• LSE anthropologist wins Victor Turner Award
Dr. Matthew Engelke, a senior lecturer (professor) in the Department of Anthropology of the London School of Economics, has won the 2009 Victor Turner Prize for his book, A Problem of Presence: Beyond Scripture in an African Church, an historical ethnography based on research in Zimbabwe. The Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing was established in 2001 by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. Dr. Engelke will receive the prize and read from his book at the American Anthropological Association meetings in Philadelphia on December 4.
• Increase in flatheadedness in the US
A study conducted for an undergraduate honors project by an anthropology major at Arizona State University, Jessica Joganic, has developed into a major research project on head shape of more than 20,000 children in the United States. The rate of “flatheadness,” or deformational plagiocephaly, has increased since 1992, and boys are twice as likely to be flatheaded than girls. Sleep position, specifically head position, was the best predictor of flatheadedness. The increase in flatheadedness coincides with the launch of the “Back to Sleep” education campaign by the American Academy of Pediatrics recommending that parents place their infants on their backs to sleep to reduce the risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Joganic, now a doctoral student in physical anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, is the lead author of an article reporting the findings that will appear in the December issue of Pediatrics.
Note: This blogger did a little Internet research on the consequences of deformational plagiocephaly but couldn’t find any evidence of developmental problems related to cognition or speech, for example, but mention only of “cosmetic” issues. The aesthetics of head shape in Western culture connects with prehistoric cranial deformation including widespread practice among the Incas.
• Hobbits are us
Statistical analysis of a well-preserved female skeleton, “Flo” or LB1, carried out by researchers at Stony Brook University, New York, indicates that Homo floresiensis is a distinct human species and not a descendant of a genetically flawed version of modern humans. Details appear in the December issue of Significance.
• Expensive pig roast but for a good cause?
Under funding from a $300,000 grant from the National Institute of Justice, faculty and students from Mercyhurst College are analyzing the remains of a house in Washington County, Pennsylvania, that was intentionally burned down along with two euthanized pigs, knives, guns, and shell casings that were placed inside it. Ten students in the Forensic and Biological Anthropology MA program are gathering evidence from the rubble as part of their training and to test how archaeological methods can improve arson investigations. Three such mock investigations have been completed, and seven more are planned. The National Institute of Justice will use the findings to develop standards for investigating devastating fires involving human remains.
• Dell Hymes, linguistic anthropologist and giant in his field
Dell Hymes passed away at age 82. Dr. Hymes grew up in Portland, Oregon, where he attended Reed College. He conducted his first field research at Warm Springs reservation in Oregon and established a lifelong relationship with the Wasco and other tribes in the Pacific Northwest. His doctorate, in linguistics from Indiana University, was on the language of the Kathlamet Chinook. He taught at Harvard University, the University of California Berkeley, and then joined the University of Pennsylvania in 1965 as professor of anthropology. During the 1960s he helped establish sociologinguistics, the study of how social class affects language. Hymes was committed to social justice and the relevance of anthropology to addressing social inequality. Along with other Penn professors, he protested the Vietnam War. In 1987, he left Penn to become professor of anthropology and English at the University of Virginia, teaching there until his retirement in 1998. His books include In Vain I Tried to Tell You : Essays in Native American Ethnopoetics, and Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach. Deborah Tannen, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, calls Hymes a “giant” in both anthropology and linguistics. A memorial gathering for him will be held at the upcoming meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Philadelphia, on Saturday, December 5, from 7:30-9:30pm in the ballroom of the Courtyard Marriott, 21 N. Juniper Street.
anthropologyworks 