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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Quantifying Surplus And Sustainability In The Archaeological Record At The Carthaginian-Roman Urban Mound Of Zita, Tripolitania, Brett Kaufman, Hans Barnard, Ali Drine, Rayed Khedher, Alan Farahani, Sami Ben Tahar, Elyssa Jerray, Brian N. Damiata, Megan Daniels, Jessica Cerezo-Román, Thomas Fenn, Victoria Moses Jul 2021

Quantifying Surplus And Sustainability In The Archaeological Record At The Carthaginian-Roman Urban Mound Of Zita, Tripolitania, Brett Kaufman, Hans Barnard, Ali Drine, Rayed Khedher, Alan Farahani, Sami Ben Tahar, Elyssa Jerray, Brian N. Damiata, Megan Daniels, Jessica Cerezo-Román, Thomas Fenn, Victoria Moses

Anthropology Faculty Research

Cultural ecological theory is applied to a spatially and temporally bounded archaeological data set to document long-term paleoeco-logical processes and associated sociopolitical behaviors. Volumetric excavations, treating the material culture of an archaeological matrix similar to an ecological core, can yield quantifiable frequencies of surplus goods that provide a multiproxy empirical lens into incremental changes in land use practices, natural resource consumption, and, in this case, likely overexploitation. Archaeological methods are employed to quantify cultural ecological processes of natural resource exploitation, industrial intensification, sustainability and scarcity, and settlement collapse during the colonial transition between Carthaginian and Roman North Africa. The data …


The Life History Of Learning Subsistence Skills Among Hadza And Bayaka Foragers From Tanzania And The Republic Of Congo, Sheina Lew-Levy, Erik J. Ringen, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Ibrahim A. Mabulla, Tanya Broesch, Michelle A. Kline May 2021

The Life History Of Learning Subsistence Skills Among Hadza And Bayaka Foragers From Tanzania And The Republic Of Congo, Sheina Lew-Levy, Erik J. Ringen, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Ibrahim A. Mabulla, Tanya Broesch, Michelle A. Kline

Anthropology Faculty Research

Aspects of human life history and cognition, such as our long childhoods and extensive use of teaching, theoretically evolved to facilitate the acquisition of complex tasks. The present paper empirically examines the relationship between subsistence task difficulty and age of acquisition, rates of teaching, and rates of oblique transmission among Hadza and BaYaka foragers from Tanzania and the Republic of Congo. We further examine cross-cultural variation in how and from whom learning occurred. Learning patterns and community perceptions of task difficulty were assessed through interviews. We found no relationship between task difficulty, age of acquisition, and oblique transmission, and a …


Violence And Masculinity In Small-Scale Societies, Debra L. Martin Jan 2021

Violence And Masculinity In Small-Scale Societies, Debra L. Martin

Anthropology Faculty Research

© 2021 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. Archaeological and ethnographic accounts of violence in small-scale societies represent a baseline for thinking about the ways that violence and masculinity originated and evolved, becoming entwined social processes. Male violence (lethal and nonlethal) is expressed in diverse and complex ways because it is associated with social spheres of power and influence, and it is embedded within ideologies, histories, and collective memories. Applying anthropological research on violence as a generative and transformational social process demonstrates how violence plays a key role in creating, maintaining, and transforming social structures in …


Sports Under Quarantine: A Case Study Of Major League Baseball In 2020, Kari L.J. Goold, Reynafe N. Aniga, Peter B. Gray Dec 2020

Sports Under Quarantine: A Case Study Of Major League Baseball In 2020, Kari L.J. Goold, Reynafe N. Aniga, Peter B. Gray

Anthropology Faculty Research

© 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This case study entailed a Twitter content analysis to address the pandemic-delayed start to Major League Baseball (MLB) in the shortened 2020 season. This case study helps address the overarching objective to investigate how the sports world, especially fans, responded to MLB played during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. The methods investigated the common themes and determined who used predetermined Twitter hashtags. We recorded how many times external links, photos, emojis, and the 30 MLB teams were mentioned in the 779 tweets obtained during 39 days of data retrieval. Results showed that …


Emotion Perception In Hadza Hunter-Gatherers, Maria Gendron, Katie Hoemann, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Shani Msafiri Mangola, Gregory A. Ruark, Lisa Feldman Barrett Mar 2020

Emotion Perception In Hadza Hunter-Gatherers, Maria Gendron, Katie Hoemann, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Shani Msafiri Mangola, Gregory A. Ruark, Lisa Feldman Barrett

Anthropology Faculty Research

It has long been claimed that certain configurations of facial movements are universally recognized as emotional expressions because they evolved to signal emotional information in situations that posed fitness challenges for our hunting and gathering hominin ancestors. Experiments from the last decade have called this particular evolutionary hypothesis into doubt by studying emotion perception in a wider sample of small-scale societies with discovery-based research methods. We replicate these newer findings in the Hadza of Northern Tanzania; the Hadza are semi-nomadic hunters and gatherers who live in tight-knit social units and collect wild foods for a large portion of their diet, …


The Internal, External And Extended Microbiomes Of Hominins, Robert R. Dunn, Katherine R. Amato, Elizabeth A. Archie, Mimi Arandjelovic, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Lauren M. Nichols Feb 2020

The Internal, External And Extended Microbiomes Of Hominins, Robert R. Dunn, Katherine R. Amato, Elizabeth A. Archie, Mimi Arandjelovic, Alyssa N. Crittenden, Lauren M. Nichols

Anthropology Faculty Research

The social structure of primates has recently been shown to influence the composition of their microbiomes. What is less clear is how primate microbiomes might in turn influence their social behavior, either in general or with particular reference to hominins. Here we use a comparative approach to understand how microbiomes of hominins have, or might have, changed since the last common ancestor (LCA) of chimpanzees and humans, roughly six million years ago. We focus on microbiomes associated with social evolution, namely those hosted or influenced by stomachs, intestines, armpits, and food fermentation. In doing so, we highlight the potential influence …


Religion, History, And Place In The Origin Of Settled Life, Alan Simmons Nov 2019

Religion, History, And Place In The Origin Of Settled Life, Alan Simmons

Anthropology Faculty Research

This is a book review of "Religion, History, and Place in the Origin of Settled Life" by Ian Hodder.


Archaeological Analysis In The Information Age: Guidelines For Maximizing The Reach, Comprehensiveness, And Longevity Of Data, Sarah W. Kansa, Levent Atici, Eric C. Kansa, Richard H. Meadow Oct 2019

Archaeological Analysis In The Information Age: Guidelines For Maximizing The Reach, Comprehensiveness, And Longevity Of Data, Sarah W. Kansa, Levent Atici, Eric C. Kansa, Richard H. Meadow

Anthropology Faculty Research

With the advent of the Web, increased emphasis on “research data management,” and innovations in reproducible research practices, scholars have more incentives and opportunities to document and disseminate their primary data. This article seeks to guide archaeologists in data sharing by highlighting recurring challenges in reusing archived data gleaned from observations on workflows and reanalysis efforts involving datasets published over the past 15 years by Open Context. Based on our findings, we propose specific guidelines to improve data management, documentation, and publishing practices so that primary data can be more efficiently discovered, understood, aggregated, and synthesized by wider research communities.


Sex, Energy, Well-Being And Low Testosterone: An Exploratory Survey Of U.S. Men’S Experiences On Prescription Testosterone, Alex A. Straftis, Peter B. Gray Sep 2019

Sex, Energy, Well-Being And Low Testosterone: An Exploratory Survey Of U.S. Men’S Experiences On Prescription Testosterone, Alex A. Straftis, Peter B. Gray

Anthropology Faculty Research

Prescription testosterone sales in the United States have skyrocketed in the last two decades due to an aging population, direct-to-consumer advertising, and prescriber views of the benefits and risks to testosterone, among other factors. However, few studies have attempted to directly examine patient experiences on prescription testosterone therapy. The present exploratory study involved an online self-report survey of U.S. testosterone patients who were at least 21 years of age. The primary focus was on patient perspectives concerning motivations leading to the initiation of testosterone therapy and the perceived effects of treatment. Responses to open-ended questions drew upon a coding scheme …


Grandparenting In Urban Bangalore, India: Support And Involvement From The Standpoint Of Young Adult University Students, Peter B. Gray, Watinaro Longkumer, Santona Panda, Madhavi Rangaswamy Aug 2019

Grandparenting In Urban Bangalore, India: Support And Involvement From The Standpoint Of Young Adult University Students, Peter B. Gray, Watinaro Longkumer, Santona Panda, Madhavi Rangaswamy

Anthropology Faculty Research

A variety of caregivers, including grandparents, help raise children. Among grandparents, most Western samples evidence a matrilateral (i.e., mother’s kin) bias in caregiving, and many studies show more positive impacts and stronger relationships with grandmothers than grandfathers. The aim of the present study is to test competing hypotheses about a potential laterality bias and explore contrasts between grandmothers and grandfathers in a sample of urban young adult university students in Bangalore, India. A sample of 377 (252 women) relatively mobile and high socioeconomic status individuals 17 to 25 years of age completed a survey consisting of sociodemographic and grandparenting questions. …


An Exploration Of Attitudes Toward Dogs Among College Students In Bangalore, India, Shelly Volsche, Miriam Mohan, Peter B. Gray, Madhavi Rangaswamy Jul 2019

An Exploration Of Attitudes Toward Dogs Among College Students In Bangalore, India, Shelly Volsche, Miriam Mohan, Peter B. Gray, Madhavi Rangaswamy

Anthropology Faculty Research

Conversations in the field of anthrozoology include treatment and distinction of food animals, animals as workers versus pests, and most recently, emerging pet trends including the practice of pet parenting. This paper explores attitudes toward pet dogs in the shared social space of urban India. The data include 375 pen-and-paper surveys from students at CHRIST (Deemed to be University) in Bangalore, India. Reflecting upon Serpell’s biaxial concept of dogs as a relationship of affect and utility, the paper considers the growing trend of pet dog keeping in urban spaces and the increased use of affiliative words to describe these relationships. …


Sexual Dimorphism In Homo Erectus Inferred From 1.5 Ma Footprints Near Ileret, Kenya, Brian Villmoare, Kevin G. Hatala, William Jungers May 2019

Sexual Dimorphism In Homo Erectus Inferred From 1.5 Ma Footprints Near Ileret, Kenya, Brian Villmoare, Kevin G. Hatala, William Jungers

Anthropology Faculty Research

Sexual dimorphism can be one of the most important indicators of social behavior in fossil species, but the effects of time averaging, geographic variation, and differential preservation can complicate attempts to determine this measure from preserved skeletal anatomy. Here we present an alternative, using footprints from near Ileret, Kenya, to assess the sexual dimorphism of presumptive African Homo erectus at 1.5 Ma. Footprint sites have several unique advantages not typically available to fossils: a single surface can sample a population over a very brief time (in this case likely not more than a single day), and the data are geographically …


Examining Style In Virgin Branch Corrugated Ceramics, Shannon Horton, Karen Harry Dec 2016

Examining Style In Virgin Branch Corrugated Ceramics, Shannon Horton, Karen Harry

Anthropology Faculty Research

In this article, we examine variation in the corrugation styles of ceramics from the Virgin Branch Puebloan culture. These ceramics were recovered from two regions: the Moapa Valley of southern Nevada and the Mt. Dellenbaugh area of northwestern Arizona. Three wares—Shivwits, Moapa, and Tusayan—are examined, each of which was produced in different locations. Similarities and differences in corrugation styles between these wares are used to investigate ceramic learning frameworks and the nature of the pottery production and distribution system.


Co-Wife Conflict And Cooperation, William R. Jankowiak, Monika Sudakov, Benjamin C. Wilreker Jan 2005

Co-Wife Conflict And Cooperation, William R. Jankowiak, Monika Sudakov, Benjamin C. Wilreker

Anthropology Faculty Research

Conventional wisdom holds that the polygynous family system is as sexually and emotionally satisfying as a monogamous one. Ethnographic accounts of 69 polygynous systems, however, provide compelling evidence that the majority of co-wives in a polygynous family prefer pragmatic co-operation with one another while maintaining a respectful distance. Moreover, there often is a deep-seated feeling of angst that arises over competing for access to their mutual husband. Co-wife conflict in the early years of marriage is pervasive, and often marked by outbursts of verbal or physical violence. Co-wife conflict may be mitigated by social institutions, such as sororal polygyny and …


Students In The Field: Linking Service-Learning And Undergraduate Research, Carolyn Behrman Jan 2002

Students In The Field: Linking Service-Learning And Undergraduate Research, Carolyn Behrman

Anthropology Faculty Research

No abstract provided.