Anthropology Commons^™

Reciprocity And Beyond: Explaining Meat Transfers In Savanna-Dwelling Chimpanzees At Fongoli, Senegal, Angela M. Achorn, Stacy Lindshield, Papa Ibnou Ndiaye, Jeffrey Winking, Jill D. Pruetz

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Objectives

To understand the function of food sharing among our early hominin ancestors, we can turn to our nonhuman primate relatives for insight. Here, we examined the function of meat sharing by Fongoli chimpanzees, a community of western chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) in southeastern Sénégal.

Materials and Methods

We tested three non-mutually exclusive hypotheses that have been used to explain patterns of food sharing: kin selection, generalized reciprocity, and meat-for-mating opportunities. We analyzed meat sharing events (n = 484) resulting from hunts, along with data on copulations, age-sex class, and kinship to determine which variables predict the …

The Lingering Ache: Temporalities Of Oral Health Suffering In United States-Mexico Border Communities, William A. Lucas, Heide Castañeda, Milena A. Melo

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Recent scholarship theorizes temporalities as an important part of the migration experience, with temporal insecurity being a crucial element of (im)mobility and inequality via the phenomenon of waiting. In this article, we examine how temporalities and experiences of waiting influence health status and access to care, using ethnographic data to articulate how temporalities impact resources and how a doxa of waiting is enacted, placing some groups at heightened risk of illness and pain compared to others. Drawing upon a sample of 100 immigrant families with mixed legal status living in United States-Mexico border communities, we focus on an understudied area …

Investigación Arqueológica: Sitio Buen Suceso, Comuna Dos Mangas, Provincia De Santa Elena. Informe Preliminar. Temporada 2022., Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke, Sara L. Juengst, Daniela Balanzátegui

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Preliminary report on the 2022 excavation season at Bun Suceso, a Valdivia site located on the coast of Ecuador. Report submitted to the Region 5 Office of the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Education, Democracy, And Propaganda: An Epistemological Crisis, Sonja Varbelow, William Yaworsky

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This article explores the causes of the epistemological crisis that gave rise to conspiracy theories which culminated in large swathes of the U.S. population refusing to accept the outcome of a democratic election. An epistemological crisis is defined by a blurring of facts and falsehoods to the degree that blatant and obvious propaganda holds sway over large segments of the population, resulting in truth decay. We provide an analysis of the propaganda themes collected and identified by the Computational Propaganda Project from April through July of 2020 that demonstrate their prevalence in American social media platforms. We then show how …

Ancient Landscapes Of South Texas At The Nexus Of Natural And Social History: An Educational, Community Engagement And Research Initiative For The Twenty-First Century, Roseann Bacha Garza, Juan L. Gonzalez, Edward González-Tennant, Starr E. Hein, Christopher L. Miller, Russell K. Skowronek

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Prior to 2009 the geoarcheological landscape of the lower Rio Grande valley was virtually a tabula rasa within the scholarship of archeology and geology. To rectify this shortcoming the Community Historical Archeology Project with Schools (CHAPS) Program was created from an interdisciplinary team of scholars with research interests in the Rio Grande valley while working initially with undergraduate and graduate students conducting in-depth studies of family farms and working with collectors to identify archeological sites. Through time the CHAPS Program created forums for locally focused K-12 education while developing community engagement initiatives to encourage public heritage tourism. One, the Ancient …

World Bee Day In Ukraine During The Russian Invasion, Tanya Richardson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Immigrant Health: Inequity And Fear, Mark Hall, Alana M.W. Lebrón, Milena A. Melo, Julie Morita, Mariana Osoria

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this chapter, contributors review the impact of structural inequity and fear on immigrant health. Experts from the University of California, Irvine; Wake Forest University; the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley; RWJF; and Family Focus discuss how the health of immigrants and the health of their communities are impacted by racism, inequities, and fear of participating in civic life—especially when people risk being deported and separated from their families. Along with research and data, the contributors offer poignant stories of what it means to live with increased surveillance in Texas, how immigration policies keep people from essential health programs …

Investigación Arqueológica: Sitio Buen Suceso, Comuna Dos Mangas, Provincia De Santa Elena. Informe Preliminar. Temporada 2019, Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke, Daniela Balanzátegui

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Preliminary report on the 2019 excavation season at Bun Suceso, a Valdivia site located on the coast of Ecuador. Report submitted to the Region 5 Office of the Instituto Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural, Guayaquil, Ecuador.

Connecting Palaeopathology And Evolutionary Medicine To Cancer Research: Past And Present, Carina Marques, Zachary Compton, Amy M. Boddy

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Cancer has a significant impact on morbidity and mortality worldwide, with estimates reaching 18.1 million cases in 2018 alone. This chapter reviews the contributions of evolutionary medicine and palaeopathology to oncological research and addresses how these disciplines can conjointly develop models that evaluate how biological, ecological and sociocultural dynamics have prompted the development of cancer across deep time. It highlights that cancer has a long history affecting species across the tree of life, as well as being particularly pervasive in human populations today. While addressing recent advances in comparative oncology and palaeopathology, it discusses how novel environments may contribute to …

Field Research In The Era Of The Islamic State And Trump, William Yaworsky, Dawid K. Wladyka, Katarzyna Sepielak

Anthropology Faculty Publications

We survey anthropologists who work in Arab League countries to ascertain their perceptions of fieldwork security conditions. Based on the responses of forty-seven specialists reporting on conditions in 127 field sites, we find the security environment in the Arab League to be diverse. Scholars working in nations such as Morocco, Oman, and Qatar report overwhelmingly favorable research conditions, while their colleagues working in Lebanon and Syria report a largely dismal situation. The paper also queries respondents on their perceptions of the impact that Trump administration policies and rhetoric have on their ongoing field research. Here, we find Arab League specialists …

A Multi-Proxy Assessment Of The Impact Of Environmental Instability On Late Holocene (4500-3800 Bp) Native American Villages Of The Georgia Coast, Carey J. Garland, Victor D. Thompson, Matthew C. Sanger, Karen Y. Smith, Fred T. Andrus, Nathan R. Lawres, Katharine G. Napora, Carol E. Colaninno, J. Matthew Compton, Sharyn Jones, Carla S. Hadden, Alexander Cherkinsky, Thomas Maddox, Yi-Ting Deng, Isabelle H. Lulewicz, Lindsey Parsons

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Circular shell rings along the South Atlantic Coast of North America are the remnants of some of the earliest villages that emerged during the Late Archaic (5000-3000 BP). Many of these villages, however, were abandoned during the Terminal Late Archaic (ca 3800-3000 BP). We combine Bayesian chronological modeling with mollusk shell geochemistry and oyster paleobiology to understand the nature and timing of environmental change associated with the emergence and abandonment of circular shell ring villages on Sapelo Island, Georgia. Our Bayesian models indicate that Native Americans occupied the three Sapelo shell rings at varying times with some generational overlap. By …

“Traditional Mexican Midwifery” Tourism Excludes Indigenous “Others” And Threatens Sustainability, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Drawn by the allure of “ancient cultures,” tourists inadvertently consume deauthenticated indigenous practices, including ethnomedical traditions such as midwifery. This is especially true in the case of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” since stark differences exist between how midwifery practices unfold in indigenous contexts and how they are represented to global tourists. “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” tourism is a unique lens for examining some of the underlying, intersectional issues threatening “sustainability” in ethnomedical tourism. When nonindigenous individuals position themselves as representatives of “Traditional Mexican Midwifery” and indigenous midwives are excluded from profit chains, this type of tourism not only fails to meet the …

Differential Diagnosis Of Metastatic Bone Disease: A Case Study From The Ceaf Identified Skeletal Collection Of The University Of Pernambuco, Brazil [Diagnóstico Diferencial Da Doença Óssea Metastática: Um Estudo De Caso Da Coleção Esqueleto Identificado Do Ceaf Da Universidade De Pernambuco, Brasil], Evelyne Pessoa Soriano, Marcus Vitor Diniz De Carvalho, Emília Alves Do Nascimento, Rodrigo Araújo De Queiroz, Carina Marques, Eugénia Cunha

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study aims to discuss the occurrence of pathological changes found in a skeleton from the Center for Studies in Forensic Anthropology (CEAF) Identified Skeletal Collection, Faculty of Odontology, University of Pernambuco (FOP/UPE), Brazil. The skeleton of a 47-year-old male that died in 2014 was macroscopically examined, and the differential diagnosis was performed based on clinical and paleopathological criteria. Lesions that were predominantly osteoclastic were observed in a multifocal pattern, mainly on the skull (29.6% of the total of lesions observed), pelvic bones (22.2%), and vertebrae (25.9%). The lesions morphology consists of elliptical osteolytic foci and areas of coalescent porosity, …

Litigating For Legality: Nature Conservation, Commercial Fisheries And Disputed Territoriality In Ukraine’S Danube Delta, Tanya Richardson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Between 2014 and 2016 Ukraine’s Danube Biosphere Reserve (DBR) administrators devoted extensive time to lawsuits in which they defended the legality of commercial fisheries in reserve territory. Two cases are discussed in order to examine what impact litigation had and why administrators pursued litigation when dominant accounts of law in Ukraine suggest that avoiding the courts might be a more likely response. It analyzes court documents and interviews gathered during anthropological research about nature conservation in the Danube Delta by combining insights from political ecology, agrarian studies, and socio-legal scholarship on Ukraine. Even though administrators lost their cases and had …

Patterns Of Recent Natural Selection On Genetic Loci Associated With Sexually Differentiated Human Body Size And Shape Phenotypes, Audrey M. Arner, Kathleen E. Grogan, Mark Grabowski, Hugo Reyes-Centeno, George H. Perry

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Levels of sex differences for human body size and shape phenotypes are hypothesized to have adaptively reduced following the agricultural transition as part of an evolutionary response to relatively more equal divisions of labor and new technology adoption. In this study, we tested this hypothesis by studying genetic variants associated with five sexually differentiated human phenotypes: height, body mass, hip circumference, body fat percentage, and waist circumference. We first analyzed genome-wide association (GWAS) results for UK Biobank individuals (~194,000 females and ~167,000 males) to identify a total of 114,199 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) significantly associated with at least one of …

A Comparison Of Intestinal Parasite Infections And Activity Budgets In Three Free-Ranging Vs. Enclosure-Housed Lemur Species (Lemur Catta, Varecia Rubra, And Eulemur Mongoz), Angela M. Achorn, Jeffrey Winking

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study examines how range size affects intestinal parasite infections, and how such infections affect activity budgets in captive lemurs. There were no differences in parasite richness or intensity attributable to habitat type. However, there was a strong suggestion that parasite loads reduce activity levels.

Cancers As Rare Diseases: Terminological, Theoretical, And Methodological Biases, Carina Marques, Charlotte Roberts, Vitor M. J. Matos, Jane E. Buikstra

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Objective

Was cancer a rare disease in the past? Our objective is to consider the various terminological, theoretical, and methodological biases that may affect perceptions of the rarity of cancer in the past.

Materials and methods

We discuss relevant malignant neoplastic biomedical and paleopathological literature and evaluate skeletal data. We selected 108 archaeological sites (n = 151 cancer cases) with published malignant neoplasms and that were amenable to calculating cancer crude prevalence. Furthermore, datasets from four medieval/postmedieval Portuguese and 12 postmedieval UK sites were used to compare age-adjusted rates for metastatic bone disease and tuberculosis.

Results

In the literature review, …

Metabolomics-Based Analysis Of Miniature Flask Contents Identifies Tobacco Mixture Use Among The Ancient Maya, Mario Zimmermann, Korey J. Brownstein, Luis Pantoja Díaz, Iliana Ancona Aragón, Scott R. Hutson, Barry Kidder, Shannon Tushingham, David R. Gang

Anthropology Faculty Publications

A particular type of miniature ceramic vessel locally known as “veneneras” is occasionally found during archaeological excavations in the Maya Area. To date, only one study of a collection of such containers successfully identified organic residues through coupled chromatography–mass spectrometry methods. That study identified traces of nicotine likely associated with tobacco. Here we present a more complete picture by analyzing a suite of possible complementary ingredients in tobacco mixtures across a collection of 14 miniature vessels. The collection includes four different vessel forms and allows for the comparison of specimens which had previously formed part of museum exhibitions with recently …

Displacing The Delta: Notes On The Anthropology Of The Earth's Physical Features, Tanya Richardson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Biocultural Evidence Of Precise Manual Activities In An Early Holocene Individual Of The High-Altitude Peruvian Andes, Fotios Alexandros Karakostis, Hugo Reyes-Centeno, Michael Franken, Gerhard Hotz, Kurt Rademaker, Katerina Harvati

Anthropology Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVES: Cuncaicha, a rockshelter site in the southern Peruvian Andes, has yielded archaeological evidence for human occupation at high elevation (4,480 masl) during the Terminal Pleistocene (12,500–11,200 cal BP), Early Holocene (9,500–9,000 cal BP), and later periods. One of the excavated human burials (Feature 15‐06), corresponding to a middle‐aged female dated to ~8,500 cal BP, exhibits skeletal osteoarthritic lesions previously proposed to reflect habitual loading and specialized crafting labor. Three small tools found in association with this burial are hypothesized to be associated with precise manual dexterity.

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Here, we tested this functional hypothesis through the application of …

Ancient Maya Rural Settlement Patterns, Household Cooperation, And Regional Subsistence Interdependency In The Río Bec Area: Contributions From G-Liht, Scott R. Hutson, Nicholas P. Dunning, Bruce Cook, Thomas Ruhl, Nicolas C. Barth, Daniel Conley

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Research on intensive agricultural features contributes to the social relations of farming, including the means by which farmers mobilize labor and the possible destination of surplus. Lidar provides high-resolution data on ancient houses and agricultural features at a regional scale. This paper uses lidar data from NASA’s G-LiHT airborne imager to derive insights about rural demography, interhousehold cooperation, and subsistence interdependency among the ancient Maya. We assess the differences in intensity of agricultural investment in rural and urban areas of the Río Bec region of southern Campeche and Quintana Roo, Mexico, leading to inferences about regional food exchange and complex …

Operating At The Edge Of Il/Legality: Systemic Corruption In Mexican Health Care, Rosalynn A. Vega, A. Paulo Maya

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Through a series of ethnographic vignettes, this article examines how providers contribute to corruption in Mexican health care, how providers are themselves subjected to logics of corruption, and the relationship between patients’ and providers’ vulnerability within contexts of resource scarcity. Doctors, faced with insecure salaries due to nonpayment of wages by the government, collude with hospital staff to sell state drugs on the black market. Meanwhile, vulnerable patients are used as teaching opportunities for private school students—with horrifying, and fatal, effects. Palancas (“favors” granted by colleagues and higher-ups to individuals with less authority) and exclusive treatment of recomendados (patients given …

Changing Birth In The Andes: Culture, Policy And Safe Motherhood In Peru. Guerra‐Reyes, Lucia. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2019., Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Becoming Creole: Nature And Race In Belize By Melissa A. Johnson, Marcia Mikulak

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Buen Suceso: A New Multicomponent Valdivia Site In Santa Elena, Ecuador, Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications

New radiocarbon dates and excavations show that Buen Suceso (OSE-M-2M-4) in Santa Elena, Ecuador, was occupied between 3700 and 1425 BC. These dates demonstrate that Buen Suceso is a rare multicomponent Valdivia site and one of the longer-occupied Valdivia sites investigated to date.

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Nuevas excavaciones y fechados radiocarbónicos demuestran que Buen Suceso (OSE-M-2M-4; Santa Elena, Ecuador) estuvo habitado entre 3700 y 1425 aC (Valdivia, fase Ib a fase VIIIb). Estas fechas señalan que se trata de un sitio Valdivia multicomponente excepcional y uno de los habitado por más tiempo, entro los sitios Valdivia investigados hasta la fecha. El diseño …

Privileges Of Birth: Constellations Of Care, Myth, And Race In South Africa. Rogerson, Jennifer J. M., New York: Berghahn Books, 2020, 200 Pp., Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Privileges of Birth: Constellations of Care, Myth, and Race in South Africa centers around the natural birth movement in South Africa, where births are largely determined by socioeconomic factors. Jennifer Rogerson argues for examining care in relation to race and privilege, specifically what care means in specific contexts. Privileges of Birth is an ethnography about the “constellation” of care, race, and privilege among an atypical group of women in South Africa.

Masculinity, Migration, And Forced Conscription In The Syrian War, Kristin V. Monroe

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this essay, I provide a different perspective on the Syrian conflict by examining how the war’s reach can also be located amid the losses, interruptions, and experiences of those Syrians who have until now largely escaped its incredible violence. By looking closely at how the war has altered the life trajectories of and produced distinct modes of vulnerability for military-age men, I develop an argument about how, although they avoid fighting by going to work in Qatar, the lives of a group of Syrian men remain defined by conscription. Through my investigation of how these men are located in …

Reflecting On Pasuc Heritage Initiatives Through Time, Positionality, And Place, Scott R. Hutson, Céline Lamb, Daniel Vallejo-Cáliz, Jacob Welch

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper reports on heritage initiatives associated with a 12-year-long archaeology project in Yucatan, Mexico. Our work has involved both surprises and setbacks and in the spirit of adding to the repository of useful knowledge, we present these in a frank and transparent manner. Our findings are significant for a number of reasons. First, we show that the possibilities available to a heritage project facilitated by archaeologists depend not just on the form and focus of other stakeholders, but on the gender, sexuality, and class position of the archaeologists. Second, we provide a ground-level view of what approaches work well …

Contextos Mortuorios En La Consentida, Oaxaca, Durante El Formativo Temprano, Guy David Hepp, José Aguilar, Paul A. Sandberg

Anthropology Faculty Publications

En este trabajo reunimos las evidencias bioarqueológicas y de espacios funerarios para los orígenes de cementerios formales, y los cambios en la salud observada en los restos óseos durante el período Formativo temprano (2000–1000 a.C.) en la costa de Oaxaca. Las excavaciones en el sitio de La Consentida (1950–1525 cal a.C.) recuperaron 14 o posiblemente 15 individuos en 12 entierros. El fechamiento de estos entierros está basado en una muestra de radiocarbono de un fémur procesado con purificación XAD, en la asociación del mismo con otros entierros y en los elementos que los rodean, además de otras fechas adicionales de …

Introducción: Bioarqueología De Oaxaca: Identidades Y Cambios Sociales Entre La Sociedad Antigua Del Suroeste De México, Ricardo Higelin Ponce De León, Guy David Hepp

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.