A Current Controversy in Human Evolution. Overview

With this issue, the editors of the American Anthropologist publish the second Contemporary Issues Forum, "A Current Controversy in Human Evolution." We find it incumbent upon the flagship journal of the profession to encourage productive discussion of issues of relevance to anthropologists and to the public. With this in mind the editors have targeted broadly significant and controversial topics as foci for the forums with a view to encouraging dialogue. The second forum opens an arena for debate in this journal regarding contemporary theories of modern human evolution and their evidential bases in genetics and the fossil record. We recognize the disputed nature of these issues and the potential importance of such controversies to the profession. Commentary on the forum papers from the readership of the American Anthropologist is welcomed.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE - A Statement Drawn from Contributions to a Forum

This statement was prepared from published and unpublished contributions to a national forum on the scope and responsibility of medicine recently conducted by California Medicine. The editors hope this distillate of the discussions will prove useful to the profession and to the public, and they also wish to express their appreciation to all those in California and elsewhere who have contributed to this forum.     

Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology in the American Anthropologist Rare but Exquisite Gems

This article explores forensic anthropological and bioarchaeological publishing patterns in the American Anthropologist (n.s.). Early contributions by Harris Hawthorne Wilder on both subjects are considered in detail, including previously unrecognized discussions of taphonomic variables. Articles on forensic anthropology in the American Anthropologist appear only during the first four decades of publication. While relatively well represented in early issues, bioarchaeological articles decrease in number over time. Comparative data from six other journals suggest that their presence has had a profound effect on the American Anthropologist . The impact of the "new" physical anthropology on publishing patterns in bioarchaeology is also assessed. [Keywords: forensic anthropology, funerary archaeology, paleodemography, paleopathology, taphonomy]     

Anthropological Professionalization and the Virginia Indians at the Turn of the Century

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the Indians of Virginia, like marginalized native communities throughout the Southeast, were enmeshed in struggles over their identity, as "one-drop" rules were increasingly applied and formalized. At that time several scholars, including James Mooney, wrote on the Powhatan tribes in American Anthropologist, the nascent journal of a professionalizing discipline. Previously, most works on the Virginia Indians had been published locally; after a brief florescence on the national scene (roughly corresponding to the 300th anniversary of English settlement in Powhatan territory), that pattern resumed. The works published on Virginia Indians in this period, and the contrast with their relative invisibility in professional journals over the following decades, cast light on U.S. anthropology's development as a profession. This article examines the transition from local to national organizations from the standpoint of ethnographic inclusion of such marginalized peoples. [Keywords: Powhatan Indians, ethnic identity, professionalization, localism, American Anthropologist]     

Style Guide and Information for Authors

The following specifications aim at speeding publication and minimizing editorial changes and retyping. The details of the American Anthropologist style as specified here are in part a codification of past practices and in part changes from them. Therefore, authors are urged to follow this guide carefully instead of relying on past issues.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE: A Forum with a Purpose

Many physicians and others are convinced that there is a pressing need for more discussion and more agreement concerning what ought to be the scope of medicine in today''s society. At the present moment, there is no general consensus either within or without the profession. Yet if the responsibility is ever to be met, its scope must be recognized and somehow defined.The editors of California Medicine propose to provide a forum in this journal for discussion of the scope and responsibility of medicine. This is a forum with a purpose, and so far as is known, an innovation in medical journalism. The forum is initiated with the statements beginning on the following page. Readers and others are invited to submit their views constructively and succinctly. As many of these as space permits will be published in future issues of California Medicine as a continuation of this forum. At an appropriate time all the material will be collated and, if feasible, the distillate will be prepared in the form of a statement on “The Scope and Responsibility of Medicine” to be submitted to the Council of the California Medical Association for its consideration.The statements which follow are the concisely expressed views of distinguished scholars, educators, statesmen and practitioners in the health field. It is hoped their views on this timely and important subject will provoke thought and comment among the readers of this journal     

Culture and Progress. DISTINGUISHED LECTURE-1975

This paper is the text of the sixth Distinguished Lecture, delivered in San Francisco at the 74th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, December 1975. The Lectureship was established in 1969 to honor outstanding scholars in the profession. Colson, a social anthropologist and ethnographer of wide experience, has worked in both the New and the Old Worlds, with American Indian and central African cultures. She is currently Fairchild Fellow, California Institute of Technology, on leave from her professorship at the University of California, Berkeley. Her interest in both the history and the future of our profession is reflected in her talk. The first five Distinguished Lectures—by Joseph H. Greenberg, Robert J. Braidwood, Georges Condominas, John W. M. Whiting, and Miguel León-Portilla—were published in the Association's Annual Reports (1970–74). The Lecture will now appear each year in the American Anthropologist.     

The Four Subfields: Anthropologists as Mythmakers

A survey of articles published in the American Anthropologist over a 100-year period indicates that substantive collaboration across anthropological subfields is largely a myth—amounting toonly 311 of 3,264 articles surveyed (or 9.5 percent of the total). Working with the anthropological insights of Bronislaw Malinowski, Edward Tylor, and Claude Levi-Strauss, this article considers why a myth of subf ield collaboration nonetheless exists within anthropology. This article concludes by calling for new forms of holism. [Keywords: American Anthropologist, subf ield collaboration, holism, public anthropology]     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE-A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today's society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession's responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE-A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today's society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession's responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE-A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today's society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession's responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

Keeping Biological Anthropology in Anthropology, and Anthropology in Biology

Considerable tension among the subfields has existed within the discipline of anthropology. As a result, some anthropology departments have splintered, and the hallmark "holistic approach" of anthropology has been considered more myth than reality. However, as promoted by the American Anthropological Association and the American Anthropologist for over one hundred years, enhancing the holistic nature of anthropology remains an important and necessary endeavor. This article provides an introduction to this special issue of the American Anthropologist , which focuses on the subfield of biological anthropology. Hopefully, as a result, increased connections among the subfields will be fostered, for the betterment of both biological anthropology and anthropology in general. The underlying theme of this article and the subtext for the entire special issue is clear: Biological anthropology needs anthropology, and anthropology needs biological anthropology. [Keywords: biological anthropology, subfields, four-field approach, holistic]     

Sixty Years of Modern Human Origins in the American Anthropological Association

We present a review of the history of scientific inquiry into modern human origins, focusing on the role of the American Anthropologist . We begin during the mid–20th century, at the time when the problem of modern human origins was first presented in the American Anthropologist and could first be distinguished from more general questions about human and hominid origins. Next, we discuss the effects of the modern evolutionary synthesis on biological anthropology and paleoanthropology in particular, and its role in the origin of anthropological genetics. The rise of human genetics is discussed along two tracks, which have taken starkly different approaches to the historical interpretation of recent human diversity. We cover varying paleoanthropological interpretations, including paleoanthropologists' reactions to genetic interpretations. We hope to identify some of the crucial inflection points in which the debate went astray, to rectify some of the points of misunderstanding among current scientists, and to clarify the likely path ahead. [Keywords: multiregional evolution, recent African origin, bottleneck, polygenism, race]     

Guidelines for Articles and for Discussion and Debate

The Editorial Board of the American Anthropologist has prepared and the Executive Board approved the following guidelines for Articles and Discussion and Debate .     

Ritual and Social Change: Another Javanese Example

This paper was submitted for publication to American Anthropologist and in the usual manner was sent anonymously to three referees. The referees' coymerits are appended     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE—A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today''s society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession''s responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE—A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today''s society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession''s responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are two contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE—A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today''s society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession''s responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are three contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.     

THE SCOPE AND RESPONSIBILITY OF MEDICINE—A Forum with a Purpose

To engender discussion of what the scope and responsibility of medicine ought to be in today''s society, California Medicine printed in its June issue six essays by authors known to have keen if various interest in the subject.In presenting the essays the editors expressed hope that they would be the beginning of a forum from which a definition of our profession''s responsibilities may be distilled. Readers were invited to take part in a continuation of the forum in succeeding issues. Following are four contributions selected from those received to date. Others will be published in the months ahead.If you have thoughts on the subject, just address them to the editors of California Medicine, 693 Sutter Street, San Francisco, California 94102. Keep your essays short, please.