Toward a Cultural Understanding of Human Microevolution on the Great Plains

Abstract

In order to explain the patterns of similarities and differences among the Plains skeletal populations analyzed by physical anthropologists, the populations must be viewed in the context of the sociocultural systems whichproduced them. Close cooperationbetween physical anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnohistorians, and linguistsis needed if this is to be accomplished. This paper attempts to set the stage for such studies by sketching out some of the aspects of the Plains Indian cultural environment which affected population genetics, material culture, and communications systems. On this basis, an attempt is made to interpret the results of some of the other papers in this volume.     

Lack of Correlation Between Antiobesity Policy and Obesity Growth Rates: Review and Analysis

ObjectiveTo review federal, state, and local antiobesity policies and to assess their relationships with obesity growth rates.MethodsWe performed a literature review, acquired data from governmental Internet sources, and assessed the statistical correlation between state antiobesity policies and the concavity in obesity growth rates.ResultsState-by-state antiobesity policies in 3 categories—taxation of sugared beverages and snacks, physical education and physical activity in schools, and funding for bicycle trails—were found to have no significant immediate correlation with the change in obesity growth rates.ConclusionsIneffective antiobesity legislation may be attributable to shortcomings in policy implementation. Behavioral economics and addressing large-scale cultural issues may have critical roles in promoting more healthful lifestyles. We propose that a systems-based paradigm evaluating complex interactions among pathophysiological, cultural, political, economic, and behavioral components can improve antiobesity policy implementation and should therefore be a research focus. (Endocr Pract. 2012;18:737-744)     

The paradox of primitivism: Native rights and the problem of imagery in cultural survival films

Indigenous peoples are increasingly interested in the making of cultural survival films. This text explores the cinematic borderland where indigenous communities, action anthropologists, and committed filmmakers jointly operate in the production of such native rights documentaries. Considering the role of exotic imagery as an ideological force in the international political arena, the paper identifies and explores the paradox of primitivism. Comparing films to tribal masks, it discusses how indigenous peoples deal with the challenge and opportunity of such imagery. Offering examples of two tribal film projects, with Mi'kmaqs and Apaches, it concludes that exotic imagery, while effective (perhaps even essential) as political agency, may pervert the cultural heritage that indigenous peoples are committed to preserving.     

The Avifauna from Prehistoric Arikara Sites in South Dakota

Abstract

During an approximate 15-year period from about 1950 to 1965, numerous anthropologists representing at least a dozen institutions were periodically involved in archaeological salvage of Plains sites in the Middle Missouri Valley. In many instances the cultural aspects of subsistence and the utilization of native fauna in general were not of primary interest. However, some animal bone was salvaged and this discussion involves the study of the avian remains from 51 prehistoric Arikara sites along the Missouri River in South Dakota. Approximately 3,100 bird elements, representing 22 families and about 68 species, were identified. Although mammals, especially the bison, elk, deer, and pronghorn, provided the greatest quantity of meat in the diet of these people, birds were also of special significance as supplemental food (e.g. waterfowl, grouse) and because of the part they played in the cultural and ceremonial activities of the Plains Indian. The predominance of remains of such groups as eagles, hawks, harriers, owls, and ravens in these sites is indicative of their special cultural significance; in some instances, such as eagle trapping by the Hidatsa and Mandan, they can be correlated with ethnohistoric accounts dealing with the utilization of birds.     

The adaptive nature of culture

Some have argued that the major contribution of anthropology to science is the concept of culture. Until very recently, however, evolutionary anthropologists have largely ignored culture as a topic of study. This is perhaps because of the strange bedfellows they would have to maintain. Historically, anthropologists who claimed the focus of cultural anthropology tended to be anti‐science, anti‐biology, or both. Paradoxically, a segment of current mainstream cultural anthropology has more or less abandoned culture as a topic. It is particularly ironic that in spite of a growing awareness among evolutionary anthropologists that culture is critical for understanding the human condition, the topic of culture has fallen out of favor among many “cultural” anthropologists. ^1,2     

The Reprise of Malinowski

ABSTRACT

Ways of Baloma is a deliberate attempt to move Anthropology as a discipline by means of a new account of a classic locale for the practice. How does it manage this purpose? This essay evaluates Mosko’s attempt from the perspective of another ethnographer with long-term ethnographic research in the Kula Ring. Paradoxes abound in the book and are featured in this review. For while Malinowski’s theoretical pronouncements quickly lost their significance for most anthropologists, his Trobriand ethnography became a model in its own right. And it is this model Mosko attempts to hold up for review and revision based on his view of the contemporary theoretical state of the art. This review outlines some of the strategies and ideas, as well as the regional locale, Mosko deploys in an attempt to make a new Trobriand ethnography a model for anthropological analysis.     

The Lens of Science: Anthropometric Photography and the Chippewa, 1890–1920

ABSTRACT

Nineteenth-century anthropologists struggled to establish themselves as scientists in a cultural milieu of enthusiasm for “curiosities.” Because commercial photographers appropriated the “authenticity” of photographic realism, the need increased for ethnographic photographers to distinguish between such realism and the “scientific authority” of their own visual productions. Through a case study of anthropometric photography of the Chippewa, this article examines the tension between, on the one hand, ethnographers' exploitation of the technological and symbolic attributes of photography to promote the scientific and political goals of the discipline, and on the other hand, the influence and function of visual genres and visual allegories in conditioning and framing what viewers accepted as “real” and “true.”     

Collaborative Moments. Expanding the Anthropological Field through Cross-Disciplinary Practice

ABSTRACT

This article explores some implications of cross-disciplinarity, as experienced in practice. Anthropologists are used to fuse different styles of reasoning by integrating the points of view and unspoken certainties of their partners in the field into their analysis. Fieldwork can be seen as an experiment in real time, where insights gained intersubjectively gradually shape up as knowledge through analysis. This line of thought is brought to bear on a discussion of collaboration between anthropologists, archaeologists, and biologists in North West Greenland. Through actual experiences from the field, this article shows how knowledge generated on the edge of one’s familiar disciplinary territory may both expand and intensify the anthropological field. Collaborative moments are seen to make new anthropological insights emerge through the co-presence of several analytical perspectives in the field.     

THE LEWIS CENTRAL SCHOOl SITE (13PW5):

Abstract

Due to strong Indian opposition and ambiguous state laws, Iowa archaeologists have found it impossible to investigate aboriginal cemetery areas in recent years. The accidental discovery of an Archaic ossuary at a construction site on the grounds of the Lewis Central School in southwestern Iowa provided a turning point in Indian-archaeologist relations which ultimately led to a resolution of the problem through the enactment of new sections in the Iowa legal code. This article traces the history of events leading up to the discovery of the Lewis Central School site (13PW5), and provides substantive data concerning materials recovered from that site. This is done to demonstrate that a considerable amount of information is obtainable through such studies and to provide archaeologists and physical anthropologists with a frame of reference to evaluate the results obtained. The paper concludes with a presentation of additions and changes in the Iowa legal code and a discussior, of the effects the Iowa precedent may have on anthropologists, Indians, and state officials elsewhere.     

The emergence of biomedical anthropology and its implications for the future

Primarily during the past 15 years a distinct new area within physical anthropology has emerged, biomedical anthropology. Physical anthropologists have become heavily involved in studying problems of relevance to the health and illness patterns of living humans. There has been a proportionate increase in biomedically focused papers published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, in biomedically focused papers presented at annual meetings of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and in physical anthropology doctoral dissertations oriented toward modern biomedical phenomena. Proportionately more physical anthropologists are now employed in medical schools and there has been recent growth in the proportion of physical anthropologists in anthropology departments who claim some aspect of biomedical anthropology as a research interest. Increasingly, physical anthropologists are focusing their research on cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in America. These distinct trends are partially a result of the nature of physical anthropology and its unique biocultural perspective. However the growth of applied anthropology, the present academic marketplace, and the availability of research funds are probably also contributing factors. The emergency of biomedical anthropology holds promise for the future of physical anthropology and for its current employment crisis. Careers with academic and nonacademic organizations engaged in biomedical research appear to be a viable alternative to careers in departments of anthropology, for biomedical anthropologists. This will entail some reorientation of graduate training for physical anthropologists. More emphasis will have to be placed on substantive biomedical subjects, research methods, and data management and analysis.     

Resituating the Place of Educational Discourse in Anthropology

This critical essay examines the place of educational discourse in contemporary anthropology. I address the growing influence of "cultural studies" frameworks in anthropology—especially in research on popular culture, media, and identity—and the corresponding neglect of specifically educational discourses and practices, in and out of schools. To illustrate, I briefly examine recent research by four noted cultural anthropologists who mention the effects of schools at their field sites but pay insufficient attention to complex educational discourses and practices. Then I address the reasons why most contemporary anthropologists outside the subfield of "anthropology of education" ignore or downplay the role of modern schools in structuring identities and power relations, both locally and globally. I end with a programmatic synthesis: to recognize and account for the continuing power of schools in most contemporary ethnographic sites, even as we broaden our vision of "education" and extend our analytic tools well beyond schools. This resituating of educational discourse in anthropology might accomplish two important things. First, it could arrest the trend toward subfield specialization and provide a more unifying research program. Second, it would promote anthropology's renewed engagement with some of the most pressing problems of democracy and public policy, fostering an organic link between our multiple roles as teachers, researchers, and institutional actors, [education, identity, cultural studies, ethnographyJ     

Why Anthropologists Don’t Reach the Public: A Rumination on Books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen

ABSTRACT

I have been asked in this essay to review two recent books of Thomas Hylland Eriksen and to place them in the context of contemporary debates in anthropology. The first two sections of this review essay discuss the recent Eriksen book Overheating, and the co-edited book Identity Destabilised, outlining the books’ core arguments. Bracketing these reviews, the essay examines the larger issue of anthropologists and the general public. It asks, now that many anthropologists have realised the importance of reaching a larger audience, why are they not being more widely read? It considers various reasons for this, and suggests that since the most fundamental ideas of the discipline have been superseded by more sophisticated and diverse modes of analysis, anthropological explications of the world may no longer have much appeal to a larger audience.     

The Australian Aborigines and the Human Past

Indifference to events which may actually have taken place between the Dreamtime and European contact is commonly held to be a salient feature of traditional Aboriginal thought. This contention contains a significant element of truth but it may have been exaggerated by some anthropologists. Structural-functionalist emphases on myth as charter led not only to the rejection of historical interpretations of Aboriginal myths which were ill-considered and naïve, but also to an excessive neglect of potentially fruitful attempts to extract from myths clues about post-Dreamtime experiences. This neglect has unduly strengthened the view that Aboriginal thought is entirely sui generis and that its supposed indifference to human history is an inescapable cultural attribute of Aboriginality. A sketch is offered for a reappraisal of the significance of Aboriginal myths for Aboriginal history.     

A theory of human life history evolution: Diet,intelligence, and longevity

Human life histories, as compared to those of other primates and mammals, have at least four distinctive characteristics: an exceptionally long lifespan, an extended period of juvenile dependence, support of reproduction by older post‐reproductive individuals, and male support of reproduction through the provisioning of females and their offspring. Another distinctive feature of our species is a large brain, with its associated psychological attributes: increased capacities for learning, cognition, and insight. In this paper, we propose a theory that unites and organizes these observations and generates many theoretical and empirical predictions. We present some tests of those predictions and outline new predictions that can be tested in future research by comparative biologists, archeologists, paleontologists, biological anthropologists, demographers, geneticists, and cultural anthropologists.     

Priest and Shaman on the Plains: A False Dichotomy?*

Abstract

For a number of years, anthropologists have tended to classify religious leaders of more or less primitive peoples into shamans on the one hand, and priests on the other. Such terms are analytically useful, but like many polarities of their kind, they tend to break down when applied to “real world” situations. The Crow and Northern Cheyenne Indians of Montana provide interesting contrasts in this area, where two powerful religious themes - the tribal Sun Dance and the individual Vision Quest-- interact in various societies to produce a wide range of ceremonial expression. The literature on these two societies combines with modern field observation to suggest that in one case, shamans prevail entirely - while in the other, a real stage of separation between priest and shaman has developed, with one man serving in both capacities at various times.     

Powers Within: Artists and Anthropologists Work together to Create Andean Mythic Beasts and Elements of Nature in Their Own Image

The commonly held contemporary vision of Andean spirituality as expressed in art results from collaborations between anthropologists, artists and image-makers of both persuasions over many generations. Throughout its history, this tradition has displayed a multiethnic character. Images of animals and elements of nature have particular importance, especially those which inspire awe and fear. Modern communication systems may reverse a general trend characterized by blending and loss, and create instead an era in which complex religious/natural imagery becomes broadly expressed and perceived worldwide.     

Forest people: The role of African rainforests in human evolution and dispersal

Conventionally, the African continent has been partitioned in two evolutionary domains. One of them, the rainforest, is home to apes and covers central and West Africa. The other one extends through the woodlands and savannas of East and Southern Africa and has been traditionally perceived as home to humanity. The morphology of early humans is well‐adapted to open environments.¹ In addition, food procurement in savannas is known to be easier and more reliable than is provisioning in the rainforest, with its dispersed and cryptic faunal resources and fickle carbohydrates and fat. In the late 1980s, human ecologists and socio‐cultural anthropologists demonstrated that full‐fledged foraging without some agricultural support has been virtually undocumented in tropical forests today or in the recent past.² This research portrayed the present‐day rainforest ecosystem as an unfriendly environment that is unable to support purely foraging groups, and questioned whether hominids ever lived in it.²     

Human ecology and space age technology: Some predictions

Four predictions are made on the future of space age technologies in human and cultural ecology: first, remote sensing systems will generate a need for more fieldwork, not less; second, the services and skills of anthropologists will become essential to the interpretation of satellite data, especially as these relate to areas characterized by non-Western cultural practices; third, training in remote sensing and the use of geographic information systems will become a regular offering for anthropology students; and fourth, since these new systems and methods can be applied retrospectively to the re-analysis of earlier ethnographic works, space age technologies will be with us for some time to come.     

大肠杆菌突变株高密度生长的多因素分析

【背景】pBHR68是表达聚-3-羟基丁酸酯(Poly-3-Hydroxybutyrate,PHB)合成基因簇的高拷贝质粒,大肠杆菌K-12突变菌株S17-3在携带该质粒时生长密度高,耐低p H且在低pH条件下生长时高产可拉酸(Colanic Acid,CA)。【目的】系统探究与菌种(大肠杆菌S17-3)及质粒(pBHR68)相关的高密度生长现象的分子机理,提示PHB和CA合成代谢与高密度生长的偶联机制。【方法】解析质粒的构成、CA合成途径基因组成对高密度生长现象的影响;利用全基因组同比分析寻找可能的关键突变基因;开展转录组学分析,筛查大肠杆菌S17-3及其转化子在不同培养方式中的转录组数据,通过基因敲除实现基因功能及细胞生长状态的验证。【结果】大肠杆菌S17-3的高密度生长菌与PHB合成的操纵子的过表达以及rhsA的多位点突变相关,RcsA是CA合成与高密度生长中碳代谢流调控的关键调控蛋白。在低pH培养时,敲除可拉酸合成的关键糖基转移酶导致生物量提升;此外,大肠杆菌S17-3/pBHR68的高密度生长还可能与乳糖操纵子异常的转录调控相关,lacZ突变株高密度生长特性消失,而且无法合成可拉酸。【结论】研究分析了引起大肠杆菌S17-3高密度生长的多种因素,为大肠杆菌提高生长密度现象的进一步分析提供了重要线索,也为利用大肠杆菌S17-3的优异生理特性将其改造为寡糖合成的底盘细胞奠定了研究基础。