Anthropology Commons^™

Paleoethnobotanical Evidence Of Early Formative Period Diet In Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, Éloi Bérubé, Guy David Hepp, Shanti Morell-Hart

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this paper, we discuss dietary and possible medicinal practices of an Early Formative period (2000–1000 BCE) community transitioning from Archaic-style to Formative-style lifeways. The results we present come from the analysis of plant residues, including microbotanical and macrobotanical remains, which were excavated at the village site of La Consentida in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. Phytoliths and starch grains were recovered by sonication from twenty ceramic and lithic artifacts. The microbotanical analyses identified plant remains from four different families: Bombaceae (flowering plants), Dioscoreaceae (yam family), Fabaceae (bean family), and Poaceae (grasses, including maize). We also report on limited macrobotanical analysis, including …

The Symbolism, Use, And Archaeological Context Of Masks In Formative Period Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, Guy David Hepp, Sarah B. Barber, Jeffrey S. Brzezinski, Arthur A. Joyce, Rachael L. Wedemeyer

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The production and use of masks at multiple scales and in diverse contexts is a millennia-long tradition in Mesoamerica. In this paper, we explore some implications of Mesoamerican masking practices in light of materiality studies and the archaeology of the senses. We also discuss a collection of 22 masks, miniature masks and representations of masks from the lower Río Verde valley of coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. The iconography of these artefacts as well as their recovery from well-documented archaeological contexts inform our interpretations of masking practices during an approximately 2000-year span of the Formative period (2000 BC–AD 250). Specifically, we argue …

What’S Out There (Review Of A Portrait Of Assisted Reproduction In Mexico: Scientific, Political, And Cultural Interactions, By Sandra P. González-Santos), Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

González-Santos’ book begins with a poem that likens counting sperm to counting moving stars. She alludes to the significance of the book’s title when she describes the portraits painted by Milanese artist Guiseppe Arcimboldo, and the power of portraits to convey the social position, psychological characteristics, personality, mood, and historical context of the person being depicted. The analogy of painting a portrait is indicative of González-Santos’ methods and the organization of the book. González-Santos paints through words a “repronational portrait” (Franklin and Inhorn, 2016) of Mexico’s system of assisted reproduction. González-Santos began her research in 2007. In the following twelve …

Converging Space And Producing Place: Social Inequalities And Birth Across Mexico, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

I combine ethnographic research of the professional midwifery model in Mexico with concepts gleaned from an interdisciplinary literature in order to illustrate how different types of spaces converge in the process of place-making. From October 2010 to November 2013, I conducted twenty-eight months of research, interviewing employees of government bureaus and public health programs, observing how the professional midwifery model unfolds in distinct contexts, performing interviews and participant-observation with casa midwifery students/alumni, and “shadowing” professional midwives and obstetricians as they engage with pregnant women in a hospital setting. Drawing from ethnographic examples, this article points to five different types of …

Isabel M. Córdova, Pushing In Silence: Modernizing Puerto Rico And The Medicalization Of Childbirth (Austin, Tx: University Of Texas Press, 2017), Pp. 234, $29.95, Pb., Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Córdova documents a twenty-year transformation in how babies were born in Puerto Rico. In the middle of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico had twice as many midwives as registered doctors. At this time, birth was a home-based, family-oriented process that mothers accomplished with the assistance of midwives. By 1970, midwives had disappeared and the number of physicians tripled—a context that led to nearly every Puerto Rican baby (98%) being delivered in a hospital under the authority of an obstetrician. In contrast to births a couple decades before, hospital-based births in the 1970s were highly medicalized and directed by predominantly male …

Mexicanismo: Francisco Javier Clavigero And The Jesuit Expulsion Of 1767, Francisco Ortiz Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This study will ask if the expulsion of the Jesuits played a part in the formation of this national spirit. In no way will this try to give a complete explanation of the events which led to the Jesuit expulsion, nor to explain the inner workings of Jesuit society and its influences. The focus will concentrate on the effect that the expulsion of Jesuits from New Spain, which was done by secret order and simultaneously across New Spain, may have had. Most of the Mexican Jesuits which were expelled eventually ended up in Bologna, Italy. Some of these individuals, notably …

Syndemics: Considerations For Interdisciplinary Research, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In this short piece, I explore how medical anthropology could be deployed through interdisciplinary collaborations in a way that is both theoretically rich and poised to positively impact health outcomes. In particular, I consider how research agendas focused on improving health care outcomes reveal certain limitations and underlying assumptions within the discipline. What types of methodological shifts might occur if we interrogate those limitations and assumptions? What are some alternatives? To answer these questions, I turn to the concept of “syndemics” as one example of how a human rights approach can transform the way we do anthropology for the betterment …

Anthropology's Science Wars : Insights From A New Survey, Mark Horowitz, William Yaworsky, Kenneth Kickham

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In recent decades the field of anthropology has been characterized as sharply divided between proscience and antiscience factions. The aim of this study is to empirically evaluate that characterization. We survey anthropologists in graduate programs in the United States regarding their views of science and advocacy, moral and epistemic relativism, and the merits of evolutionary biological explanations. We examine anthropologists’ views in concert with their varying appraisals of major controversies in the discipline (Chagnon/Tierney, Mead/Freeman, and Menchú/Stoll). We find that disciplinary specialization and especially gender and political orientation are significant predictors of anthropologists’ views. We interpret our findings through the …

Haiti’S Pact With The Devil?: Bwa Kayiman, Haitian Protestant Views Of Vodou, And The Future Of Haiti, Bertin M. Louis Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This essay uses ethnographic research conducted among Haitian Protestants in the Bahamas in 2005 and 2012 plus internet resources to document the belief among Haitian Protestants (Haitians who practice Protestant forms of Christianity) that Haiti supposedly made a pact with the Devil (Satan) as the result of Bwa Kayiman, a Vodou ceremony that launched the Haitian Revolution (1791–1803). Vodou is the syncretized religion indigenous to Haiti. I argue that this interpretation of Bwa Kayiman is an extension of the negative effects of the globalization of American Fundamentalist Christianity in Haiti and, by extension, peoples of African descent and the …

‘Doing’ Llama Face Stew: A Late Moche Culinary Assemblage As A Domestic Dedicatory Deposit, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Presented here is a meal from a simple cooking vessel, excavated from the Late Moche (AD 600–850) site of Wasi Huachuma on the north coast of Peru. This meal, cooked in a whole, plain vessel and spilled beneath the floor of a domestic structure, was unambiguously marked by a large stone embedded in the floor. It contained diverse plant and animal materials associated with the sea, the coastal plains, the highlands and the jungle. Via its contents and placement, this meal embodies the ways in which the domestic world of exchange and interaction was deeply entangled with the spiritual and …

Investigación Arqueológica: Sitio Buen Suceso, Comuna Dos Mangas, Provincia De Santa Elena. Informe Suplemental., Sarah M. Rowe, Guy S. Duke

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Supplemental report on radiocarbon dates from the 2017 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.

The Terrestrialization Of Amphibious Life In A Danube Delta 'Town On Water', Tanya Richardson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Visitors to the Danube Delta town of Vylkove, known as the “Ukrainian Venice,” are often disappointed by the condition its 40 kilometers of canals, which frequently resemble over-grown ditches that are often impassible by boat. Consequently, a development organization and town administrators have begun lobbying for funding for a large-scale canal restoration project and for the town’s designation as a heritage site to help in mobilizing funds. However, these tourism-development narratives also assume that all residents can and want to practice an amphibious way of life that prevailed for centuries. Combining analytical frameworks of amphibious anthropology and recent social science …

Radiocarbon Evidence For Initial Early Formative Period Occupation In Coastal Oaxaca, Mexico, Guy David Hepp

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Seven AMS radiocarbon dates (1950–1525 cal BC) from controlled contexts demonstrate Early Formative period occupation in coastal Oaxaca, Mexico. These dated elements from the site of La Consentida include hearths, occupational surfaces, carbon adhering to pottery from a midden, and human bone collagen processed with XAD purification. They were excavated from primary contexts and do not represent redeposited materials. An eighth sample, dated to the Middle Formative period, is considered postoccupational. The diversity of dated deposits and features, their distribution, and their overlapping calibrated ranges indicate settlement by an initial Early Formative period village.

Como Usar A Nostalgia Em Teu Benefício: 10 Anos De Jornadas Portuguesas De Paleopatologia [How To Use Nostalgia For Your Benefit: 10 Years Of Portuguese Conference On Paleopathology], Francisco Curate, Sandra Assis, Cristina Cruz, Inês Leandro, Célia Lopes, Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Inês Oliveira-Santos, Filipa Cortesão Silva

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Coming Of Age In The Rio Grande Valley: Race, Class, Gender, And Generations In Narco Culture, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Based on ethnographic observations in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, this article examines the multiple, overlapping, criss-crossing axes of inequality that both shape and fracture the experiences of individual borderland residents. Instead of focusing on the national border, this article analyzes intersecting axes of social inequality and uses ethnographic data to describe social borders that divide and separate those living in the borderlands. Using ethnographic data culled from 133 young adults in focus group settings, this article merges the theory of intersectionality with border studies scholarship in order to analyze how socio-economic stratification, gender inequality, histories of racial …

Intimate Political Economies Of The Andes, Carmen Martínez Novo

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The Rise Of Women, #Metoo And Why It Matters, Meredith Conroy, Tiffany Jones, Kathy Nadeau

Anthropology Faculty Publications

In light of current political events here in the United States and around the world, such as the #MeToo movement, discussions about toxic masculinity, the tumultuous appointment of Justice Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, and a worldwide surge of participation of women in politics, it is obvious that we are living in an important historical period where ideas about gender and power are being debated, reinforced, and challenged. While some political leaders blatantly dismiss gender discrimination and gender-based violence, the global community has recently acknowledged the significance of this issue by awarding the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to two …

Producing, Collecting, And Exhibiting Bizango Sculptures From Haiti: Transatlantic Vodou On The International Art Scene, Catherine Benoît, André Delpuech

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Medical Migration As Access To Health Care In The Rio Grande Valley, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This qualitative research explains difficulties among migrants when accessing health care. Many individuals of Mexican origin either travel to more accessible health care in Mexico or arrange to have medical services and pharmaceuticals transported to them in the United States. The research is based in a majority Hispanic and Spanish-speaking county in the US which is characterized by a high degree of poverty and illness, especially diabetes (Melo 2017, Montoya 2011). This article provides an ethnographic approach to medical migration and describes the importance of medical migration for both Mexico and the United States. The article offers recommendations for public …

Medical Mobility And Intersectionality Across The United States-Mexico Border [La Movilidad Médica Y La Interseccionalidad En La Frontera Entre Estados Unidos Y México], Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The objective of this article is to analyze how intersectional processes shape differing degrees of medical mobility (defined as facility of movement across national borders for the purposes of obtaining health care services or pharmaceuticals) across the U.S.-Mexico border for Spanish-speaking Hispanics and English-speaking Whites. Furthermore, this document explores how intersectional factors such as race, language, socioeconomic status, and citizenship shape medical mobility patterns. The research used ethnographic methods (in-depth interviews and participant observation) over a period of sixteen months (from May 2017 until September 2018) in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. The results of the …

The Cavalry Of Christ: The Catholic Church And South Texas (1821-1882), Francisco Ortiz Jr.

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The article reflects on the cavalry of Christ, Catholic Church and South Texas from 1821-1882. It mentions that Mexican Catholics upheld certain religious traditions such as family altars within the home in the light of the shortage of priests and places of worship. It also mentions about a petition that was presented to U.S. Bishops by a group of Catholics in 1837 and requested English speaking priests and help in confronting anti-Catholic sentiment that had become much more prominent.

Peyote Veneration In Challenging Times: Issues Of Land And Access In South Texas, Servando Z. Hinojosa

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Members of the Native American Church in the United States need reliable supplies of peyote, an entheogenic plant that they can today only obtain from licensed peyote dealers in South Texas. These dealers have supplied church members with their sacrament since the early twentieth century. Their predecessors, meanwhile, harvested peyote for Native Americans since before the mid-nineteenth century. In recent decades, though, issues of land access and plant scarcity have made it more difficult to acquire peyote. Better handling of peyote habitat and better harvesting methods are needed to meet increasing demand for peyote.

Absence Of Evidence Or Evidence Of Absence? A Discussion On Paleoepidemiology Of Neoplasms With Contributions From Two Portuguese Human Skeletal Reference Collections (19th–20th Century), Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Tiago Costa, Albert Zink, Eugénia Cunha

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Biological, sociocultural, demographic and environmental factors are major contributors to the contemporary burden of oncological diseases. Although cancer’s current epidemiological landscape is fairly well known, its past occurrence and history seem more obscure. In order to test the hypothesis that paleopathological diagnosis is an adequate measure of the prevalence of malignant neoplasms in human remains, 131 skeletons (78 females, 53 males, age-at-death range: 15–93 years) from Coimbra and Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collections, 19th/20th century (Portugal), were examined. The cause of death for all of the selected skeletons was a malignant neoplasm, as recorded in the collection’s documental files. Through the …

Absence Of Evidence Or Evidence Of Absence? A Discussion On Paleoepidemiology Of Neoplasms With Contributions From Two Portuguese Human Skeletal Reference Collections (19th–20th Century), Carina Marques, Vítor Matos, Tiago Costa, Albert Zink, Eugénia Cunha

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Biological, sociocultural, demographic and environmental factors are major contributors to the contemporary burden of oncological diseases. Although cancer’s current epidemiological landscape is fairly well known, its past occurrence and history seem more obscure. In order to test the hypothesis that paleopathological diagnosis is an adequate measure of the prevalence of malignant neoplasms in human remains, 131 skeletons (78 females, 53 males, age-at-death range: 15–93 years) from Coimbra and Lisbon Identified Skeletal Collections, 19th/20th century (Portugal), were examined. The cause of death for all of the selected skeletons was a malignant neoplasm, as recorded in the collection’s documental files. Through the …

How Natural Birth Became Inaccessible To The Poor, Rosalynn A. Vega

Anthropology Faculty Publications

While Mexico’s upper class is discovering the wonders of natural birth, traditional Indigenous midwives are being actively discouraged from providing the same services to the lower classes.

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

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Preliminary report on the 2017 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.

Early Fieldwork At The Beijing Farmers’ Market, Amy Y. Evrard

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Now that I’ve passed tenure review, published a book, cemented my teaching skills, and learned how to be a productive member of a college committee, I feel confident, self-assured, and filled with certainty about every aspect of my career as a professor. The same certainty extends to research and fieldwork. From choosing a topic to developing research questions to getting a good start in the field—it’s all a piece of cake.

Ha! I wish I felt this confidence. The truth is that passing the tenure phase two years ago, as wonderful as it was, opened up a whole new set …

Managing Ambiguous Amphibians: Feral Cows, People, And Place In Ukraine’S Danube Delta, Tanya Richardson

Anthropology Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes how a herd of feral cattle emerged in the core zone of Ukraine’s Danube Biosphere Reserve and why it still exists despite numerous challenges to the legality of its presence there. Answering these questions requires an analytical approach that begins from the premise that animals, plants, substances, documents, and technologies are active participants in making social and political worlds rather than passive objects of human intervention and manipulation. Drawing together insights from multispecies ethnography, animal geography, amphibious anthropology, and studies of nature protection in former Soviet republics, the author argues that the feral cattle exist because they …

La Memoria Contra La Jerarquía: Excavaciones En Buen Suceso, Sarah M. Rowe

Anthropology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Diabetes Screening And Prevention In A High-Risk, Medically Isolated Border Community, Ann V. Millard, Margaret A. Graham, Nelda Mier, Jesus Moralez, Maria Perez-Patron, Brian Wickwire, Marlynn L. May, Marcia G. Ory

Anthropology Faculty Publications

Introduction: A project in a Texas border community setting, Prevention Organized against Diabetes and Dialysis with Education and Resources (POD2ER), offered diabetes prevention information, screening, and medical referrals. The setting was a large, longstanding flea market that functions as a shopping mall for low-income people. The priority population included medically underserved urban and rural Mexican Americans. Components of the program addressed those with diabetes, prediabetes, and accompanying relatives and friends.

Background: People living in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV) face challenges of high rates of type 2 diabetes, lack of knowledge about prevention, and inadequate access to medical care. …