Anthropology Commons^™

Linear Enamel Hypoplasia In Homo Naledi Reappraised In Light Of New Retzius Periodicities, Mark Fretson Skinner, Lukas Kyle Delezene, Matthew M. Skinner, Patrick Mahoney

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objectives

Among low-latitude apes, developmental defects of enamel often recur twice yearly, linkable to environmental cycles. Surprisingly, teeth of Homo naledi from Rising Star in South Africa (241–335 kya), a higher latitude site with today a single rainy season, also exhibit bimodally distributed hypoplastic enamel defects, but with uncertain timing and etiology. Newly determined Retzius periodicities for enamel formation in this taxon enable a reconstruction of the temporal patterning of childhood stress.

Methods

Using high resolution casts of 31 isolated anterior teeth from H. naledi, 82 enamel defects (linear enamel hypoplasia [LEH]) were identified. Seventeen teeth are assigned …

Provisioning Services Decline For Both People And Critically Endangered Wildlife In A Rainforest Transformation Landscape, Katherine J. Kling, Timothy M. Eppley, A. Catherine Markham, Patricia C. Wright, Be Noel Razafindrapaoly, Rajaona Delox, Be Jean Rodolph Rasolofoniaina, Jeanne Mathilde Randriamanetsy, Pascal Elison, Natalie Vasey, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The loss and degradation of forests and other ecosystems worldwide threaten both global biodiversity and the livelihoods of people who use natural resources. Understanding how natural resource use impacts landscape provisioning services for both people and wildlife is thus critical for designing comprehensive resource management strategies. We used data from community focus groups, botanical plots and an inventory of plant species consumed by the Critically Endangered red-ruffed lemur (Varecia rubra) to assess the availability of key provisioning services for people and endemic wildlife on the Masoala Peninsula, a rainforest transformation landscape, in northeastern Madagascar (Masoala National Park and 13 surrounding …

Women’S Subsistence Strategies Predict Fertility Across Cultures, But Context Matters, Abigail E. Page, Erik J. Ringen, Jeremy Koster, Monique Borgerhoff Mulder, Karen Kramer, Mary K. Shenk, Jonathan Stieglitz, Kathrine Starkweather, John P. Ziker, Adam H. Boyette, Heidi Colleran, Cristina Moya, Juan Du, Siobhán M. Mattison, Russell Greaves, Chun-Yi Sum, Ruizhe Liu, Sheina Lew-Levy, Francy Kiabiya Ntamboudila, Sean Prall, Mary C. Towner, Tami Blumenfield, Andrea B. Migliano, Daniel Major-Smith, Mark Dyble, Gul Deniz Salali, Nikhil Chaudhary, Inez E. Derkx, Cody T. Ross, Brooke A. Scelza, Michael D. Gurven, Bruce P. Winterhalder, Carmen Cortez, Luis Pacheco-Cobos, Ryan Schacht, Shane J. Macfarlan, Donna Leonetti, Jennifer C. French, Nurul Alam, Fatema Tuz Zohora, Hillard S. Kaplan, Paul L. Hooper, Rebecca Sear

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

While it is commonly assumed that farmers have higher, and foragers lower, fertility compared to populations practicing other forms of subsistence, robust supportive evidence is lacking. We tested whether subsistence activities—incorporating market integration—are associated with fertility in 10,250 women from 27 small-scale societies and found considerable variation in fertility. This variation did not align with group-level subsistence typologies. Societies labeled as “farmers” did not have higher fertility than others, while “foragers” did not have lower fertility. However, at the individual level, we found strong evidence that fertility was positively associated with farming and moderate evidence of a negative relationship between …

From Mind To Matter: Patterns Of Innovation In The Archaeological Record And The Ecology Of Social Learning, Kathryn Demps, Nicole M. Herzog, Matt Clark

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Archaeology and cultural evolution theory both predict that environmental variation and population size drive the likelihood of inventions (via individual learning) and their conversion to population-wide innovations (via social uptake). We use the case study of the adoption of the bow and arrow in the Great Basin to infer how patterns of cultural variation, invention, and innovation affect investment in new technologies over time and the conditions under which we could predict cultural innovation to occur. Using an agent-based simulation to investigate the conditions that manifest in the innovation of technology, we find the following: (1) increasing ecological variation results …

Large-Scale, Collaborative Imagery Survey In Archaeology: The Geospatial Platform For Andean Culture, History And Archaeology (Geopacha), Steven A. Wernke, Parker Van Valkenburgh, James Zimmer-Dauphinee, Bethany Whitlock, Giles Spence Morrow, Ryan Smith, Douglas Smit, Daniel Plekhov, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Imagery-based survey is capable of producing archaeological datasets that complement those collected through field-based survey methods, widening the scope of analysis beyond regions. The Geospatial Platform for Andean Culture, History and Archaeology (GeoPACHA) enables systematic registry of imagery survey data through a ‘federated’ approach. Using GeoPACHA, teams pursue problem-specific research questions through a common data schema and interface that allows for inter-project comparisons, analyses and syntheses. The authors present an overview of the platform's rationale and functionality, as well as a summary of results from the first survey campaign, which was carried out by six projects distributed across the central …

The House Full Of Otters: Recalling Human–Sea Otter Relationships On An Indigenous Oregon Coast, Douglas Deur, Peter Hatch, Hannah Wellman

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sea otters have held a special role in the cultural, spiritual, and economic life of Native American communities throughout recorded time. Along the coast of what is now Oregon, Native oral traditions recall a rich history of human encounters with sea otters, and speak of the species’ ubiquity, significance, and sentience. Native people also hunted sea otters, fashioning their uniquely dense fur into chiefly robes and using the pelts in ways central to community life — presaging the species’ later role in the global fur trade. Archaeological evidence of sea otter use can be found in sites of diverse antiquity …

Glimpses Of Oregon’S Sea Otters, Cameron La Follette, Douglas Deur

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Sea otters are an iconic species in the history of what is now known as Oregon. Their pelts brought great wealth in late eighteenth and nineteenth century China, motivating some of Oregon’s earliest exploration, trade, and contact between Native American and Euro-American people. Over time, hunting eliminated the species from Oregon’s coastal waters. This article provides a broad introduction to the history of Oregon’s now-extinct sea otter population, describing the emergence of the Chinese market that created and sustained the hunt, the British discovery of profits to be made by trading for the pelts, and the rise of American traders. …

The Invisible Slaughter: Local Sea Otter Hunters On The Oregon Coast, Cameron La Follette, Richard Ravalli, Peter Hatch, Douglas Deur, Ryan Tucker Jones

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most accounts of the extirpation of sea otters from the Oregon coast focus on the well-documented international maritime fur trade of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The historical record shows, however, that sea otters persisted much later. The final extirpation in Oregon occurred as a result of household-scale hunting by Native Americans and Euro-American settlers, from the mid-nineteenth century until around 1910. Especially on the south coast, a cottage industry of sea otter hunting flourished for decades — a pattern similar to the neighboring states of Washington and California. This article summarizes this long-ignored history, drawing from the …

Inheritance And Inequality Among Nomads Of South Siberia, Paul L. Hooper, Adam Z. Reynolds, Bayarsaikhan Jamsranjav, Julia K. Clark, John P. Ziker, Stefani A. Crabtree

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

At the headwaters of the Yenisei River in Tuva and northern Mongolia, nomadic pastoralists move between camps in a seasonal rotation that facilitates their animals' access to high-quality grasses and shelter. The use and informal ownership of these camps depending on season helps illustrate evolutionary and ecological principles underlying variation in property relations. Given relatively stable patterns of precipitation and returns to capital improvement, families generally benefit from reusing the same camps year after year. We show that locations with higher economic defensibility and capital investment—winter camps and camps located in mountain/river valleys—are claimed and inherited more frequently than summer …

Skeletal Age During Hurricane Impacts Fluctuating Asymmetry In Cayo Santiago Rhesus Macaques, Ashly N. Romero, Edwin Dickinson, Cassandra M. Turcotte, Claire E. Terhune

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

As natural disasters become more frequent due to climate change, understanding the biological impact of these ecological catastrophes on wild populations becomes increasingly pertinent. Fluctuating asymmetry (FA), or random deviations from bilateral symmetry, is reflective of developmental instability and has long been positively associated with increases in environmental stress. This study investigates craniofacial FA in a population of free-ranging rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) that has experienced multiple Category 3 hurricanes since the colony's inception on Cayo Santiago, including 275 individuals from ages 9 months to 31 years (F = 154; M = 121). Using geometric morphometrics to quantify …

Social Networks And Instructional Reform In Stem: The Teaching-Research Nexus, Katherine Kappelman, John P. Ziker, Karl Mertens, Brittnee Earl, Susan E. Shadle

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Instructional reform in STEM aims for the widespread adoption of evidence based instructional practices (EBIPS), practices that implement active learning. Research recognizes that faculty social networks regarding discussion or advice about teaching may matter to such efforts. But teaching is not the only priority for university faculty – meeting research expectations is at least as important and, often, more consequential for tenure and promotion decisions. We see value in understanding how research networks, based on discussion and advice about research matters, relate to teaching networks to see if and how such networks could advance instructional reform efforts. Our research examines …

Human-Modified Landscapes Driving The Global Primate Extinction Crisis, Erik Joaquín Torres-Romero, Vincent Nijman, David Fernández, Timothy M. Eppley

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The world's primates have been severely impacted in diverse and profound ways by anthropogenic pressures. Here, we evaluate the impact of various infrastructures and human-modified landscapes on spatial patterns of primate species richness, at both global and regional scales. We overlaid the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) range maps of 520 primate species and applied a global 100 km2 grid. We used structural equation modeling and simultaneous autoregressive models to evaluate direct and indirect effects of six human-altered landscapes variables (i.e., human footprint [HFP], croplands [CROP], road density [ROAD], pasture lands [PAST], protected areas [PAs], and Indigenous …

A Content Analysis Of Social Media Discussions On Thc-Oacetate, Daniel J. Kruger, Amila Karahmet, Sydney M. Kaplan, Taylor Stacy, John Redfield, Vitush Agarwal, Mutaz Faqqouseh, Carlton Cb. Bone

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Novel cannabinoids require systematic research to inform policies and practices. There is a growing interest in semi-synthetic cannabinoids by consumers, manufacturers, and regulators. However, there is a scarcity of research on these substances. Online discussion forums can provide guidance for research questions when current knowledge is scarce. The current project investigates the topics and issues covered in a social media forum devoted to THC-O-acetate (THCO), a semi-synthetic cannabinoid with rapidly rising popularity. Reddit comments posted on the THCO subreddit from June 2021 through November 2021 were coded for major and minor themes by a team of five coders and a …

The Association Of Sex Ratio On Suicide Rates In United States Counties: An Exploration Of Mechanisms, Kristin Snopkowski, Hallie Turner

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Researchers have long puzzled over suicidal behavior. In this paper, we posit that when people are unable to attract mates given unfavorable sex ratios, suicide rates increase. Sex ratio, the proportion of males in a population, is linked to a variety of behaviors, including marriage stability, violence, depression, and infidelity. We test whether suicide rates are associated with county-level sex ratios utilizing data from 1999 to 2018, controlling for a variety of factors known to be associated with suicide risk. We find that sex ratio is associated with suicide rates, where a greater proportion of males in a county (age …

Sex And Parental Status Impacts Human-To-Pet Attachment And Caregiving Attitudes And Behaviors In A Japanese Sample, Shelly Volsche, Felix Frailey, Namiha Ihara, Hiroshi Nittono

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Japan currently displays many signs of a second demographic transition, which is marked by subreplacement fertility, a focus on self-fulfillment, and changes in family, residence, and marriage patterns. Concurrently, increased pet-keeping and related spending have occurred. The purpose of the current study was to determine whether the emergence of pet parenting can be documented in Japan. Previously documented in the United States and India, pet parenting is defined as the human investment of money, emotion, and time in companion animals that is like parental investment in children. We collected 615 online survey responses from pet owners (female = 48.1%, male …

Umm Huwaiwitat: A Neolithic Site Near Petra, Jordan, Daniel Plekhov, Cristiano Nicosia, Luiza Osorio G. Silva, Sarah Newman, Felipe Rojas

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Studies of the rural landscapes around the Nabataean/Roman city of Petra in Jordan have tended to assume a developmental trajectory based on that of the urban centre. Recent archaeological investigations at the site of Umm Huwaiwitat, however, shed light on the longer-term histories of human occupation and land use in the region north of Petra. Excavation has revealed Late Neolithic deposits formed by the burning of animal dung and the disposal of ash. These deposits underlie walls, today serving as agricultural terraces, which date to at least the Early Bronze Age. Umm Huwaiwitat therefore provides a microcosm of the long-lived …

Reproductive Inequality In Humans And Other Mammals, John Ziker, Karl J. Mertens

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

To address claims of human exceptionalism, we determine where humans fit within the greater mammalian distribution of reproductive inequality. We show that humans exhibit lower reproductive skew (i.e., inequality in the number of surviving offspring) among males and smaller sex differences in reproductive skew than most other mammals, while nevertheless falling within the mammalian range. Additionally, female reproductive skew is higher in polygynous human populations than in polygynous nonhumans mammals on average. This patterning of skew can be attributed in part to the prevalence of monogamy in humans compared to the predominance of polygyny in nonhuman mammals, to the limited …

Centring Individual Animals To Improve Research And Citation Practices, Shelly Volsche, Holly Root-Gutteridge, Anna T. Korzeniowska, Alexandra Horowitz

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Modern behavioural scientists have come to acknowledge that individual animals may respond differently to the same stimuli and that the quality of welfare and lived experience can affect behavioural responses. However, much of the foundational research in behavioural science lacked awareness of the effect of both welfare and individuality on data, bringing their results into question. This oversight is rarely addressed when citing seminal works as their findings are considered crucial to our understanding of animal behaviour. Furthermore, more recent research may reflect this lack of awareness by replication of earlier methods – exacerbating the problem. The purpose of this …

A Habitat Stronghold On The Precipice: A Call‐To‐Action For Supporting Lemur Conservation In Northeast Madagascar, Timothy M. Eppley, Cortni Borgerson, Natalie Vasey, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The northeast of Madagascar is as diverse as it is threatened. The area bordering the Analanjirofo and SAVA regions contains six protected areas and at least 22 lemur species. Many applied research and conservation programs have been established in the region with the aim of ensuring both wildlife and people thrive in the long term. While most of the remaining humid evergreen forest of northeast Madagascar is formally protected, the local human population depends heavily on the land, and unsustainable natural resource use threatens this biodiversity hotspot. Drawing from our collective experiences managing conservation activities and research programs in northeast …

The Use And Challenges Of Spatial Data In Archaeology, Carla Klehm

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Spatial data, under the broader umbrella of digital data, is becoming increasingly integral to all stages of archaeological research design and dissemination. As archaeologists lean toward reuse and interoperability, with ethics on their minds, how to treat spatial data is of particular importance. This is because of the complexities involved at every life-cycle stage, from collection to publication, including black box issues that may be taken for granted, and because the size of spatial data can lead to archiving difficulties. Here, the “DIY” momentum of increasingly accessible spatial methods such as photogrammetry and handheld lidar is examined alongside forthcoming changes …

Parental Status Influences Human-To-Pet Caregiving Behaviors, Attachment, And Attitudes In A Finnish Sample, Shelly Volsche, Sydney Schultz, Sara Alsaifi, Marika Melamies, Jari Pulkkinen

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

A growing body of literature suggests people are choosing to forego parenthood, bringing companion animals into the home as a focus for people’s attachment and caretaking behavior instead. This emergent “pet parenting” can be defined as the parent-like investment in companion animals and has been linked to countries that are experiencing or have experienced the Second Demographic Transition (SDT) marked by subreplacement fertility, changing marriage norms, increased educational attainment, and a flexible life orientation no longer focused solely on reproduction. In this research, we sought to determine if Finland, a country where the SDT has already been evidenced, is also …

Hot, Dry, Flooded And Burned: Measuring Climate Vulnerability For Cultural Heritage In Us National Parks, Pei-Lin Yu

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cultural heritage parks make up more than 60% of the total number of America’s national parks, and cultural heritage exists in 100% of our parks. This heritage, which includes more than 10,000 years of Indigenous culture, is being irreparably changed or lost due to impacts of climate change, yet there is no standardized method to measure the vulnerability of cultural heritage resources. This severely hampers our ability to identify, measure, and implement adaptive measures to save cultural heritage in US national park units. In this paper I present new strategies for assessing exposure to climate impacts in US National Parks, …

Contextualizing Patterns In Short-Term Disaster Recoveries From The 2015 Nepal Earthquakes: Household Vulnerabilities, Adaptive Capacities, And Change, Jeremy Spoon, Drew Gerkey, Alisa Rai

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Disaster recovery is multidimensional and requires theoretical and methodological approaches from the interdisciplinary social sciences to illustrate short- and long-term recovery dynamics that can guide more informed and equitable policy and interventions. The 2015 Nepal earthquakes have had catastrophic impacts on historically marginalized ethnic groups and Indigenous households in rural locations, arising in the immediate aftermath and unfolding for years afterward. Analyzing factors that shape household recovery patterns can help identify vulnerabilities and adaptive capacities in addition to signaling potential future changes. We pursue this goal using survey data from 400 randomly selected households in 4 communities over 2 10-week …

Pipe Smoking And Oral Health In Males From The Netherlands During The 18th-19th Century, Sarah Inskip, Liam Michael Zachary, Maria Serrano Ruber, Menno Hoogland

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

SUMMARY: The impact of tobacco on health is undeniable. It is a significant risk factor for multiple conditions, including oral diseases. There has been little research on pipe smoking and oral disease in the past. We compare caries, calculus, tooth loss, periapical lesions, and periodontal disease between rural 13th–16th century pre-tobacco males from Klaaskinderkerke and 18th–19th century pipe-using males from Beemster (N = 64). Pipe-smokers were more affected by all pathologies. Pipe smoking was a strongly gendered habit and possibly more common in the countryside. This work demonstrates a need to consider the impact of new imported behaviours on health …

Uncomfortable Yet Necessary: The Impact Of Ppe On Communication In Emergency Medicine, Jennifer Aengst, Grace A. Walker-Stevenson, Tabria Harrod, Jonathan Ivankovic, Jacob Neilson, Jeanne-Marie Guise

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: The efficacy of pre-hospital emergency services is heavily dependent on the effective communication of care providers. This effective communication occurs between providers as part of a team, but also among providers interacting with family members and patients. The COVID-19 pandemic introduced a number of communication challenges to emergency care, which are primarily linked to the increased use of PPE.

Methods: We sought to analyze the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Emergency Medical Service (EMS) workers and pre-hospital care delivery. We conducted focus groups and one-on-one interviews with fire-EMS first responders between Sept 2021 and 2022. Interviews …

Mobility Interrupted: A New Framework For Understanding Anti-Left Sentiment Among Brazil’S “Once-Rising Poor”, Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Charles H. Klein, Matthew Spearly

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

How do sequences of upward and downward socioeconomic mobility influence political views among those who have “risen” or “fallen” during periods of leftist governance? While existing studies identify a range of factors, long-term mobility trajectories have been largely unexplored. The question has particular salience in contemporary Brazil, where, after a decade of extraordinary poverty reduction on the watch of the leftist Workers’ Party (PT), a subsequent period of economic and political crises intensified anti-PT sentiment. This article uses original data from the 2016 Brazil’s Once-Rising Poor (BORP) Survey, using a 3-city sample of 822 poor and working-class Brazilians to analyze …

Factors Influencing Terrestriality In Primates Of The Americas And Madagascar, Timothy M. Eppley, Selwyn Hoeks, Colin A. Chapman, Joerg U. Ganzhorn, Katie Hall, Megan A. Owen, Dara B. Adams, Néstor Allgas, Multiple Additional Authors

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Among mammals, the order Primates is exceptional in having a high taxonomic richness in which the taxa are arboreal, semiterrestrial, or terrestrial. Although habitual terrestriality is pervasive among the apes and African and Asian monkeys (catarrhines), it is largely absent among monkeys of the Americas (platyrrhines), as well as galagos, lemurs, and lorises (strepsirrhines), which are mostly arboreal. Numerous ecological drivers and species-specific factors are suggested to set the conditions for an evolutionary shift from arboreality to terrestriality, and current environmental conditions may provide analogous scenarios to those transitional periods. Therefore, we investigated predominantly arboreal, diurnal primate genera from the …

Development Of The Cooperative Adoption Factors Instrument To Measure Factors Associated With Instructional Practice In The Context Of Institutional Change, John P. Ziker, Brittnee Earl, Karl Mertens, Susan E. Shadle

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Many institutional and departmentally focused change efforts have sought to improve teaching in STEM through the promotion of evidence-based instructional practices (EBIPs). Even with these efforts, EBIPs have not become the predominant mode of teaching in many STEM departments. To better understand institutional change efforts and the barriers to EBIP implementation, we developed the Cooperative Adoption Factors Instrument (CAFI) to probe faculty member characteristics beyond demographic attributes at the individual level. The CAFI probes multiple constructs related to institutional change including perceptions of the degree of mutual advantage of taking an action (strategic complements), trust and interconnectedness among colleagues …

What Happened To The “New Middle Class”? The 2016 Borp (Brazil’S Once-Rising Poor) Survey, Benjamin Junge, Sean T. Mitchell, Charles H. Klein, David De Micheli

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research note provides a detailed account of the development and implementation of a household survey conducted in 2016 as part of a larger investigation into the lifeways and political subjectivities of Brazil’s “once-rising poor,” the demographic sector comprising poor and working-class people who experienced various forms of socioeconomic mobility in the early twenty-first century. After reflecting on the challenges of maintaining a critical perspective on class labels and relations that were intensely contested at the time, the article introduces the survey sample (n = 1,204), highlighting variables captured. It then establishes the demographic profile, mobility experiences, political values, attitudes, …

Genetic Correlation, Pleiotropy, And Molar Morphology In A Longitudinal Sample Of Australian Twins And Families, Kathleen S. Paul, Christopher M. Stojanowski, Toby Hughes, Alan H. Brook, Grant C. Townsend

Anthropology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study aims to expand our understanding of the genetic architecture of crown morphology in the human diphyodont dentition. Here, we present bivariate genetic correlation estimates for deciduous and permanent molar traits and evaluate the patterns of pleiotropy within (e.g., m1–m2) and between (e.g., m2–M1) dentitions. Morphology was observed and scored from dental models representing participants of an Australian twin and family study (deciduous n = 290, permanent n = 339). Data collection followed Arizona State University Dental Anthropology System standards. Genetic correlation estimates were generated using maximum likelihood variance components analysis in SOLAR v.8.1.1. Approximately 23% of deciduous variance …