Anthropology

The 1918 Flu Pandemic infected over 500 million people and killed up to 50 million.  Scholars have analyzed the pandemic in two remote regions of North America, finding that despite their geographical divide, both regions had environmental, nutritional and economic factors that influenced morbidity during the pandemic. By analyzing death records and community history, they found that both Labrador and Alaska were devastated by the 1918 pandemic. Beginning in January 1918 and lasting through December 1920, both regions experienced higher mortality rates than most other parts of the world…

In 2014, drugs and alcohol are used primarily for pleasure and not to commune with nature or contact the spirit world. In ancient times, opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms were for gifted elites and their use went hand-in-hand with shamanistic belief systems and the sacred burial rituals of pre-industrial societies, according to a recent paper.  Consumption of these substances is clearly ancient - their properties were discovered being someone stuck them in their mouth and things got weird. Yet putting together an anthropology of intoxication is difficult so trying to draw…

The anti-wheat movement is a popular health fad in America and critics of that staple now have a new weapon in their culture war - ditching it makes people more cooperative. And they explain Genghis Khan and Mao. Defenders of wheat have their own ammunition - rice leads to despotism and communism. Cultural psychologists writing in Science claim that they can explain psychological differences between the people of northern and southern China mirror and also the differences between community-oriented East Asia and the more individualistic Western world - southern China has grown rice for…

It's common to perceive Neanderthals as more big-headed primitives and Cro-Magnon as more like us, but we were all primitive cavemen. It takes a biologist to really know the difference. So if you think Neanderthals were stupid and primitive, it's time to think again.   Neanderthals thrived in a large swath of Europe and Asia between about 350,000 and 40,000 years ago. They disappeared after our ancestors, a group referred to as "anatomically modern humans," crossed into Europe from Africa. In the past, some researchers have tried to explain the demise of the Neanderthals by…

Would you sacrifice one person to save five? Psychologists say those moral choices could depend on whether you are using a foreign language or your native tongue. The new paper from the University of Chicago and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona finds that people using a foreign language take a relatively utilitarian approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what's best for the common good. That pattern holds even when the utilitarian choice would produce an emotionally difficult outcome, such as sacrificing one life so others could live.  The researchers…

Scholars say they have created a breakthrough on understanding the demographic history of Stone-Age humans. A genomic analysis of eleven Stone-Age human remains from Scandinavia revealed that expanding Stone-age farmers assimilated local hunter-gatherers and that the hunter-gatherers were historically in lower numbers than the farmers.  The transition between a hunting-gathering lifestyle and a farming lifestyle has been debated for a century. As scientists learned to work with DNA from ancient human material, a complete new way to learn about the people in that period opened up. But…

Dr. Bruna Bezerra from the University of Bristol and colleagues have captured video of a wild male marmoset embracing and caring for his dying partner after she accidentally fell from a tree in the Atlantic Forest in the Northeast of Brazil, the first time that compassionate care-taking behavior towards a dying adult group member has been observed in monkeys. Previously, such behavior was believed to be unique to humans and chimpanzees. When the dominant male marmoset (Callithrix jacchus) noticed the female lying on the forest floor, he immediately went to her, leaving behind two babies he…

We know that around 12,000 years ago, a fundamental thing began to happen all around the world - plants were cultivated and animals were domesticated for transport, food and fiber.  The science of agriculture had been invented, and it changed everything. But beyond that, we still don't know much after all this time. Why is there only evidence of about 5 species of animals being domesticated, out of hundreds that could have been genetically modified then? Why, out of 200,000 species of likely plants were only a dozen or so cultivated and scientifically optimized? For that matter, why aren…

Rhythmic drum patterns with a balance of rhythmic predictability and complexity may influence our desire to dance and enjoy the music, according to a new paper by music scholar Maria Witek from the University of Oxford and colleagues.  Many people find themselves unable to resist moving their bodies to the thumping beat of hip-hop, electronic, or funk music, but may feel less desire to dance when listening to a highly syncopated type of music, like free jazz. Agreed. Jazz and all that spiraling just makes people want to go somewhere with less pretentiousness. The group of music…

We can identify an athletic body by analysis of their skeletons because bones show remarkably rapid adaptation to both the intensity and direction of strains. Put under stress through physical exertion – such as long-distance walking or running – they gain in strength as the fibers are added or redistributed according to where strains are highest.   Because the structure of human bones can inform us about the lifestyles of the individuals they belong to, they can provide valuable clues for biological anthropologists looking at past cultures. Research by Alison Macintosh, a PhD…