Anthro in the news 2/22/10

• Stop disaster capitalism in Haiti
Cultural anthropologist Mark Schuller published an update in the Huffington Post on the earthquake damage in Haiti. An assistant professor of African-American Studies and anthropology at York College, the City University of New York, Schuller recently returned from a trip there. He embroiders the often-cited statement that Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere with this vivid detail: Haiti also has the most millionaires per capita. He concludes by saying: “If anyone harbors plans to profit — call it disaster capitalism — please stop, if nothing else out of respect for the survivors and the thousands of dead whose bodies are still rotting beneath the rubble.”

• Trust me, I’m a policy-maker
The Na’vi chose war over trust. But the most pressing global issues of today, global climate change and the wide abyss between rich and poor countries, will not be changed by war argues cultural anthropologist Stephen Scharper in his op-ed in the Toronto Star: “They require, rather, greater trust and credibility on the part of more developed nations such as the U.S. and Canada.” Scharper is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. In his op-ed, he points to the lack of trust that impeded the achievement of a legally binding accord at the UN Copenhagen Summit. Arguing that trust is a cultural value inculcated in social life, he provides the popular example of a cultural “trust-deficit” among the now-famous fictional Na’vi people who resorted to the default solution of a “just war.” Blogger’s note: in case you didn’t realize it, James Cameron, the writer and director of Avatar, is a now-famous Canadian.

• Expulsion of non-native peoples from Mohawk land
Twenty-five non-native residents of Kahnawake, located on the St. Lawrence River near Montreal, are to be expelled by the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake. Matthieu Sossoyan, who teaches anthropology at Vanier College, is an expert on the historical context of non-native expulsion from the region for reasons such as “poisoning” the Iroqouis “with rum and spirituous liquors.” In his op-ed in the Gazette, Sossoyan documents the long and complex history of white settlement in Kahnawake, the easternmost region of the former Iroquois confederacy.

• And now, for something completely different: take a hike
Kevin Short is a cultural anthropology professor at Tokyo University of Information Sciences and a naturalist. It is the latter area of expertise that informs his op-ed in the Daily Yomiuri. To mark the beginning of the traditional Asian New Year, he put aside his writing and sketching and took a hike into the southern Kanto uplands. His current passion is winter buds, especially those of the horse-chestnut tree and kudzu vines: “Small children especially love the kudzu’s winter buds. Each one shows a slightly different smiling face. This year I was thrilled to find one that looks just like a skull!”

• The life and death of King Tut
The hot news item of the week was undoubtedly King Tut. His DNA was mapped, his kinship relationships revealed, his health problems exposed, and the likely cause of his early death named. A series of papers in the Journal of the American Medical Association explores all these topics and more. Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, provides a view into the paleo-forensic investigations of King Tut’s mummy in a two-part Discovery channel program airing February 21 and 22. Preview tidbits: King Tut’s parents were siblings and malaria contributed to his death.

• Cruise Med: very ancient mariners
Archaeologists have found stone hand axes on the island of Crete that are at least 130,000 years old and could be 700,000 years old. The research team is led by Thomas Strasser, associate professor of art history at Providence College and Eleni Panagopoulou of the Greek Ministry of Culture. Curtis Runnels, an archaeologist at Boston University and member of the team, is quoted in the New York Times as saying that his analysis of the site, and that of the geologists, “left not much doubt of the age of the site, and the tools must be much older.” Ofer Bar-Yosef, an archaeologist and professor at Harvard University, is waiting for further dating information. Strasser comments on how the ancient mariners may have reached Crete: “We can’t say the toolmakers came from 200 miles from Libya…If you’re on a raft, that’s a long voyage, but they may have come from the European mainland by way of shorter crossings through Greek islands.” Research suggests they may have had more reliable means of transportation than rafts. Blogger’s note: evidence indicates that Homo erectus reached Java 1.8 million years ago, but there was a land bridge at the time. More controversial findings suggest that Homo floresiensis (also known as the “Hobbits”) reached the island of Flores, in what is now Indonesia, 800,000 years ago. The Hobbits could not have walked to Flores: they were little creatures with big ideas and boats. [Thanks to my colleague Alison Brooks for verifying the accuracy of my comments here; she is an expert on Old World archaeology and is featured in Alan Alda’s series, The Human Spark].

• Lost civilization found in Ghana
The discovery of 80 clay figurines from burial mounds in northern Ghana signals the existence of a significant civilization. The figurines, of human and animal figures, are between 800-1,400 years old. A 20 square mile area contains hundreds of burial mounds. The research team combines archaeologists from the University of Ghana and Manchester University. The Independent quotes Ghana’s Dr. Benjamin Kankpeyeng: “The relative position of the figurines surrounded by human skulls means that the mounds were the location of an ancient shrine.” Tim Insoll, professor of archaeology at Manchester University, comments: “These finds will help fill a significant gap in our scant knowledge of the period before the Islamic empires developed in West Africa.” Illegal excavations are already threatening the site.

• Death of Albert Dekin, Jr.
Albert Dekin, Jr., retired associate professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, died unexpectedly on January 28. His primary interests were in Arctic peoples, and he conducted research in Alaska including assessment of the archaeological damage caused by the 1993 Exxon Valdez oil spill.