Anthropology

A universal approach to helping people who witnessed or experience genocide may be misguided, says an anthropologist. The experience of genocide as transmitted trauma may not be universal but in the fields of human rights and memory studies, giving testimony about one's personal experience of genocide is believed to be both a moral duty and a psychological imperative for the wellbeing of the individual and the persecuted group to which they belong. The coping strategies for victims of genocide tend to be uniform: tell your story and do not let the violence you suffered be forgotten. What…

Women scientists in primatology are poorly represented at symposia organized by men, but receive equal representation when symposia organizers are women or mixed groups, according to an analysis published in PLOS ONE.  The authors examined female participation at major scientific conferences for primate scientists and anthropologists, where symposia are largely by invitation but posters and other talks are initiated by participants. They found that within the field of primatology, women give more posters than talks, whereas men give more talks than posters. Their analysis also shows that…

In 1428 AD, while King Alfonso V was ordering Sicilian Jews into conversion sermons and the Ottomans were consolidating in Europe, the city-states of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan formed the Triple Alliance, which became the Aztec empire and ruled the Valley of Mexico until the Spaniards arrived a century later.  The term 'Aztec' has become a little confusing since then. There were no 'Aztec' people, the people of Mexico primarily made up what were later called Aztecs, and the Aztecs were made up of many cultures, they were just dominated by conquering city-states.…

Serial killers and recidivist criminals of all kinds lack empathy.  So do some people with poor social skills. A compassion-based meditation program called Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT) was recently used to try and improve the ability to read the facial expressions of others.  They looked at functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans of brain activity and say the changes were indicative of boosts in empathic accuracy. Although derived from ancient Tibetan Buddhist practices, the CBCT program is secular in content and presentation, according…

A skull fragment unearthed in Tanzania verifies that our ancient ancestors were eating meat at least 1,500,000 years ago and that can tell us something about the evolution of human physiology and brain development and why we wouldn't be where we are if there was a Prehistoric PETA. The two-inch skull fragment was found at the famed Olduvai Gorge in northern Tanzania, a site that for decades has yielded numerous clues into the evolution of modern humans and is sometimes called `the cradle of mankind.' The fragment belonged to a 2-year-old child and showed signs of porotic hyperostosis…

Children's television is 'problematic', according to a new paper in the Journal of Communication. While there is no physical bullying in these shows, what the authors consider an 'alarming' amount contain behaviors like cruel gossiping and manipulation of friendship.  There aren't many ways for shows to be funny in 2012, it seems. Nicole Martins of Indiana University and Barbara J. Wilson, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, published their analysis of the 50 most popular children's shows. 150 television shows were viewed and analyzed and they found that 92% of the…

Dentistry has been around for almost long as people have had teeth go bad but evidence for dentistry is another matter entirely. We don't pull off an arm when it is sore so the first human to figure out that pulling something attached to the skull would help keep people alive was taking nearly as big a chance as the first patient. Ancient evidence of prehistoric dentistry has been discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Pakistan and other findings in a Neolithic graveyard near Parma have detailed creative tooth work. An artificial tooth from the cemetery of Gebel Ramlah, Egypt, dates back…

In a long-term marriage,  men tend to drink less than they did while single. That's good.  But women drink more, say sociologists.  The results are based on surveys and interviews, so calibrate your science expectations accordingly, but the idea that married men consume the lowest number of drinks (versus single, divorced and widowed men) leads to a few questions: Do men drink less because their wives nag them? Do men drink less because their wives get to the good booze first? Neither.  Married women drink more than they did while single but still less than men so…

British women no longer feel inferior next to sassy siren Spaniards or chic French women. They are taller - in heels, anyway. Brits sport a towering 3.3 inch heel on average.  3,792 women across five European countries (France, Germany, Spain, Denmark and the UK) were questioned in a survey by footcare company COMPEED.  Spanish women were second at an average 3.2 inches, the Danish were at 3, Germans at 2.7 and French women at 2.4 inches. 25% of British women said that they often wear heels over 4 inches and 3% are adding on 6 inches of height.   British women wear the…

Modern feminists pooh-pooh their ancestors and assume because they didn't dress in bulky pantsuits, women were somehow meek and timid. Not at all. A three-year study of the manuscripts compiled and written by one of Britain’s earliest known feminist figures, Lady Anne Clifford, shows that women challenged male authority plenty in the 17th century.  Basically, women of the Renaissance were not one-dimensional stereotypes, and neither were men - for allowing it. Clifford’s 600,000-word "Great Books of Record" documents the family dynasty over six centuries and her bitter battle to…