, the present research estimated the biodistance from both cranial measurements and non-metric cranial traits between the four Taiwanese Indigenous groups (Atayal, Bunun, Babuza, and Pazeh) from modern collections. It is hypothesized that the Taiwanese Indigenous groups would have significant biological differences: the Atayal and Bunun samples (mountain indigenous) would cluster, while the Babuza and Pazeh (lowland indigenous) would cluster separately. The two hypotheses were supported from both craniometric and non-metric data in the present study. Limited comparison with groups from other areas was also performed in order to examine the possible dispersal pattern of the Taiwanese Indigenous groups. Craniometric data from three samples (South Japan, Philippines, and Hainan) from the William W. Howells Craniometric Data Set and non-metric data of four samples (Philippines, South China, Southeast Asians, and Okinawa) from Fukumine et al. (2006) were used. Since vii the popular hypothesis of the Austronesians’ origin suggests that there was intensive movement between Taiwan and Philippines (e.g., Bellwood 1988; Diamond 2000; Melton et al. 1995; Solheim 1988; Su et al. 2000; Trejaut et al. 2005), it is hypothesized that the Taiwanese Indigenous groups would show the closest affinity with the samples from Philippines while the other groups would be in another cluster. However, this hypothesis is not supported in the present study. The result showed that the Taiwanese Indigenous groups and those from the Philippines are relatively distant. This supports the hypothesis of Tsang (2012) that the early dispersal of Austronesian groups may have occurred several times through multiple routes to Taiwan and the Philippines.

Biological anthropology in brazil: a preliminary overview

Abstract: The article reports the findings of a wide-ranging investigative study, designed to produce a ‘snapshot’ of Brazilian Biological Anthropology based on quantitative, qualitative, historical-documentary and bibliographic data. It includes excerpts from a series of interviews given by four Brazilian researchers who identify their area of work as Biological Anthropology, interspersed with other sources of information. These excerpts are organized into the following topics: (a) the peripheral status of Biological Anthropology within the wider field of anthropology in Brazil; (b) the relations between institutional affiliation and professional activity; and (c) the visibility of the area within the country and abroad. The aim is to provide a contribution, albeit preliminary, to a survey of the studies and discussions concerning the biological dimension of Anthropology in Brazil, in all its different aspects, especially the contemporary situation.

The Origins Project and the First Americans’ Controversy

Abstract: The arrival of Man in the New World has long been occupied a prominent position in studies of the fields of archaeology and related sciences, such as biology and biological anthropology. The debates on the subject were intensified, however, since the discovery of the oldest cultural manifestations of the Americas, the Clovis points, in the late 1920s. In South America, the study of the human occupation of the Lagoa Santa region has generated controversy since the early works of Lund in the nineteenth century. Recently, the project “Origins” deepened the archaeological research in Lagoa Santa, focusing its actions in thematic axes that resulted in extensive scientific production about the origins of the first Native Americans.

Historical Trends in Graduate Research and Training of Diplomates of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology.

Abstract: The history of forensic anthropology has been documented by numerous scholars. These contributions have described the work of early pioneers in the field and have described important milestones, such as the founding of the Physical Anthropology Section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) in 1972 and the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (ABFA) in 1977. This paper contributes to the growing literature on the history of forensic anthropology by documenting the academic training of all individuals who have been granted diplomate status by the ABFA (n = 115). Doctoral dissertation titles were queried to discern broad patterns of research foci. A total of 39 doctoral granting institutions have trained diplomates and 77.3% of board-certified forensic anthropologists wrote dissertations involving skeletal biology, bioarchaeology, or forensic anthropology. Board-certified forensic anthropologists are a broadly trained group of professionals with far-reaching anthropological interests and expertise.

Contributions to a historical review of biological anthropology in Brazil from the second half of the twentieth century

Abstract: This article provides a preliminary historical survey of Brazilian biological anthropology from the second half of the twentieth century. Even today, little historiographic information on the last 50 or 60 years is available and/or has been explored, while few allusions to bioanthropology can be found in existing works on the history and contemporary state of anthropology in Brazil; this article attempts to span this gap. The first section examines various aspects of the general development of biological anthropology as it radiated from the centers (Europe and the United States) outward over time. This initial survey affords a clearer understanding of the Brazilian case, which is the topic of the second section. This is followed by a brief historical and bibliographic account of the most recent state of biological anthropology in the country, including a number of specialized areas of research. The article concludes with a short discussion of the material covered.

The coexistence problem revisited

Abstract: A new theoretical study warns against common misinterpretations of classical ideas on the limits to species diversity.

Reimaging Process in 2016: Deliberations on a Year of Integrative Slow Science in Biological Anthropology

Abstract: The year 2016 in biological anthropology represented a return to the methodical study of classic questions and increased integrative team-based research that utilizes multiple methodological approaches. This review is not comprehensive, but rather highlights several papers that reflect trends in four areas of research within biological anthropology: paleoanthropology, primatology, human biology, and anthropological genetics. Methodological innovation enabled scholars in paleoanthropology to tackle questions once hampered by small sample size. Primatologists approached studies of behavior and reproduction with the rigor characteristic of the subdiscipline, while paying increasing attention to anthropogenic influences on primate habitats. Like their colleagues in paleoanthropology, human biologists also returned to enduring questions regarding reproduction, human adaptation, and behavior, including, notably, a focus on variability in cultural practice and meaning, as well as resource inequity. The publications representing anthropological genetics signify a movement toward an incorporation of multiple lines of evidence in our understanding of human and nonhuman primate ancestry. In total, these papers reveal shifts in biological anthropology toward research that is increasingly aware of the limits of siloed science and attuned to addressing issues salient to the populations and communities in which we work. [comparative morphology, Anthropocene, anthropological genetics, human biology]

Trends in the use of racial terminology in biological anthropology, 1946 – 2015

Abstract: Author(s): Clausing, Elizabeth Sarah | Advisor(s): Non, Amy L | Abstract: The discipline of biological anthropology has historically been fraught with problematic approaches to the study of human race. In recent history, biological anthropologists have been engaged in an ongoing debate over the role of racial and ethnic classification in anthropological research. Here we contribute to that debate by examining the use of racial terminology in biological anthropology research in order to determine how concepts of race and ethnicity have been applied by biological anthropologists over time in the United States. We present a content analysis of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, based on a systematic review of empirical research articles. We conducted two searches of this journal in PubMed using MeSH terms related to Americans of European descent (e.g., white, Caucasian, Euro-American etc., 1946-2015, n=100) and terms related to Hispanic populations (e.g. Hispanic, Mexican-American, Latino/a, etc., 1954-2015, n=75). We identified both differences and similarities in the ways that the concepts of race and ethnicity have been used in biological anthropology to refer to Hispanic and European American populations. For instance, articles referring to Hispanic populations tended to use the term “ethnicity,” while articles referring to European American populations tended to use the term “race.” Additionally, we identified noteworthy diachronic trends in the identification of race and ethnicity, including an increase in self-identified race through time. Finally, we offer recommendations for ways that biological anthropologists can engage with concepts of race and ethnicity in a consistent way that promotes greater equality and avoids promoting racial bias, both in anthropology and in other fields.

Anthropology of Mega-Events

Abstract: This is an introductory chapter, explaining how different yet complementary perspectives and methods were combined and tuned in the proposed anthropological research.

The curse of the Filles du Roy

Abstract: Historical detective work reveals the ‘mother’s curse’ phenomenon in humans.

aging and gerontological outlook of iran issues and disorders

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to represent the outcome of aging trend in Iran in recent years. Though positively and gerontologically aging population is rapidly increasing in Iran yet the aging people are facing various issues and disorders including Dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease movement disorders and many more issues which need increasing investments all over the country with special reference to the urban areas. Such issues not only belong to Iran but many more developing countries are experiencing the same. Low fertility rate and increasing life expectancy will lead to new issues for the elderly people either in the years to come. Therefore, the country will increasingly be in need of medical services nursing and proper accommodation for the emerging elderly at present and in the years to come. To conduct the research, five hundred elderly people were randomly selected and interviewed through questionnaires. The main hypothesis of the research is: “Improving quality of life of the elderly people contributes to their longer life”