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Books > Science & Mathematics > Biology, life sciences > Human biology & related topics > Biological anthropology
The author's original aim in writing this book was to chronicle the story of a very specific debate in human evolutionary studies that took place between the late 1880s and the 1930s - the 'eolith' debate that had to do with small, natural stones whose shape and edges suggested to our earliest ancestors their use as tools, either as they were, or with a small amount of chipping to the stone's edge, a process called 'retouch'. These were the most primitive of tools, thought to date to the very beginning of human cultural evolution, and therefore suited to our very earliest ancestors. The more the author researched this topic the more he realised that its explanation was rooted in a number of research questions which today are considered separate subjects, and, gradually, a book that was to be about a forgotten Palaeolithic debate became a book that was just as much about 'Morlocks', stone tools, racial difference, and the Anthropological Society of London. The major themes of this study include: Apart from interconnectivity itself, the development of Palaeolithic archaeology, its relationship with the study of human physical anthropology in Britain and, to a much lesser extent, on the Continent; The links between these and the study of race and racial origins; The question of human origins itself; The link with geological developments in climate and glacial studies; The public perception of the whole 'origins' question and its relationship with 'race'; How the public got its information on origins-related questions, and in what form this was presented to them; a review of the opening phase of the eolith debate (1889-1895/6) as a logical extension of developments in a number of these areas (e.g. Victorian science fiction). This fascinating book incorporates original research with synthesis and overview, and at the same time presents original perspectives derived from the author's overall arrangement of the material. While the targeted readership includes postgraduates and third-year undergraduates, the work is very much intended as accessible to the non-academic reader wanting to know more about a subject that (re)touches on everyone. This book explores the development of human origins as a scientific debate in the years after 1859. drawing on archaeology, anthropology and human palaeontology, it sets the emerging discipline of Palaeolithic studies in its broader social and intellectual context, and shows how in its first forty years the understanding of the Palaeolithic adapted to profound changes in the scientific knowledge of the origin of our species
The story of 'home life' in Scotland is one which is familiar and varied. This wide-ranging volume considers Scotland's domestic life by examining that variety, and considering changes in the structures in which Scots have lived and the ways in which they have lived in those homes. The great advantage of studying domestic life is that, it is something to which everyone can relate, no matter his or her background. Most of us are in some way already ethnologists of the home. "Scottish Life and Society: A Compendium of Scottish Ethnology" is a major project of the European Ethnological Research Centre in fourteen volumes. Its overall aim is to examine the interlocking strands of history, language and traditional culture within an international context and their contribution to the making of a national identity. Each volume is a detailed examination of a societal topic and can stand alone. Together, the fourteen volumes set a cultural benchmark for the new millennium and are of immense value to our understanding of what has shaped Scottish society today.
Clean and White offers a history of environmental racism in the United States focusing on constructions of race and hygiene When Joe Biden attempted to compliment Barack Obama by calling him "clean and articulate," he unwittingly tapped into one of the most destructive racial stereotypes in American history. This book tells the history of the corrosive idea that whites are clean and those who are not white are dirty. From the age of Thomas Jefferson to the Memphis Public Workers strike of 1968 through the present day, ideas about race and waste have shaped where people have lived, where people have worked, and how American society's wastes have been managed. In the wake of the civil war, as the nation encountered emancipation, mass immigration, and the growth of an urbanized society, Americans began to conflate the ideas of race and waste. Certain immigrant groups took on waste management labor, such as Jews and scrap metal recycling, fostering connections between the socially marginalized and refuse. Ethnic "purity" was tied to pure cleanliness, and hygiene became a central aspect of white identity. Carl A. Zimring here draws on historical evidence from statesmen, scholars, sanitarians, novelists, activists, advertisements, and the United States Census of Population to reveal changing constructions of environmental racism. The material consequences of these attitudes endured and expanded through the twentieth century, shaping waste management systems and environmental inequalities that endure into the twenty-first century. Today, the bigoted idea that non-whites are "dirty" remains deeply ingrained in the national psyche, continuing to shape social and environmental inequalities in the age of Obama.
Darrell A Posey died in March 2001 after a long and distinguished
career in anthropology and ecology. Kayapo Ethnoecology and Culture
presents a selection of his writings that result from 25 years of
work with the Kayapo Indians of the Amazon Basin. These writings
describe the dispersal of the Kayapo sub-groups and explain how
with this diaspora useful biological species and natural resource
management strategies also spread. However the Kayapo are
threatened with extinction like many of the inhabitants of the
Amazon basin. The author is adamant that it is no longer
satisfactory for scientists to just do 'good science'. They are are
increasingly asked and morally obliged to become involved in
political action to protect the peoples they study.
The first publication to outline the complex global story of human migration and dispersal throughout the whole of human prehistory. Utilizing archaeological, linguistic and biological evidence, Peter Bellwood traces the journeys of the earliest hunter-gatherer and agriculturalist migrants as critical elements in the evolution of human lifeways. * The first volume to chart global human migration and population dispersal throughout the whole of human prehistory, in all regions of the world * An archaeological odyssey that details the initial spread of early humans out of Africa approximately two million years ago, through the Ice Ages, and down to the continental and island migrations of agricultural populations within the past 10,000 years * Employs archaeological, linguistic and biological evidence to demonstrate how migration has always been a vital and complex element in explaining the evolution of the human species * Outlines how significant migrations have affected population diversity in every region of the world * Clarifies the importance of the development of agriculture as a migratory imperative in later prehistory * Fully referenced with detailed maps throughout
This collection of original work demonstrates the new ways in which particular research methodologies are used, valued and critiqued in the field of race and ethnic studies. Contributing authors discuss the ways in which their personal and professional histories and experiences lead them to select and use particular methodologies over the course of their careers. They then provide the intellectual histories, strengths and weaknesses of these methods as applied to issues of race and ethnicity and discuss the ethical, practical, and epistemological issues that have influenced and challenged their methodological principles and applications. Through these rigorous self-examinations, this text presents a dynamic example of how scholars engage both research methodologies and issues of social justice and ethics. This volume is a successor to Stanfield's landmark Race and Ethnicity in Research Methods.
"Splendid and important .... Scientifically rigorous and written with a clarity and candor that create a gripping tale ... [Boehme's] account of the history of Europe's lost apes is imbued with the sweat, grime, and triumph that is the lot of the fieldworker, and carries great authority."-Tim Flannery, The New York Review of Books In this "fascinating forensic inquiry into human origins" (Kirkus STARRED Review), a renowned paleontologist takes readers behind-the-scenes of one of the most groundbreaking archaeological digs in recent history. Somewhere west of Munich,paleontologist Madelaine Boehme and her colleagues dig for clues to the origins of humankind. What they discover is beyond anything they ever imagined: the twelve-million-year-old bones of Danuvius guggenmosi make headlines around the world. This ancient ape defies prevailing theories of human history-his skeletal adaptations suggest a new common ancestor between apes and humans, one that dwelled in Europe, not Africa. Might the great apes that traveled from Africa to Europe before Danuvius's time be the key to understanding our own origins? All this and more is explored in Ancient Bones. Using her expertise as a paleoclimatologist and paleontologist, Boehme pieces together an awe-inspiring picture of great apes that crossed land bridges from Africa to Europe millions of years ago, evolving in response to the challenging conditions they found. She also takes us behind the scenes of her research, introducing us to former theories of human evolution (complete with helpful maps and diagrams), and walks us through musty museum overflow storage where she finds forgotten fossils with yellowed labels, before taking us along to the momentous dig where she and the team unearthed Danuvius guggenmosi himself-and the incredible reverberations his discovery caused around the world. Praise for Ancient Bones: "Readable and thought-provoking. Madelaine Boehme is an iconoclast whose fossil discoveries have challenged long-standing ideas on the origins of the ancestors of apes and humans."-Steve Brusatte, New York Times-bestselling author of The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs "An inherently fascinating, impressively informative, and exceptionally thought-provoking read."-Midwest Book Review "An impressive introduction to the burgeoning recalibration of paleoanthropology."-Kirkus Reviews(starred review)
A classic and highly influential ethnography, which explores
political leadership among Swat Pathans - and which emphasizes the
importance of individual decision-making for wider social
processes.
A classic and highly influential ethnography, which explores
political leadership among Swat Pathans - and which emphasizes the
importance of individual decision-making for wider social
processes.
"World music" emerged as a commercial and musical category in the 1980s, but in some sense music has always been global. Through the metaphor of encounters, Music and Globalization explores the dynamics that enable or hinder cross-cultural communication through music. In the stories told by the contributors, we meet well-known players such as David Byrne, Peter Gabriel, Sting, Ry Cooder, Fela Kuti, and Gilberto Gil, but also lesser-known characters such as the Senegalese Afro-Cuban singer Laba Sosseh and Raramuri fiddle players from northwest Mexico. This collection demonstrates that careful historical and ethnographic analysis of global music can show us how globalization operates and what, if anything, we as consumers have to do with it.
This major project of the European Ethnological research Centre is planned in thirteen volumes, plus this bibliography. Their overall aim is to examine the interlocking strands of history, language and traditional culture, in their international setting, that go into the making of a national identity. Though each volume tells a complete story in itself, and can stand on its own feet, the full role of Scottish Life and Society will become increasingly apparent as the volumes are published. It seeks to set a cultural benchmark for the beginning of a new millennium, which should be of value to educationists and to all who are interested in learning more about what had led up to the making of Scottish society as it is today.
Cultures in Conversation introduces readers to the ethnographic study of intercultural and social interactions through the analysis of conversations in which different cultural orientations are operating. Author Donal Carbaugh presents his original research on conversation practices in Britain, Finland, Russia, Blackfeet County, and the United States, demonstrating how each culture is distinctive in its communication codes, particularly in its use of symbolic meanings, forms, norms, and motivational themes. Examining conversation in this way demonstrates how cultural lives are active in conversations and shows how conversation is a principle medium for the coding of selves, social relationships, and societies. Representing 20 years of research, this text offers unique insights into the social interaction within distinct cultures. It makes a significant contribution to communication scholarship, and will be illuminating reading in cultural communication, language and social interaction, and linguistics courses. In addition, it invites others to examine ethnographic inquiry as a way of studying intercultural conversations in particular, and communication practices in general.
Probationary Americans examines contemporary immigration rules and how they affect the make-up of immigrant communities. The authors' key argument is that immigration policies place race and class as important criteria for gaining entry to the United States, and in doing so, alter the makeup of America's immigrant communities.
Nadine Ehlers examines the constructions of blackness and whiteness cultivated in the U.S. imaginary and asks, how do individuals become racial subjects? She analyzes anti-miscegenation law, statutory definitions of race, and the rhetoric surrounding the phenomenon of racial passing to provide critical accounts of racial categorization and norms, the policing of racial behavior, and the regulation of racial bodies as they are underpinned by demarcations of sexuality, gender, and class. Ehlers places the work of Michel Foucault, Judith Butler s account of performativity, and theories of race into conversation to show how race is a form of discipline, that race is performative, and that all racial identity can be seen as performative racial passing. She tests these claims through an excavation of the 1925 "racial fraud" case of Rhinelander v. Rhinelander and concludes by considering the possibilities for racial agency, extending Foucault s later work on ethics and "technologies of the self" to explore the potential for racial transformation."
A Companion to Paleopathology offers a comprehensive overview of this rapidly growing sub- field of physical anthropology. * Presents a broad overview of the field of paleopathology, integrating theoretical and methodological approaches to understand biological and disease processes throughout human history * Demonstrates how paleopathology sheds light on the past through the analysis of human and non-human skeletal materials, mummified remains and preserved tissue * Integrates scientific advances in multiple fields that contribute to the understanding of ancient and historic diseases, such as epidemiology, histology, radiology, parasitology, dentistry, and molecular biology, as well as archaeological, archival and historical research. * Highlights cultural processes that have an impact on the evolution of illness, death and dying in human populations, including subsistence strategies, human environmental adaptations, the effects of malnutrition, differential access to resources, and interpersonal and intercultural violence
Changing Lapps A Study in Culture Relations in Northernmost Norway is a study of culture contact between the Saami and the Scandinavians, chiefly Norwegians, in an historical perspective. This study is based primarily on literary sources and official records supplemented by field work. In order to correct the stereotype of the Saami as being a homogeneous people and entirely nomadic reindeer breeders, Gjessing describes Saami social structure and the functional aspects of the contact in terms of three Saami sub-cultures, those of the sea Saami, Reindeer Saami, and the permanently settled inland Saami. Gjessing points out that there is an increasing feeling of solidarity following economic lines rather than the local and cultural lines among the Saami
Initially published in 1953, The Chinese of Sarawak, A Study of Social Structure, is the study of the social, economic and political organization of the Chinese Community during the author's visit of thirteen months in 1948 and 1949. Much of the material was obtained from personal interviews, as well as quotes from printed sources and from unpublished files of the Sarawak Government. The result is an enlightening and detailed analysis of a complex situation
The Ethnic Composition of Tswana Tribes
Biological anthropology is a diverse field, with countless research methods and techniques in different sub-disciplines. This book takes a critical perspective to the current state of the field, exploring theory and practice in paleoanthropology, bioarchaeology, and ecology. Contributors challenge how evidence is discovered, collected and interpreted, and explain that researchers gain insights by de-familiarizing themselves from well-known methods and taking a different perspective - 'making the familiar strange'. The book covers how researchers' biases and assumptions affect the interpretation of topics such as human evolution and population movements; race, health, and disability; bodies and embodiment; and landscapes and ecology. A final chapter includes a critical assessment of new thinking about technology, in addition to the multilayered and complex nature of both research questions and evidence. This is an insightful text for researchers and graduate students in anthropology, biology, ecology, history and philosophy of science.
Kinship and Continuity is a vivid ethnographic account of the development of the Pakistani presence in Oxford, from after World War II to the present day. Alison Shaw addresses the dynamics of migration, patterns of residence and kinship, ideas about health and illness, and notions of political and religious authority, and discusses the transformations and continuities of the lives of British Pakistanis against the backdrop of rural Pakistan and local socio-economic changes. This is a fully updated, revised edition of the book first published in 1988.
What happens when a seemingly rational state becomes paranoid and delusional? The Encrypted State engages in a close analysis of political disorder to shed new light on the concept of political stability. The book focuses on a crisis of rule in mid-20th-century Peru, a period when officials believed they had lost the ability to govern and communicated in secret code to protect themselves from imaginary subversives. The Encrypted State engages the notion of sacropolitics-the politics of mass group sacrifice-to make sense of state delusion. Nugent interrogates the forces that variously enable or disable organized political subjection, and the role of state structures in this process. Investigating the role of everyday cultural practices and how affect and imagination structure political affairs, Nugent provides a greater understanding of the conditions of state formation, and failure.
The Political System of the Anuak of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
A Times Higher Education Book of the Week Approximately 200,000 years ago, as modern humans began to radiate out from their evolutionary birthplace in Africa, Neanderthals were already thriving in Europe-descendants of a much earlier migration of the African genus Homo. But when modern humans eventually made their way to Europe 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals suddenly vanished. Ever since the first Neanderthal bones were identified in 1856, scientists have been vexed by the question, why did modern humans survive while their closest known relatives went extinct? "Shipman admits that scientists have yet to find genetic evidence that would prove her theory. Time will tell if she's right. For now, read this book for an engagingly comprehensive overview of the rapidly evolving understanding of our own origins." -Toby Lester, Wall Street Journal "Are humans the ultimate invasive species? So contends anthropologist Pat Shipman-and Neanderthals, she opines, were among our first victims. The relationship between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis is laid out cleanly, along with genetic and other evidence. Shipman posits provocatively that the deciding factor in the triumph of our ancestors was the domestication of wolves." -Daniel Cressey, Nature
This important volume rethinks the conventional parameters of Middle East studies through attention to popular cultural forms, producers, and communities of consumers. The volume has a broad historical scope, ranging from the late Ottoman period to the second Palestinian uprising, with a focus on cultural forms and processes in Israel, Palestine, and the refugee camps of the Arab Middle East. The contributors consider how Palestinian and Israeli popular culture influences and is influenced by political, economic, social, and historical processes in the region. At the same time, they follow the circulation of Palestinian and Israeli cultural commodities and imaginations across borders and checkpoints and within the global marketplace.The volume is interdisciplinary, including the work of anthropologists, historians, sociologists, political scientists, ethnomusicologists, and Americanist and literary studies scholars. Contributors examine popular music of the Palestinian resistance, ethno-racial "passing" in Israeli cinema, Arab-Jewish rock, Euro-Israeli tourism to the Arab Middle East, Internet communities in the Palestinian diaspora, cafe culture in early-twentieth-century Jerusalem, and more. Together, they suggest new ways of conceptualizing Palestinian and Israeli political culture. Contributors. Livia Alexander, Carol Bardenstein, Elliott Colla, Amy Horowitz, Laleh Khalili, Mary Layoun, Mark LeVine, Joseph Massad, Melani McAlister, Ilan Pappe, Rebecca L. Stein, Ted Swedenburg, Salim Tamari |
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