Anthropology
Category archives for Anthropology
Are Engineers More Likely To Be Terrorists, And If So, Why?
Posted by Greg Laden on March 25, 2016 
I met a student, I was on his examining committee, who had been a civil engineer for years (he was getting his undergraduate degree late in life). He was politically conservative and cynical about academia. He needed the degree in order to get a major promotion, hated the idea of going back to college, but…
The Great Human Race: How to survive
Posted by Greg Laden on January 26, 2016 
The Great Human Race is a new production of National Geographic, in three parts. I recently viewed the first episode, “Dawn” which comes with this description: All people can trace their roots to the savanna of East Africa, the home of one of the first members of the human species — Homo habilis. Archaeologist Bill…
Important Thanksgiving Information
Posted by Greg Laden on November 24, 2015 
First and foremost, depending on when you are reading this, TAKE THE TURKEY OUT OF THE FREEZER. But seriously, Thanksgiving is, to me, one of the more interesting holidays. It is a “feast.” You knew that already, but what you may not have known is that “feasting” is a human activity found world wide and…
Micro-Evolution In Greenland: Inuit Diet, Weight, and Stature
Posted by Greg Laden on September 18, 2015 
There is a new paper in Science linking genetic variation in people living in Greenland with long term selection for managing a marine-oriented diet, affecting stature, weight, and probably, physiological processing of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). The vast majority of the variation we seen in stature (height) among humans is not genetic. That is…
Irven DeVore: October 7, 1934 – September 23, 2014
Posted by Greg Laden on September 24, 2014 
I heard yesterday that my friend and former advisor Irven DeVore died. He was important, amazing, charming, difficult, harsh, brilliant, fun, annoying. My relationship to him as an advisee and a friend was complex, important to me for many years, and formative. For those who don’t know he was instrumental in developing several subfields of…
What English Sounds Like To non-English Speakers
Posted by Greg Laden on March 11, 2014 
This is nice. Karl Eccleston and Fiona Pepper are amazingly good actors. The writing is excellent as is the directing. The subtext. THE SUBTEXT IS BRILLIANT. When I was living with the Efe Pygmies in the Ituri Forest, they would imitate French and English speakers while ranting about specific people who had annoyed or amused…
Does Your Genealogy Reveal Amazing Anthropological Stories?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 26, 2013 
I gave a talk at the Brookdale Public Library last night as part of the celebration of DNA day. DNA Day, or DNAD for short, was created about the time of the “completion” (more or less) of the Human Genome in 2003, and is set to be on the date of the publication of the…
Meat Eating in Human Prehistory
Posted by Greg Laden on April 20, 2013 
All human hunter-gatherer groups that have been studied incorporate meat in their diets. Studies have shown that the total dietary contribution of meat varies a great deal, and seems to increase with latitude so that foragers in subarctic and arctic regions eat a lot of meat while those living near the equator eat less. It…
Noble Savages: Napoleon Chagnon’s Fierce Book
Posted by Greg Laden on April 5, 2013 
Napoleon Chagnon spent years living among the Yanomamo of Venezuela and wrote, among other things, a classic ethnography still used widely in anthropology classes. It came to pass that Chagnon and his ethnography came under scrutiny, actually a few waves of scrutiny, from practitioners of cultural anthropology in part because his monograph depicted the Yanomamo…
What the heck is Vocal Fry?
Posted by Greg Laden on January 7, 2013 
Until a few minutes ago, I didn’t even know what the heck Vocal Fry is. Apparently some people have gotten really annoyed about it, as it is a speech mannerism that has emerged among young folks, who are always annoying, and especially females, who are always annoying. Apparently. (I also did not know that until…