Deep in #Papua New Guinea, the speakers of #Tayap have stopped using their native tongue. In 'A Death in the Rainforest', an anthropologist recounts his journey over three decades to find out why.
I love this phrase from the article: "The mortality of states". We love to read about ancient civilizations, but never pause to think that our present civilizations will also die.
Why societies grow more fragile and vulnerable to collapse as time passes
We know that great apes are super-smart, but, even so, wow: Wounded wild orangutan Rakus "repeatedly applied the liquid onto his cheek for seven minutes. Rakus then smeared the chewed leaves onto his wound until it was fully covered. He continued to feed on the plant for over 30 minutes... researchers saw no sign of infection and the wound closed within five days." https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68942123#primates#orangutan#animals#animalcognition#anthropology#zoology
Cassava: The perilous past and promising future of a toxic but nourishing crop. An anthropology professor shares what he's learned from "studying cassava gardens on the Amazon River and its myriad tributaries in Peru."
@TheConversationUS reports: "Cassava’s many assets would seem to make it the ideal crop. But there’s a problem: Cassava is highly poisonous."
FREE community #fediscience please BOOST!
🌘TOMORROW 🌑
Tues May 7, 18:30 (BST)
with Will Buckner
LIVE @UCLanthropology and on ZOOM
'The sensory ecology of deception in human societies'
Everybody welcome FREE, LIVE and online! Just turn up!
Evolutionary anthropologist Will Buckner will be speaking LIVE in the Daryll Forde Room, 2nd Floor of the UCL Anthropology Dept, 14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW
**NB We can now use the front door in Taviton St again **
You can also join us on ZOOM (ID 384 186 2174 passcode Wawilak)
3 position in #Anthropology / #Ethnology at my alma mater Charles University in Prague (Institute of Ethnology and Central European and Balkan Studies)
Recent research challenges long-held beliefs about the decomposition of human brains after death.
Contrary to long-held beliefs that the brain swiftly decomposes following demise, this study, published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, demonstrates that human brains can endure for millennia under certain conditions...
#JustFinished The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow.
This was a great book! Graeber and Wengrow integrate new archeological discoveries with anthropology and turn common belief on its side. In the same way that we used to think that evolution was a progressive march to new and improved species, we also thought that human development was on an upward arc to better things, with capitalism and
Democracy at the apex. But we learned that evolution is a collection of paths through a forest, sometimes heading where we want to go and sometimes not. Mutuations are random and not always more beneficial. Thus, species don't always progress with change.
They posit the same for human history. We haven't been heading in a direct line to where we are, and we don't have to stay here.
'Wait, gravel isn't the same as sand.' You're right! But we thought that Franz Krause's work on gravel and solid-fluid grounds in Aklavik is still really interesting. Prof. Krause does research in the Mackenzie Delta, where grounds are more or less solid. Sometimes, they even become fluid! Follow the link to find out why #gravel matters in the lives of Inuvialuit and Ehdiitat Gwich’in people:
While drinking my morning coffee here in Tainan, I stumbled across a piece about my book Stealing With the Eyes, calling it a "post-modern assault on anthropology," and saying I'm guilty of "a morbid and fantastic expression of liberal guilt."
Here's my response (there's a link to the original article in the piece as well).
Archaeologists unearth earliest evidence of body perforation in Türkiye
Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of body perforation dating back 11,000 years at the Boncuklu Tarla excavation site in southeastern Türkiye. This finding, detailed in a study published in the journal Antiquity, represents the earliest known evidence of body piercing in Southwest Asia...