• Flexians make it to Huffington Post Book Club selection
The HuffPost pick is cultural anthropologist Janine Wedel’s Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market: “It’s a gripping, disquieting book that exposes and explains why it’s so hard to bring about any real change in our country.” Wedel dubs the shadow elite “flexians” for their ability to survive and have influence no matter who is in the White House.

• Pulling a Tocqueville: review of The Cracked Bell
A reviewer for the HuntingtonNews gives two thumbs-up to Tristram Riley-Smith’s new book about America, The Cracked Bell: America and the Afflictions of Liberty: “With lively, insightful commentary, careful research, and illuminating personal anecdotes, Riley-Smith uses images like the cracked liberty bell…to explain where things went wrong, and how we can make them right.” Riley-Smith, who has a doctorate in anthropology, spent three years at the British Embassy in Washington, DC, and is now working in Whitehall.

• Possible 9/11 victims in landfill
Anthropologists and other experts are studying what may be human remains from the 9/11 attack in Manhattan found in the massive Fresh Kills landfill located on Staten Island. About 30 anthropologists and archaeologists are sifting through sections of the landfill to search for remains of the more than 1,000 victims who have not been identified.

• The embrace of Sufism
Pnina Werbner, professor of social anthropology at the Keele University, UK, delivered the keynote address at the 5th Annual Humanities and Social Sciences Conference 2010 at Lahore University, Pakistan. The topic of the conference was “Cultural Practices and Religion.” Werbner noted that Sufi pilgrimages and festivals are distinct for their openness to people of different social classes and to women as well as men.

• Rethinking Patagonia
A new study of the indigenous peoples of Patagonia combines data from archaeology, cultural anthropology, and ethno-history to document the complexity of pre-contact society and the 100 years of resistance to outsiders. Juan A. Barceló, archaeologist and lead researcher, is with the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Findings are reported in Arctic Anthropology.

• Paleo wow leads to paleo war
When the discovery of 1.9 million year-old pre-human fossils in a cave in Malapa, South Africa, were announced, a media frenzy (on an anthropological scale) ensued. The remains are the partial skeletons of a boy aged 11-12 years and a woman. They were discovered by the son of Lee Berger, a palaeontologist at the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa. The skeletons reveal a mosaic of traits that do not allow it to be placed neatly within the Australopithecines or Homo. Berger claims it is a new species; others disagree. While the jury is still out, many media sources have jumped on the “new species” bandwagon, including the Economist. Don’t they know how serious it is to declare a new species? Many paleontologists/paleoanthropologists have been mentioned or quoted in the media: Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London, Rick Potts of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Don Johanson of Arizona State University, William Kimbel of Arizona State University, Tim White of the University of California at Berkeley, Bernard Wood of the George Washington University, Bill Jungers of Stony Brook University, and Peter Brown of the University of New England in Australia, and no doubt several others I have missed. To get up-close and personal, go to the BBC news site for a brief video showing interviews with Berger and his son, on location.

• You can get what you want
Many families in the United Kingdom with sons but no daughters increasingly seek high-tech services to ensure that they have a daughter.  An article in the Guardian profiles two English families with multiple sons who went abroad and paid substantial amounts of money to have a daughter.  The most frequent destination is the United States where sex selection is legal in every state  (sex selection is not legal in the UK).  A doctor at one US clinic reports that “business has gone wild.” Will the UK sex ratio start to tip toward more males than females? Probably not soon, since studies indicate that most UK families desire a balanced number of sons and daughter, or even more girls. So why do so many British people spend around $40,000 for a process called Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (in which the mother is implanted with a fertilized ovum of the desired gender)? A researcher (un-named) in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Guelph, Canada, is studying parents’ desires to have a child of a particular gender. These  desires and the severe disappointment related to failure, are called Gender Disappointment (GD) or Extreme Gender Disappointment (EGD). GD and EGD are characterized by feelings of  sadness, guilt, and desperation especially among women.

• User anthropology
An article in the New York Times Magazine entitled “Can Cellphones End Global Poverty?” profiled British researcher Jan Chipchase for his role in promoting “user anthropology.” Employed by Nokia and trained as a designer, Chipchase travels the world, along with teams of social scientists including cultural anthropologists, to learning about human behavior. The goal is to inform the company about how to design products, from software to laptops and cellphones, that respond to people’s on-the-ground needs and preferences.

• Dangerous women in Chechnya
An undergraduate student at the University of Chicago majoring in anthropology co-authored an op-ed in the New York Times on Chechen women suicide bombers. Along with others involved in the Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism, she analyzed every Chechen suicide attack since they began in 2000. Twenty-four Chechen women have carried out suicide attacks, constituting forty percent of the total number of suicide attackers.  The women’ s motives appear to derive from their experiences with Russian troops, particularly as widows of men who have been killed. Recommendations include holding fair elections, adopting international standards of humane conduct among security forces, and equitable distribution of oil revenues so the Muslims benefit.

• Women the stronger sex
Two animal researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that men have weaker immune systems than women. They use evolutionary models to explain why: men had to compete for females so they put their energies into that pursuit, leaving their bodies less able to fight off infections.  David Begun, professor anthropology at the University of Toronto, offers a different explanation for women’s superior immune defenses: they developed this capacity in their role as primary child care-givers. Constant exposure to viruses from children may have, he suggests, helped women develop the ability to fight them off.

• Not a friendly takeover
Human skeletons unearthed in Peru tell a tale of death by the Spanish conquerors that involves guns, steel lances or hammers, and possibly light cannons. Melissa Murphy of the University of Wyoming is leading the research team. They analyzed 258 adult Inca skeletons from a burial ground. “The nature and patterns of these skeletal injuries were unlike anything colleagues and I had seen before,” she comments. Findings are published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

• Maya ruins okay after concert stage collapses
A prominent item in the mainstream media this week was about Chichen Itza, a 1200 year-old Maya site in Mexico and the scene of a concert by Sir Elton John. Following the collapse of the under-construction stage, a spokesman for Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and Archaeology reported that the ruins had not been damaged.  Three workers were injured.

• Angkor collapses due to climate change
A prolonged drought, interspersed with intense monsoons, led to the demise of the city of Angkor in Cambodia during the 15th century. Decades of drought strained its ability to survive. Occasional but massive monsoons flooded the city’s irrigation system with mud and debris, making it difficult for the nearly one million residents to obtain water. A study by a team of US and Asian researchers, sponsored by the US National Science Foundation, has used the method of tree-ring dating to demonstrate these trends over many years. Michael D. Coe, emeritus professor of anthropology at Yale University and noted archaeologist, comments “…that is the exact scenario for the city’s collapse.” Findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

• RFPs and deliverables in Haiti’s reconstruction
Mark Schuller zings the “blan developman” (foreign development experts) and “blan ONG” (NGO foreigners) for being part of a “ritual of rubber stamping a rushed, foreign-led, top-down process ” for Haiti’s rebuilding. In contrast, he praises the work of a partnership of universities, called INURED, in Cité Soleil. Schuller is assistant professor of African American Studies and Anthropology in York College, CUNY, in New York City.

• Nokia calling anthropologists
Cultural anthropologists contribute expertise to the world’s largest cell phone manufacturer, Finland’s Nokia, as members of multi-disciplinary design teams. They provide data about consumer preferences and usage patterns. The teams are based in China, Europe, and the United States.

• Political anthropology offers insights into Thailand’s “red shirts”
In contrast to widespread impressions, “red-shirt protestors” are mostly middle class and are “emerging active citizens” argues Yukti Mukdawijitra, anthropology lecturer at Thammasat University, Thailand. He says that they are agitating for negotiation and peace.

• Market women’s life stories in Ghana connect to global issues
Africa News carried a review of Gracia Clark’s new book, African Market Women: Seven Life Stories from Ghana. Clark is associate professor of anthropology at Indiana University. Jean Allman, of Washington University, comments in the review that the book provides insight into “globalization, gender and economic security, economic decline, structural adjustment, changes in family structure, urbanization, environmental degradation, new forms of spirituality, transnational migration, and the politics of memory.”

• Becoming an atheist in the Amazon
Radio NZ carried an interview with linguist/cultural anthropologist Daniel Everett about his recent book, Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes in which, among other topics, he describes how the thinking of the Pirahã Indians of the Brazilian Amazon caused him to abandon Christianity and become an atheist.

• World’s most famous finger
The media darling of the past week is an ancient little finger from a child, maybe 5-7 years old, gender unknown, who lived between 30,000-48,000 years ago. Found in a cave in Siberia, the finger’s DNA profile matches neither Neanderthals nor modern humans, indicating the possibility of a distinct stream out humans coming out of Africa sometime between Homo erectus and the Neanderthals. Biological anthropologist Svante Pääbo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and leader of the research team, says: “This absolutely amazing.” Findings are published in Nature.

• Hoping for hope in Babylon
Ground water is now pinpointed as the most immediate threat to preserving the ruins of Babylon. The international Future of Babylon project is documenting water damage and will develop a master plan for preservation of the ancient city. An initial grant of $700,000 from the United States Department of State is financing the initial two-year study and preliminary management plan. The entire effort could take 5-6 years. As noted in an earlier post on Babylon, the financial commitment from the United States appears paltry given the damage inflicted during the military occupation of the site.

• In memoriam: Robert E. Rhoades
A founder of agricultural anthropology, Robert E. Rhoades died at age 68 on March 24. Rhoades was professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia and served two terms as department chair. In addition to his academic publications, he wrote regularly for National Geographic. In 1991 he won the National Science Writers Award for a National Geographic article about the world’s food supply and biodiversity.

• Yanomami blood rights and wrongs
Blood samples collected by American researchers in the 1960s from the Yanomami Indians of Venezuela are still in a lab at Penn State University. The Yanomami want their blood back. They believe that the dead cannot pass into the spiritual world until all traces of their physical existence, including their blood, are destroyed. The situation is complicated: Yanomami blood samples were also distributed to the University of California at Irvine and the National Cancer Institute, and the blood may contain viruses, so shipping the blood requires extreme care. Fabio Federico, spokesperson for the Brazilian Embassy in Washington, says that “legal procedures and political issues” have delayed the process of returning the blood. Rob Borofsky, professor of anthropology at Hawai’i Pacific University and director of the Center for a Public Anthropology, has blogged about the situation, urging students to write letters to universities, politicians, and the news media supporting the return of the samples.

• American Indians in Providence, RI, protest new board game
On Saturday, American Indians took to the streets of Providence to demand that a new board game called “King Phillip’s War” be scrapped. More than 5,000 people died in the 17th century battle, most of them Indians. Professor Julianne Jennings of the department of anthropology at Rhode Island College and a member of the Nottoway Cheroenhaka Tribe, spoke at a gathering by the waterfront where Indian prisoners were shipped to the West Indies as slaves. She urged educators to include more Indian history in their textbooks, noting that “There are still people who believe the East Coast Indians no longer exist.”

• Hail to the chef: The Obamas’ personal favorite
Rick Bayless, proponent of Mexican cooking and sustainable farming, is the Obamas’ favorite chef. Hailing from Oklahoma, Bayless did doctoral studies in linguistic anthropology at the University of Michigan before pursuing his dream of learning about Mexican cooking on location. “From the moment I stepped foot there I felt like I was home.  It was the vitality, the street life.” In 1980, he decided to take time off from his doctoral studies. He never went back. Nonetheless, it’s likely that Bayless’ study of anthropology has helped him become such a well-informed expert on Mexican traditional cooking.

• Big shoes to fill
William Safire, legendary columnist for the New York Times for more than 30 years, died in September. He has been replaced by Ben Zimmer. Zimmer studied linguistic anthropology at the University of Chicago and is a consultant for the Oxford English Dictionary. Blogger’s query: Is there something in the water this week re: linguistic anthropology?

• Historical forces shape cooperation
Cultural anthropologist Richard McElreath of the University of California at Davis is a member of a multidisciplinary research team that has been studying why, in large-scale societies, strangers are altruistic. Their findings, published in Science, indicate that “small and large communities regulate cooperation… in different ways because different mechanisms of monitoring and enforcement of norms work better at different scales of society.”

• Talking mummies
China claims that Xinjiang’s western desert is a longstanding part of “China.” Therefore, it can quash separatist movements in the region. The Tarim mummies, excavated in a site in Xinjiang, tell a different origin story. Their phenotypic features (long noses, high cheekbones) connect them with the central Asian Uyghurs, not with the mainstream Chinese populations. Blogger’s note: there is oil in the western desert as well as contested mummies.

• Who let the dogs in?
A few months ago, China had the hold on this innovation. Before that, Russia/Eastern Europe was in for the prize. A new DNA study, led by Bridgett vonHoldt and Robert Wayne of the University of California at Los Angeles makes them both losers, at least for now, by demonstrating that dogs were first domesticated in the Middle East.

• Read my footprints
A study published in PLoS ONE compares modern human footprints with those preserved at Laetoli, Tanzania, which are 4.4 million years old. David Raichlen, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, says that “…the Laetoli footprints fall completely within the range of normal human footprints…[with] heel and toe depths that are relatively equal.”

• Us: a new exhibit
Several mainstream media covered the opening of the new exhibit, “What Does It Mean to Be Human” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, DC. Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, director of the Smithsonian’s Human Origins Program, explains the two parallel narratives of the exhibit as being, first, “What does it mean to be human?” and second “Why does it matter?”

• Pre-Hobbits
The discovery of stone tools on the island of Flores, homeland of the “Hobbits” (Homo floresiensis) pushes back the arrival of early humans there to at least one million years ago and may help explain known animal extinctions on the island. Findings are published in Nature.

• Ethnography of sexual violence in Peru inspires award-winning documentary
Kimberly Theidon, associate professor of cultural anthropology at Harvard University, is an expert on violence in Peru and especially sexual violence against women. Her book of essays on the subject, Entre Prójimos, is the source of inspiration for the documentary, The Milk of Sorrow. It has already won the Berlin International Film Festival’s highest prize, the Golden Bear, and was nominated for Best Foreign Language Picture at this year’s Academy Awards. Theidon had no idea that her work was the basis for the film until friends started emailing her to convey their congratulations. While she was not consulted during the production of the film, she has no complaints about it and is considering a trip to Los Angeles for the Oscar party.

• President Obama’s mother recognized for work in economic anthropology
Stanley Ann Dunham, President Obama’s late mother, will receive an award from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta in honor of “her tireless efforts in the field of economic anthropology.” Her dissertation, recently published in the U.S., is about microfinance and small crafts businesses in central Java. The award will be presented in October at a conference called “Local Wisdom, Global Solutions” where keynote speakers are expected to be Al Gore and Muhammud Yunus.

• Update on Haitians in Little Miami
An article in the Miami Herald describes the effects of Haiti’s earthquake tragedy on members of the diaspora in Little Miami. The economic downturn in the U.S. is making it extremely difficult to send money to family members in Haiti, and so they have to respond to phone calls from Haiti asking for help by replying that they have little to offer.  Members of the Haitian diaspora also have to deal with the grief caused by the deaths and injuries of loved ones.  Many also face the daily worry of being undocumented. The question of how many Haitians lives in the U.S. is difficult to answer because so many lack documentation, and they don’t show up in census counts. Cultural anthropologist Bryan Page, chair of the anthropology department at the University of Miami, says: “If you have a really dodgy immigration status, you’re not going to be very receptive to people showing up with their clipboards and asking questions.”

• Forensic anthropology in Haiti
The U.S. is deploying multidisciplinary teams to Haiti to identify the 100 or more Americans who died in the earthquake. The American teams are called DMORTs: Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Teams. Forensic anthropologist Dana Kollman, professor at Towson University, will be studying bones excavated from the ruins along with other team members at a portable morgue at the Port-au-Prince airport.

• Forensic anthropology in Guatemala
Nearly a quarter of a million people, mostly Maya Indians, disappeared during the 36-year civil war in Guatemala. In the latest attempt to identify victims, the exhumation of  a burial site with perhaps 899 bodies has been launched. It may take a year for the DNA testings to be completed.

Continue reading “Anthro in the news 3/1/10” →

• 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.

• This may not work for everyone
A New York Times article in the Sunday Valentine Day’s edition collates advice (heterosexistly) for men about how to “step up their game” including the possibility of hiring a “pick-up coach” for tips on how to flirt. One coach says that laughter is vital–“it says we’re on the same page.” Biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, research professor at Rutgers University, chimes in with her advice that when you are around people who are funny and charming you tend to be more attracted to them. Hm. I am sure she has more to offer than that in her book, Why Him? Why Her? How to Find and Keep Lasting Love.

• No sex please we’re married
Yoshie Moriki, associate professor of anthropology at International Christian University in Tokyo, spoke about “Sexless Marriage in Japan” at a Conference in Bangkok. She reported that when 2,500 Japanese were asked how often they had sex with their spouses in the previous 12 months, one-fifth said “Never.” The Nation (Bangkok) quoted Moriki as saying that “We need to seriously consider the underlying meanings of marriage and sexuality…”

• Paul Farmer re Bill Clinton re Haiti
In an article about President Clinton’s hospitalization in the Washington Post, Paul Farmer said that Clinton has been working “pretty nonstop” since the earthquake and that “He’s been putting heart and soul into Haiti…Everybody who’s been working with him knows how hard he’s been working on Haiti…He’s been inspiring all of us.” Farmer is a cultural anthropologist and medical doctor based at Harvard University, co-founder of Partners in Health, and deputy United Nations envoy to Haiti.

• Selling culture
Ethno-theme parks and Native American casinos are  examples of how ethnic identity has become a commodity in today’s global market place. John and Jean Comaroff, professors of cultural anthropology at the University of Chicago, explore how communities sell their traditional culture in their new book, Ethnicity Inc. They tell Laurie Taylor of BBC4 about how selling your cultural identity can be both empowering and impoverishing.

• Aspergers is autism
Richard Grinker, professor of cultural anthropology at George Washington University hails the impending merger of Asperger’s disorder within the range of autism as a good thing. The new version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, prepared by the American Psychiatric Association, will no longer provide a separate category for Asperger’s disorder.

• Out of Siberia
As described in several media sources, DNA analysis of 4,000 year-old human hair found in Greenland indicates a link with the Chukchis who live in eastern Siberia. The hair belonged to a man, nicknamed Inuk, meaning “human” in Greenlandic. Inuk’s ancestors split from Chukchis 5,500 years ago and may have traveled across the northern edges of North America until they reached Greenland. The 52 person team of researchers is led by evolutionary biologist Eske Willerslev and PhD student Morten Rasmussen of the University of Copenhagen. They decoded the genome from four tufts of hair excavated in 1986 and kept in a plastic bag in the National Museum of Denmark. The hair was found at a site in eastern Greenland with other waste and may have been tossed aside after a haircut. The findings are published in Nature.

• Make mine rare
Discovery News picked up on the possibility of an ancient origin for steak dinners based on the finding of a million-year-old cattle skull in Eritrea associated with early human remains. Paleontologist Bienvenido Martinez-Navarro of the Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, reports on  the findings in Quaternary International.

• Stepping on more than toes
Plans to build a the so-called Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem have run into opposition because the proposed site is that of the ancient Muslim cemetery of Mamilla. While the tombs are crumbling, they still have meaning for Arab families in Jerusalem. Several solutions have been proposed including building around the tombs and erecting a platform and glass barriers.

• Son of an anthropologist, President Obama also a yuppie
According to an article in the New Republic, one factor contributing to President Barack Obama’s inability to connect with the working class is that he comes from a family of professionals, including his mother who was a cultural anthropologist. So is the Bush family one of the working or unemployed poor?

• Death in the Andamans
Boa Sr, who was around 85 years old, died last week in the Andaman Islands, India. Many media sources have noted her death. She was one of the few remaining members of the so-called “Great Andaman” tribes, or those groups of foragers who occupied the island of Great Andaman at the time of the British colonial occupation. Due to the British presence, the Great Andamanese were decimated and only a few dozen descendants remain today. They are sequestered on a reservation. CNN World has a video clip showing Boa Sr when she was still alive. The CNN site also offers a string of mostly insulting commentary from over 700 people. In a BBC piece, Anvita Abbi, professor of linguistics at Jawaharlal University in New Delhi, says that India has lost an irreplaceable part of its heritage because one of the world’s oldest languages, called Bo, has come to an end.

This blogger raises three points: the Andaman Islands belong to India as an accident of British imperialist history and so Bo is not really part of “India’s heritage”; India has done little to protect the remaining indigenous islanders but instead allows rampant “development” including the ongoing take-over of traditional territory of the foragers and road construction; a language with only one speaker is not a language at all–the death bell tolled for the Bo language around the time when anthropologist Radcliffe-Brown was on Great Andaman doing “salvage anthropology” in the early 20th century. The story of Boa Sr’s death, like that of so many other indigenous peoples whose livelihoods have been destroyed by rapacious outsiders, is more than just about the end of the Bo language. It’s about a whole way of life that is gone. The only remaining Andaman peoples with any hope for cultural survival are those who live on North Sentinel Island. They are protected, to some degree, by rough waters that make it difficult to land, and to their practice of shooting arrows with high accuracy at anyone who tries to land. The Indian government should cease efforts to “contact” the so-called Sentinelese by boat and lure them with “gifts” sent ashore, and should stop flying over the island for surveillance as such actions undoubtedly cause stress to the people. Let them be. Their undisturbed survival would be a true triumph for Andamanese “heritage.” See an upcoming post on this blog for a profile on the people of the Andamans.

• Death and restless spirits in Haiti
The death toll from the January earthquake is said to be around 200,000. About 150,000 bodies have been found and buried, many in mass graves around Port-au-Prince. USA Today quotes Karen Richman, professor of anthropology at Notre Dame University, as saying that the spiritual and psychological effects of these graves will linger given the cultural importance that Haitians attach to a proper funeral: In Haiti, “You need to communicate with the ancestors to reach these spirits…You need to know they have been respected.” If they are not respected the spirits will return to trouble the living. Mass graves are disrepectful. Richman predicts, however, that Haitians will find “creative, adaptive new rituals in a drive to make meaning” even if just by constructing a monument over a mass grave.

• The taming of the turkey
DNA analysis of turkey bones and coprolites reveal that turkeys were domesticated in two areas: Mesoamerica and the Southwestern United States. Both strains are now extinct and turkeys eaten today are descended from the Mesoamerican domesticates via Europe thanks to Spanish conquerors and then back to North America. Archaeologist Jonathan C. Driver of Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada, comments that the findings “have really helped clarify some of the questions archaeologists have been wondering about for a long time.” For details see the report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

• We have found a shrubbery
A detailed archaeological survey of the Stonehenge landscape reveals the presence about 4,000 years ago of two circular hedges surrounding the monument. Of course, no one knows why the hedges might have been constructed but that doesn’t prevent guesswork: to serve as screens to prevent the crowds from elite ceremonies.