Anthropology

When most people think of Vikings, they think of rape and pillaging and longships full of fierce warriors - history was clearly written by the Normans who conquered England. Yet that was just one part of the Viking Age. It actually began earlier, and was far less violent, than historical narratives show, according to a new study. The first raid known raid in England was on June 793 at Lindisfarne (also called Lindisfarena and Medcaut), a tidal island off the northeast coast, but there is evidence that Vikings had been making long journeys as merchants, including to the key trading center…

New genetic testing of Iñupiat people currently living in Alaska's North Slope has determined the migration patterns and ancestral pool of the people who populated the North American Arctic over the last 5,000 years and found that all mitochondrial DNA haplogroups previously found in the ancient remains of Neo- and Paleo-Eskimos and living Inuit peoples from across the North American Arctic were found within the people living in North Slope villages. The findings support the archaeological model that the "peopling of the eastern Arctic" began in the North Slope, in an eastward migration from…

In a music buying industry now dominated by iTunes and music streaming sites such as Spotify, Napster, Pandora and Jay-Z’s recently released Tidal, the CD and physical music store are reportedly in sharp (and potentially terminal) decline. But a curious development in music consumption has seen vinyl, the format ostensibly rendered extinct by the compact disc with its “perfect” digital sound, make an unlikely, but significant cultural and commercial comeback. In an era in which even digital album sales have fallen, vinyl has bucked the trend. In 2014, record sales grew by more than 50% to…

Bournemouth University’s new Institute for Studies in Landscape and Human Evolution (ISLHE) – is exploring how techniques for documenting ancient footprints can help forensic scientists understand modern-day crime scenes. Professor Matthew Bennett, Head of  the Institute for Studies in Landscape and Human Evolution, explained why the research is needed. “Footwear impressions can provide an important source of evidence from crime scenes. They can help to determine the sequence of events and – if distinctive – can even link a suspect to multiple crime scenes. "Evidence can either be 2D,…

 Stone tools, shaped by striking a stone "core" with a piece of bone, antler, or another stone, provide some of the most abundant evidence of human behavioral change over time. Simple Oldowan stone flakes are the earliest things considered tools, dating back 2.6 million years, and the Late Acheulean hand axe goes back 500,000 years. While it's relatively easy to learn to make an Oldowan flake, the Acheulean hand axe is harder to master, due to its lens-shaped core tapering down to symmetrical edges.  So if you are thinking Stone Age hand axes were simple tools that don't…

When you look at a primate or neanderthal skull and compare it to modern humans, it is immediately noticeable that we have a feature they are missing. In fact, it's missing from all other species: A chin. Why do we? A new study finds that our chins didn't come from mechanical forces such as chewing, but instead results from an evolutionary adaptation involving face size and shape, possibly linked to changes in hormone levels as we became more societally domesticated. If true, it would settle a debate that's gone on for more than a century, and anthropology would have solved it rather than…

African-American women who live in rural areas have lower rates of major depressive disorder (MDD) and mood disorder compared with their urban counterparts, while rural non-Hispanic European-American women have higher rates for both than their urban counterparts, according to a new study. Major depressive disorder is a debilitating mental illness and the prevalence of depression among both African- and Rural-Americans is understudied, according to background in the study. Addie Weaver, Ph.D., of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and coauthors examined the interaction of Urban-American vs…

A new study of 311 childless Danish women initiating assisted reproduction using donor semen finds that single women seeking treatment are no different than cohabiting women seeking treatment when it comes to sociodemographic characteristics or attitudes toward motherhood The authors used baseline data collection in a multicenter cohort study from alll nine public fertility clinics in Denmark to examine sociodemographic characteristics, family backgrounds, reproductive histories, and attitudes towards motherhood in single vs. cohabiting women seeking treatment with donor semen.  For most…

It may be sexist but when more women are on ballots, political parties do better, according to a new paper. Whether or not that is because women will vote for gender over the best candidate is unclear, but it does mean that the belief that people will not vote for women is  not true. The authors analyzed changes on municipal election laws in Spain which instituted a quota for female candidates. With other factors being equal, the scholars found that parties that increased their share of female candidates by 10 percentage points more than their opponents enjoyed a 4.2 percentage-point…

Do you really cherish diversity? Self-identification on that issue tells us little, studies have shown that in America, liberals, for example, who claim to care more about diversity, are far more likely to unfriend people on social media who disagree with their beliefs, while both liberals and conservatives show a large amount of homophily, which makes them more polarized. Perhaps self-identification and surveys tell us little about behavior but at least it can provide a clue, according to a new social psychology paper which finds that people who truly place a higher value on diversity…