Emotion (or Life,the Universe,Everything)

Emotions are fundamental to human life; they define its quality and motivate action. In the past, social scientists who have studied emotions have treated them as biological, cultural or social phenomena. These approaches have tended to fall on either side of the culturally recognised division between nature and culture, and so have failed to recognise that emotions bridge this division, that they are thought of as both biological and cultural, as consisting of both physical feeling and cultural meaning. In this article, an alternative approach is presented in which emotions are treated as ecological mechanisms that operate in the relationship between an individual human being and their environment. In this approach, which draws on models of emotion proposed by William James and Antonio Damasio, emotions connect individual human beings to their surroundings and play an important role in learning. A focus on the individual as the centre of analytical attention—often referred to as ‘methodological individualism’—is a logical consequence of the ecological approach to emotion, which also has significant implications for the relationships between ecological anthropology and other branches of the discipline, and between anthropology and other disciplines. In the face of an ecological understanding of emotion, all relations, including social relations, become ecological and social anthropology melts into and is subsumed by ecological anthropology. At the same time, anthropology tends to lose its distinctiveness from biology, psychology and other disciplines by focusing on a phenomenon that is of common interest to all the human sciences.     

A history of forensic anthropology

Forensic anthropology represents a dynamic and rapidly evolving complex discipline within anthropology and forensic science. Academic roots extend back to early European anatomists but development coalesced in the Americas through high-profile court testimony, assemblage of documented collections and focused research. Formation of the anthropology section of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences in 1972, the American Board of Forensic Anthropology in 1977/1978 and other organizational advances provided important stimuli for progress. While early pioneers concentrated on analysis of skeletonized human remains, applications today have expanded to include complex methods of search and recovery, the biomechanics of trauma interpretation, isotopic analysis related to diet and region of origin, age estimation of the living and issues related to humanitarian and human rights investigations.     

Brief communication: Gender and sex: Vive la difference

The distinction prevalent in the social sciences between the terms sex and gender is a useful one and ought to be preserved. Sex refers to the anatomical or chromosomal categories of male and female. Gender refers to socially constructed roles that are related to sex distinctions. Use of these terms as synonyms is becoming increasingly frequent in physical anthropology, especially among bioarchaeologists and primatologists. A failure to make the distinction between gender and sex is analytically incapacitating in a field such as physical anthropology, whose strength lies in the integration of biological and cultural information. Am J Phys Anthropol 106:255–259, 1998. © 1998 Wiley-Liss, Inc.     

Human neuropsychology and the concept of culture

American anthropology is distinguished by a four-fields approach in which biological, cultural, archaeological, and linguistic dimensions of behavior are examined in evolutionary and cross-cultural perspective. Nevertheless, assumptions of mind-body dualism pervade scholarly thinking in anthropology and have prevented the development of a truly integrated science of human experience. This dualism is most exemplified by the lack of consideration of the role of the brain in both “physical” and “mental” processes, including phenomena labeled as cultural. In this paper, I review neural mechanisms of learning, communication, and emotion, and discuss the implications of these findings for culture theory. Lee Xenakis Blonder is an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Science and the Sanders-Brown Center on Aging, University of Kentucky Medical School, Lexington. She is currently examining the effects of stroke in different regions of the brain on language, nonverbal communication, and emotional processing in an attempt to better understand human brain and behavior relations. Recent publications include “Neuropsychological Functioning in Hemiparkinsonism” (with R. E. Gur, R. C. Gur, A. J. Saykin, and H. I. Hurtig),Brain and Cognition 9:244–257 (1989).     

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]     

Crosscurrents: Social Movements and the Anthropology of Science and Technology

Along with growth and acceptance of the anthropology of science and technology has come a narrowing of focus both topically and methodologically. An alternative topic of inquiry (social movements) and an alternative method (a limited return to nomothetic inquiry) offer potential for research that is relevant to both social change actors and social scientists such as sociologists and political scientists. A comparative analysis of existing anthropological research on science, technology, and social movements provides the basis for limited generalizations regarding the types and circumstances of charged cultural repertoires that both social movements and elites invoke.     

The swashbuckling anthropologist: Henrich on The Secret of Our Success

In The Secret of Our Success, Joseph Henrich claims that human beings are unique—different from all other animals—because we engage in cumulative cultural evolution. It is the technological and social products of cumulative cultural evolution, not the intrinsic rationality or ‘smartness’ of individual humans, that enable us to live in a huge range of different habitats, and to dominate most of the creatures who share those habitats with us. We are sympathetic to this general view, the latest expression of the ‘California school’s’ view of cultural evolution, and impressed by the lively and interesting way that Henrich handles evidence from anthropology, economics, and many fields of biology. However, because we think it is time for cultural evolutionists to get down to details, this essay review raises questions about Henrich’s analysis of both the cognitive processes and the selection processes that contribute to cumulative cultural evolution. In the former case, we argue that cultural evolutionists need to make more extensive use of cognitive science, and to consider the evidence that mechanisms of cultural learning are products as well as processes of cultural evolution. In the latter case, we ask whether the California school is really serious about selection, or whether it is offering a merely ‘kinetic’ view of cultural evolution, and, assuming the former, outline four potential models of cultural selection that it would be helpful to distinguish more clearly.     

Uncloaking a Lost Cause: Decolonizing ancestry estimation in the United States

Since the professionalization of US-based forensic anthropology in the 1970s, ancestry estimation has been included as a standard part of the biological profile, because practitioners have assumed it necessary to achieve identifications in medicolegal contexts. Simultaneously, forensic anthropologists have not fully considered the racist context of the criminal justice system in the United States related to the treatment of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color; nor have we considered that ancestry estimation might actually hinder identification efforts because of entrenched racial biases. Despite ongoing criticisms from mainstream biological anthropology that ancestry estimation perpetuates race science, forensic anthropologists have continued the practice. Recent years have seen the prolific development of retooled typological approaches with 21st century statistical prowess to include methods for estimating ancestry from cranial morphoscopic traits, despite no evidence that these traits reflect microevolutionary processes or are suitable genetic proxies for population structure; and such approaches have failed to critically evaluate the societal consequences for perpetuating the biological race concept. Around the country, these methods are enculturated in every aspect of the discipline ranging from university classrooms, to the board-certification examination marking the culmination of training, to standard operating procedures adopted by forensic anthropology laboratories. Here, we use critical race theory to interrogate the approaches utilized to estimate ancestry to include a critique of the continued use of morphoscopic traits, and we assert that the practice of ancestry estimation contributes to white supremacy. Based on the lack of scientific support that these traits reflect evolutionary history, and the inability to disentangle skeletal-based ancestry estimates from supporting the biological validity of race, we urge all forensic anthropologists to abolish the practice of ancestry estimation.     

The macromorphoscopic databank

The development of identification standards in forensic anthropology requires large and appropriate reference samples comprising individuals with modern birth years. Recent advances in macromorphoscopic trait data collection and analysis have created a need for reference data for classification models and biological distance analyses. The Macromorphoscopic Databank (N ～ 7,397) serves that function, making publicly available trait scores for a large sample (n = 2,363) of modern American populations and world‐wide groups of various geographic origins (n = 1,790). In addition, the MaMD stores reference data for a large sample (n = 3,244) of pre‐, proto‐ and historic Amerindian data, useful for biodistance studies and finer‐levels of analysis during NAGPRA‐related investigations and repatriations. In developing this database, particular attention was given to the level of classification needed during the estimation of ancestry in a forensic context. To fill the knowledge gap that currently exists in the analysis of these data, the following overview outlines many of the issues and their potential solutions. Developing valuable tools that are useful to other practitioners is the purpose of growing a databank. As the Macromorphoscopic Databank develops through data collection efforts and contributions from the field, its utility as a research and teaching tool will also mature, in turn creating a vital resource for forensic anthropologists for future generations.     

Anthropological insights into the use of race/ethnicity to explore genetic contributions to disparities in health

Anthropological insights into the use of race/ethnicity to explore genetic contributions to disparities in health were developed using in-depth qualitative interviews with editorial staff from nineteen genetics journals, focusing on the methodological and conceptual mechanisms required to make race/ethnicity a genetic variable. As such, these analyses explore how and why race/ethnicity comes to be used in the context of genetic research, set against the background of continuing critiques from anthropology and related human sciences that focus on the social construction, structural correlates and limited genetic validity of racial/ethnic categories. The analyses demonstrate how these critiques have failed to engage geneticists, and how geneticists use a range of essentially cultural devices to protect and separate their use of race/ethnicity as a genetic construct from its use as a societal and social science resource. Given its multidisciplinary, biosocial nature and the cultural gaze of its ethnographic methodologies, anthropology is well placed to explore the cultural separation of science and society, and of natural and social science disciplines. Anthropological insights into the use of race/ethnicity to explore disparities in health suggest that moving beyond genetic explanations of innate difference might benefit from a more even-handed critique of how both the natural and social sciences tend to essentialize selective elements of race/ethnicity. Drawing on the example of HIV/AIDS, this paper demonstrates how public health has been undermined by the use of race/ethnicity as an analytical variable, both as a cipher for innate genetic differences in susceptibility and response to treatment, and in its use to identify 'core groups' at greater risk of becoming infected and infecting others. Clearly, a tendency for biological reductionism can place many biomedical issues beyond the scope of public health interventions, while socio-cultural essentialization has tended to stigmatize 'unhealthy behaviours' and the communities where these are more prevalent.     

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     

颅面复原技术在体质人类学中的应用

面貌是人类最重要的特征,其形态受到颅骨几何形态、面部软组织分布以及性别、年龄、身体质量指数、营养状况等多种因素的影响。考古遗址出土的古代人类遗骸,其面部软组织大多已经消失,如何根据颅面形态关系推测古人类颅骨的生前面貌已成为人类学家和考古学家关注的热点问题之一。传统手工颅面复原是由人类学家和艺术家使用雕塑技艺在颅骨上用可塑物质生成其生前面貌的技术。近年来,随着医学影像采集和计算机技术的发展,计算机颅面复原技术已经成为信息科学、体质人类学、法医人类学交叉研究的前沿技术之一。本文通过梳理和归纳相关文献的研究方法,对手工颅面复原技术、计算机颅面复原技术和颅面复原结果评价方法作简要综述,并对颅面复原技术在体质人类学中的应用进行了回顾和展望。     

Biological anthropology's critical engagement with genomics,evolution, race/racism,and ourselves: Opportunities and challenges to making a difference in the academy and the world

Biological anthropology can, and should, matter in the Anthropocene. Biological anthropologists are interested in human biology and the human experience in a broader ecological, evolutionary, and phylogenetic context. We are interested in the material of the body, the history of the body, and interactions of diverse bodies, communities, ecologies, and evolutionary processes. However, the cultural realities of bodies, histories, communities, livelihoods, perceptions, and experiences are as central to the endeavor and inquiry of biological anthropology as are their material aspects. Biological anthropology is a constant dialectic between the cultural and the biological. In this essay, I argue that Biological Anthropology has much to offer, a history to contend with, and a future that matters. To illustrate this, I highlight theoretical and methodological issues in genomics, evolutionary theory and connect them to the study of Race and Racism to emphasize specific arenas where Biological Anthropology has a great capacity, and a strong obligation, to play a central role. However, Biological Anthropology also has substantive internal issues that hinder our ability to do the best possible science. If we are to live up to our potential and make a difference in the 21st century we need to ameliorate our structural shortcomings and expand our voice, and impact, in academic and public discourse. The goal of this perspective is to offer suggestions for moving us toward this goal.     

Conjuring Medical Science: The 1986 Referendum on AIDS/HIV Policy in California

Medical science occupies a peculiar status in American life. On the one hand, people often view medical science as a privileged and authoritative body of knowledge that transcends other kinds of knowledge. On the other handy medical–scientific authority can be easily conjured from the popular symbols of science, e.g., credentials, technical terms, and white lab coats. This problem can be converted into an anthropological question of meanings and symbols, based on Geertz's interpretive anthropology and Baudrillard' s sociology of hyperreality. This article uses these frameworks to explore the cultural construction of medical-scientific authority in the case of a 1986 referendum on AIDS/HIV policy in California. The interpretation of that construction raises some difficult problems concerning anthropology's treatment of medical science. [AIDS, HIV, cultural construction of science, anthropology of science, hermeneutics of science]     

Some Aspects of Continuity and Change Among Anthropologists in Australia or‘He‐Who‐Eats‐From‐One‐Dish‐With‐Us‐With‐One‐Spoon’

Since the future of anthropology in Australia is clouded, the address takes a look at where it has been coming from. Rather than a distinctive regional school, the discipline in Australia has been part of anthropology in the UK and the USA. In common with anthropology elsewhere, it lacks a distinctive theoretical stance, but draws on the theory current in the other social sciences. Recognising that what makes anthropology ‘special’ is the field work experience, the address reflects on the history and nature of this practice.     

Individuals and the evolution of biological and cultural systems

Recently, it has been suggested that anthropologists could more effectively build scientific theories of cultural evolution by reference to biology rather than social science. In this way, the evolution of cultures might be more usefully viewed as an anolog to the evolution of species. In systematic biology, however, the nature of species continues to be the subject of a long-standing duality of thought. This duality is analogous to the longstanding conflict in anthropology over the nature of culture. We argue, by analogy to Michael Ghiselin’s work on species, that a culture is an individual, not a class, and that cultures, like other individual entities, evolve. This view is highly concordant with concepts of culture formulated in earlier decades of this century. It has also been the philosophical orientation of American archaeology for approximately the last 25 years. We conclude that both biology and anthropology have an equal potential of contributing to a general evolutionary theory.     

Quantifying cultural macro-evolution: a case study of the hinoeuma fertility drop

Understanding patterns and underlying processes of human cultural diversity has been a major challenge in evolutionary anthropology. Recent developments in the study of cultural macro-evolution have illuminated various novel aspects of cultural phenomena at the population level. However, limitations in data availability have constrained previous analyses to use simplest models ignoring factors that potentially affect cultural evolutionary dynamics. Here, we focus on two such factors: accumulated effects of cultural transmission between populations over time and variation in social influence among populations. As a test case, we analyze data on the hinoeuma fertility drop, the Japanese nation-wide drastic decline in the number of births caused by a culturally-transmitted superstition recurring every sixty years, to show that these factors do play significant roles. Specifically, our results suggest that transmission of the superstition in a short timescale has tended to occur among neighboring populations, while transmission in a long timescale is likely to have occurred between populations culturally close to each other, with the cultural closeness being measured by similarity in dialects. The results also indicate a special role played by a population occupying a center in a language–distance network (the cultural center) in the spread of the superstition.     

Evolution and University-level Anthropology Textbooks: The “Missing Link”?

Although studies analyzing the content of evolution curriculum usually focus on courses within the context of a biological sciences department or program, research must also address students and courses outside of the biological sciences. For example, using data solely from biological courses will not fully represent the scope of coverage of evolution in university education, as other fields, like anthropology, also utilize evolutionary principles. We analyzed the content of 31 university-level anthropology textbooks for the following: (1) presence of a definition of evolution in various sections of the textbooks, (2) accuracy and consistency of the definitions provided in the textbook sections, and (3) differences between textbooks for cultural and physical anthropology. Results of this study suggest that anthropology textbooks do not necessarily (1) provide a single definition of evolution or (2) provide an accurate, “baseline” definition of evolution when present. Additionally, substantive differences were observed between definitions provided in different sections within a single textbook, as well as between textbooks written for cultural anthropology and physical anthropology/archaeology courses. Given the inclusion of anthropology courses in general education curriculum at the university-level, we conclude that this situation may further exacerbate the misunderstanding of the basic tenets of evolution that university students have been repeatedly shown to demonstrate. We stress the role of the instructor in choosing textbooks that provide accurate information for students, as well as the responsibility they hold in providing a concise, accurate definition of evolution in social sciences courses.