Anthropology Commons^™

Bioarcheological Synthesis For "From The Gulf To The Rio Grande: Human Adaptation In Central, South, And Lower Pecos Texas", Karl Reinhard, Ben W. Olive, D. Gentry Steele

Karl Reinhard Publications

One of the main problems encountered in the review of the bioarcheology of Region 3 has been the limited number of sites where human skeletal material has been adequately recovered and analyzed. In the preceding chapter it was documented that less than 30% of the burials recovered from recorded sites have been reported in published literature. It was further estimated that of the 323 sites with burials, no more than 80 sites have published detailed bioarcheological reports on the burials recovered. Only 50 of these 80 reports provide individual descriptions of each burial which facilitate subsequent analyses and evaluation.

Four …

The Transition From Infancy To Early Childhood: A Difficult Transition, And A Difficult Theory, Carolyn P. Edwards

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The transition from infancy to early childhood was observed in households in rural Zinacanteco households in the Highlands of Chiapas, Mexico, in 1968-1969, and found to be a fairly lengthy period of upset, disturbance, listlessness, and apathy for the children, leading eventually to their accepting a new position in the family. The transition involved three abrupt and harsh changes: (1) abrupt weaning from the mother’s breast; (2) simultaneous change in sleeping arrangements from lying next to the mother to sleeping with siblings; and (3) more gradual transfer of the child’s primary care from the mother to older siblings or courtyard …

A Sociobiological Perspective On The Development Of Human Reproductive Strategies, Patricia Draper, Henry Harpending

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Humans show a great deal of variability in their reproductive behavior, including types of sexual activity, types of ties between males and females, and ways of arranging for the rearing of offspring. We will consider three principal topics: (1) Father absence versus father presence, contrasting children who are reared in a family system in which there is a closely involved and economically contributing father in contrast to a family system in which women rear their children in cooperation with other women (usually kin) and without consistent help from a man who is father to children. (2) Peer rearing versus parent …

On The Nature And Antiquity Of The Manix Lake Industry, Douglas Bamforth, Ronald Dorn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The antiquity of human occupation in the New World undoubtedly is one of the major unresolved culture-historical problems in North American prehistory. On the one hand, a dominant position with a long history in American archaeology (cf. Wilmsen 1965) holds that human beings arrived in the New World at the close of the Pleistocene, no longer than 12,000 years ago, and that Clovis sites represent the oldest occupation in the Americas (Haynes 1970; Martin 1973; Waters 1985). On the other hand, a less widely accepted school of thought sees a variety of evidence for human occupation in the Americas well …

The Allocation Of Parental Care Among The Ye'kwana, Raymond B. Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

It is well known that human children require more care or parental investment than any other primate species (Lancaster and Lancaster 1983). While this dimension of human behavior is well documented in the psychological literature for Euroamerican populations (Babchuck et al. 1985), it has received scant, quantitative attention by anthropologists working among tribal populations (for exceptions see Whiting and Whiting 1975, Katz and Konner 1981, Hurtado et al. 1985, Hewlett, this volume (Chapter 16), Turke, this volume (Chapter 10)). The role of alloparental care (care of non-offspring children) has received even less quantitative attention by social scientists (for a review …

Technological Change And Child Behavior Among The !Kung, Patricia Draper, Elizabeth Cashdan

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

How does change in one part of a social system affect other parts? This is the central question that must be answered in order to understand the process through which culture changes. This paper is about a small piece of the problem. It investigates how changes in subsistence economy affect child behavior and the relations between parents and children among !Kung Bushmen of Western Botswana. We will show that the adoption of a sedentary life style and a new technology of food production is associated with changes in the social interactions between parents and children and between children and their …

Precis Of Vaulting Ambition: Sociobiology And The Quest For Human Nature, Philip Kitcher, Patrick Bateson (Comment By), Jon Beckwith (Comment By), Irwin S. Bernstein (Comment By), Patricia Smith Churchland (Comment By), Patricia Draper (Comment By), John Dupre (Comment By), Andrew Futterman (Comment By), Michael T. Ghiselin (Comment By), Henry Harpending (Comment By), Timothy D. Johnston (Comment By), Garland E. Allen (Comment By), Michael E. Lamb (Comment By), W. C. Mcgrew (Comment By), H. C. Plotkin (Comment By), Alexander Rosenberg (Comment By), Peter T. Saunders (Comment By), Mae-Wan Ho (Comment By), Peter Singer (Comment By), Eric Aiden Smith (Comment By), Peter K. Smith (Comment By), Elliot Sober (Comment By), Nils C. Stenseth (Comment By), Donald Symons (Comment By)

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The debate about the credentials of sociobiology has persisted because scholars have failed to distinguish the varieties of sociobiology and because too little attention has been paid to the details of the arguments that are supposed to support the provocative claims about human social behavior. I seek to remedy both dcfieieneies. After analysis of the relationships among different kinds of sociobiology and contemporary evolutionary theory, I attempt to show how some of the studies of the behavior of nonhuman animals meet the methodological standards appropriate to evolutionary research. I contend that the efforts of E. O. Wilson, Richard Alexander, Charles …

Testing Sociobiological Hypotheses Ethnographically, Patricia Draper

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Satisfactory tests of sociobiological theory using data on humans suffer from many problems, many of which are cogently argued by Kitcher. Other obstacles derive from the fact that cultural anthropology itself is undergoing a paradigm shift, in which people are no longer considered to be influenced by the normative environment with a high degree of predictability. Information about human behavior guided by this new set of assumptions is far more likely to yield the type of data necessary to test sociobiological ideas. Once the construct of culture is abandoned (or at least not assumed to have much power for predicting …

Introduction To Perspectives On Archaeological Resources Management In The "Great Plains", Alan J. Osborn, Robert C. Hassler

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The past two decades of archaeological investigations in the United States have been shaped significantly by cultural resource management (CRM) legislation. Although federal laws designed to protect the nation's archaeological record can be traced to the late 1800s, necessary funding was not made available for extensive work until 1974 with passage of the Moss-Bennett Bill (Judge 1982). The availability of federal monies for archaeological investigations at this time was unprecedented. Marked changes occurred in the discipline of archaeology that involved disruption of the traditional ties linking academic institutions and archaeological research throughout the country (Fowler 1982; Brose 1985).

Scientific Research Programmes: Toward A Synthesis And Evaluation Of Crm Archaeology, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists involved in conservation archaeology and/or cultural resource management have frequently been confronted with the dilemma described by Fowler (1982). Cultural resource management projects most generally have to be conducted within a restricted geographical area within a specified period of time. Many archaeologists have chosen to deal with the resource management dilemma in one of three ways. First, there are those that have chosen to view cultural resource management primarily as a professional service. Practitioners of "service" archaeology conduct archaeological surveys and excavations in order to determine the frequency, location, and extent of cultural remains within a specified area. Investigations …

Distribution Archaeology: Survey, Mapping, And Analysis Of Surface Archaeological Materials In The Green River Basin, Wyoming, James I. Ebert, Signa Larralde, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeology in America today is in a quandary. This is especially true for that portion of the profession responsible for investigating and managing the surface archaeology of large tracts of land. The quandary concerns how to maximize the amount of information about the archaeology of an area given finite budgets. Predictive modeling, a technique for projecting knowledge derived from a sample to its universe, has been proposed as one response to this dilemma. We shall present another response, distributional archaeology, which is designed to collect quality information about the archaeological record and is consistent with the formation and structure of …

"Preface" To Perspectives On Archaeological Resources Management In The "Great Plains", Alan J. Osborn, Robert C. Hassler

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

When faced with compiling an edited volume addressing cultural resources management the overriding problem is to maintain some resemblance of contemporanity with the current status of the field. Major changes have occurred over the last decade within "contract", "salvage" or "conservation" archaeology, now commonly referred to as cultural resources management. Some of these changes are due to additional state, provincial and federal rules, regulations and statutes requiring consideration of cultural materials to be affected by public "undertakings" in North America. Other changes are resultant of the boom and bust cycle of public-licensed private developments. The constant state of flux in …

Archaeological Conservation As Process And Product: A Federal Perspective, Ronald D. Anzalone

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Countless books and articles have either explored in some depth, or at least touched upon, the conservation of our cultural heritage. For the purposes of this volume, it would be an exercise in futility to attempt to detail current procedural requirements for historic preservation through various federal statutes and regulations. A number of sources have attacked this task in the past (e.g., Scovill, Gordon and Anderson 1977; King, Hickman, and Berg 1977). None has managed to provide completely up-to-date information on even the regulatory oscillations current that year, and there have been a myriad of changes since 1977. If there …

Knife River Indian Villages Archaeological Program: An Overview, F. A. Calabrese

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The Knife River Indian Villages are located in North Dakota near the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers, just north of the contemporary town of Stanton, North Dakota. They lie within the area between the Garrison Dam to the north and the Oahe Reservoir to the south, the last remaining unflooded segment of the Missouri River valley in the Dakotas. Within the area are river floodplains, terraces, dissected breaks and upland rolling terrain. Forests occur on the floodplain and lower terraces with a variety of native and exotic grasses found on the breaks and uplands. A number of relatively …

Helminth Remains From Prehistoric Indian Coprolites On The Colorado Plateau, Karl J. Reinhard, Richard H. Hevly, Glenn A. Anderson

Karl Reinhard Publications

Examination of coprolites excavated from archaeological sites in the Americas demonstrates excellent preservation of helminth eggs and, in some cases, larvae. To gain an understanding of helminth parasitism in prehistory on the Colorado Plateau of Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah, 319 coprolites from 5 archaeological sites were analyzed. Helminth eggs and larvae were recovered after the coprolites were rehydrated, screened, and sedimented. At a sixth site, soils excavated from 5 rooms used as latrine areas were processed with palynological techniques. The results indicate that all but 1 of the prehistoric populations examined were infected with intestinal worms. The helminths implicated …

Helminth Parasites Of Coprolites, Scott Lyell Gardner, Karen H. Clary

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Faculty Publications

Parasites from Bighorn Sheep Cave coprolites were examined for the presence of parasites using standard methods. Both Toxascaris and Enterobius were identified from coprolites recovered from the cave. Both human and non-human coprolites were identified.

An Attribute Analysis Of Sandy Lake Ware From Norman County And North Central Minnesota, Lynelle A. Peterson

Department of Anthropology: Theses and Student Research

Sandy Lake Ware, is a Late Woodland-Early Historic ceramic ware, found throughout northern Minnesota and parts of North Dakota, Wisconsin, Ontario, and Manitoba. No formal analysis of this ware has occurred since its definition by Cooper and Johnson in 1964. As a result, the basic information regarding the attributes, the interrelationship between attributes, and factors leading to variation within Sandy Lake Ware are poorly understood.

This thesis analyses the relationship between between attributes from 1459 vessels collected in Norman county, and north central Minnesota, using the chi square statistical method of analysis. This thesis also tests the implicit assumption of …

Another Style Of Competence: The Caregiving Child, Carolyn P. Edwards

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

This chapter discusses child and sibling caregiving as an opportunity for the learning of nurturance and responsibility. The argument is based on case examples from ethnographic material, that children in multiage dyads or groupings negotiate constantly with one another and thereby reveal their reasoning about rational and conventional moral rules. The observational material is drawn from the work of Carol R. Ember (1970, 1973) who studied children in a Luo community of about 250 people in the South Nyanza district of Kenya. This community, referred to as Oyugis (actually the name of the market town 2.5 miles away, is one …

Recovery Of Parasite Remains From Coprolites And Latrines: Aspects Of Paleoparasitological Technique, Karl J. Reinhard, Ulisses E. Confalonieri, Bernd Herrmann, Luiz F. Ferreira, Adauto J. G. De Araujo

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Standard techniques for the analysis of prehistoric soils have not been devised. It is unlikely that any single technique is applicable to all types of fecal remains. This is due to various environmental conditions which effect the preservation of helminth ova. In general, gravitational sedimentation is a useful technique for isolating helminth eggs and larvae from coprolites. Latrine soils pose greater problems for helminthological examination. Although various clinical techniques have been successfully utilized in soil study, it is important to remember that some latrine soils have not yielded helminth eggs to any clinical technique. Consequently the paleoparasitologist must be ready …

Recovery Of Helminths From Prehistoric Feces: The Cultural Ecology Of Ancient Parasitism, Karl J. Reinhard

Karl Reinhard Publications

Several helminth parasites have been recovered from archaeological sites on the Colorado Plateau. These include Ascaris, Trichuris, Enterobius, Moniliformis, and tapeworms in the families Hymenolepidae and Taeniidae. The recovery of these animals demonstrates that cross-temporal: comparison of parasitism between different prehistoric lifestyles is possible. Such comparison might elucidate the effects of changing lifestyle and subsistance pattern on human parasitism.

Desiccated feces recovered from archaelogical deposits were studied. Hunter-gatherer feces were selected from Dust Devil Cave in southeastern Utah. Agriculturalist feces were studied from Antelope House, a cave site in northeastern Arizona, and Salmon Ruins, a Pueblo …

Sex Differences In The Recognition Of Infant Facial Expressions Of Emotion: The Primary Caretaker Hypothesis, Raymond B. Hames, Wayne A. Babchuk

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Although much research has been devoted to studying sex differences In functioning (e.g., Maccoby and Jacklin 1974), most efforts have been directed toward documenting or elucidating the proximate causes of sex differences. Few attempts have been made, however, to explain the ultimate causes of these differences or the selective pressures that have led to the development or psychological differences between males and females [for exception see Symons (1979) and Daly and Wilson (1983)]. Toward this end of blending psychology with evolutionary theory we develop what we call the " primary caretaker hypothesis," which predicts that the sex that through evolutionary …

Two Views Of Sex Differences In Socialization, Patricia Draper

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The literature on the socialization of human sex differences is likely to remind many students of the parable about the blind men who were grouped around an elephant, each trying to describe to the others what the elephant was like. Several traditions of research in the social sciences have been involved in the study of why the sexes are different. One that emphasizes deliberate sex role training of children owes most of its insights to learning theory and developmental psychology. It regards sex role socialization as the result of interplay between the environmental experience and the child's active learning and …

Beating A Dead Horse: Reply To Levy’S Comments, Alan J. Osborn

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The author reponds with a rebuttal to comments made by Jerrold E. Levy concerning his paper "Ecological Aspcets of Equestrian Adaptations in Aboriginal North America" which was published in American Anthropologist, volume 85, pages 562-591.

Review Of Demographic Structure And Evolution Of A Peasant System: Guatemala By John D. Early, Luann Wandsnider

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

The Guatemalan peasant system of twenty to thirty years ago is rapidly changing into something else-not quite peasant-like and not quite industrial. The author uses demographic information in the form of birth and death registration (from 1877 on), as well as data from national censuses, to discuss the demographic transition and how it parallels Guatemala's socioeconomic evolution. The book is divided into six parts, of varying utility and interest, linked by the common theme of Guatemalan demography.

Monoculture, Polyculture, And Polyvariety In Tropical Forest Swidden Cultivation, Raymond B. Hames

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

A number of researchers have suggested that polyculture is characteristic of native tropical forest swiddens and have adduced theory from community ecology to account for its adaptiveness. Ye’kwana and Yąnomamö swidden cultivation is examined, and it is shown that polyculture is not practiced to any significant degree. Instead, the concept of polyvariety is introduced along with a number of other cultivation practices that more simply account for the adaptiveness of Ye’kwana and Yąnomamö gardening. In addition, comparative data from other parts of the tropical world indicate that polyculture is no more common than monoculture and recent advances in ecological research …

Human Adaptations In The Andes: A Look At Nutrition And Brain Function With Respect To Coca And High Altitude Physiological Adaptations, Barrett P. Brenton

Nebraska Anthropologist

Throughout the span of human evolution the brain has allowed itself to be controlled by nutritional intake. This correlation between nutrition and the brain has led me to believe that the human brain has allowed itself to be manipulated and controlled by an individual's dietary intake in order to successfully adapt to the environment. In looking at the indigenous peoples of the South American Andes, I found surprising parallels between human physiological adaptations to high altitude hypoxia and cold stress and the correlating control of neurotransmitters to the brain by dietary intake.

In a study of this type it becomes …

Manioc And Fish: A "Methiononian" Compromise In Amazonia?, Tom Langdon

Nebraska Anthropologist

Protein as a limiting factor in Amazonian diet has met with considerable discussion and argument (e.g., Beckerman 1979; Chagnon and Hames 1979; Johnson 1982; Gross 1975, 1982; Spath 1978, 1981; Werner et al. 1979). The intent of this paper is to continue the discussion of protein as a limiting factor in Amazonia with respect to two dietary staples, manioc and fish. More specifically, does bitter manioc become a factor in determining aquatic resource utilization in Amazonia?

The Nebraska Anthropologist Volume 6 (1983) Contents

Nebraska Anthropologist

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............. i

HUMAN ADAPTATIONS IN THE ANDES: A LOOK AT NUTRITION AND BRAIN FUNCTION WITH RESPECT TO COCA AND HIGH ALTITUDE PHYSIOLOGICAL ADAPTATIONS (Barrett P. Brenton) .............. 1

Introduction .............. 2

Biochemical Aspects of Tryptophan and Serotonin .............. 2

Nutritional Control of Brain Tryptophan and Serotonin .............. 3

Food and Nutrition in the South American Andes .............. 7

Diet Composition and Tryptophan/Serotonin Production .............. 9

The Affects of Coca Chewing and Serotonin in Thermoregulation .............. 16

Possible Effects of Coca Alkaloids and Serotonin in Hypoxia .............. 18

Conclusion............... 23

References .............. 25

MANIOC AND FISH: A "METHIONONIAN" COMPROMISE IN …

The Plow And Its Influence On The Rise Of Civilization, Tom Langdon

Nebraska Anthropologist

In the magical land of Toosuiter, Butane worked his small garden. He worked with his little digging stick clearing the patch of eternal rock that seemed to multiply from one season to the next. Then he'd sing the little redundant ditty: "Little poke here, little seed there, little poke here, little seed there."

He planted his seeds and delicately covered them up with the fresh fertile earth. Yams were a delicacy. They really "tasted good" with the fresh meat that Pamela, his wife, would hunt in the surrounding forest. It was a magical life, and the land and the forest …

African Influence In Mexican Folktales, Carla Mundt

Nebraska Anthropologist

Despite the fact that many African slaves were brought to the Jew World, there have been very few studies done on how their presence affected studies that have and influenced the indigenous cultures. The been done concentrate on the areas where there was an extremely large Black population like Cuba and Brazil. Very little has been done in places like Mexico or Chile and those that have been done are often inaccurate. This paper is an elementary attempt to take a close look at how the importation of African slaves affected the culture of the New World.